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	Good Thursday morning. This is Billy Bambrough, here with your latest batch of crypto news and analysis. 📧 Thank you for reading CryptoCodex! I’d love to hear your feedback, ideas and tips. Email me directly at billy@billybambrough.com.


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24-hour crypto market snapshot

Bitcoin (+1%)

$42,359

Ethereum (+0.5%)

$3,137

Dogecoin (-3%)

$0.1415

ZRX (+37%)

$1.01

On hold 📞


	Cryptocurrency prices are mixed this morning, with bitcoin moving only slightly higher after the bulls regained control at the beginning of the week. Ethereum is more or less flat while its biggest rivals are also treading water. Terra's luna is leading the major market higher, up almost 2%, while dogecoin is leading the retreat, down 3%. Way down the charts, 0x's ZRX, the native token of the 0x protocol that's ranked as the 93rd most valuable cryptocurrency on CoinMarketCap, has rallied by almost 40% over the last 24 hours after Coinbase said that its new NFT platform will utilize 0x's "powerful multi-chain NFT swap support." See below for details of Coinbase's long-awaited NFT marketplace. Look out today... for market-moving comments from Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell and Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, who are both taking part in the International Monetary Fund's debate on the global economy. Watch along here at 1pm ET. Good to know: Tesla’s bitcoin holdings remained unchanged in Q1

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U.S. sanctions crypto miner BitRiver 🪆


	Go with the flow: Switzerland-based crypto mining company BitRiver, founded in Russia in 2017 and currently operating out of three offices across the country, has been hit by the latest round of U.S. sanctions against Russia. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targetted dozens of individuals and organizations on Wednesday, aiming to crackdown on Russian attempts to evade previous sanctions over the country's invasion of Ukraine. "Treasury can and will target those who evade, attempt to evade, or aid the evasion of U.S. sanctions against Russia, as they are helping support Putin’s brutal war of choice," Brian Nelson, Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. However, the OFAC "did not list any bitcoin or other crypto wallet addresses associated with the sanctioned companies," Coindesk pointed out. Why it matters: Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned cryptocurrency mining could offer a route for sanctioned countries like Russia and Iran to bypass restrictions by funeling natural resources they are unable to export toward energy-intensive mining operations, such as bitcoin mining. Since the U.S. and the EU began to sanction Russia over its war in Ukraine, there has been widespread speculation (but little evidence) that those locked out of the traditional financial system are turning to crypto markets to move money. Zoom out: This latest round of sanctions piles more pressure on the Russian economy, businesses and wealthy oligarchs in the hope that strict financial penalties might sway public opinion enough to deter Russia's president Vladimir Putin from continuing the war. The extreme measures, which include booting the country's banks from the SWIFT messaging network and international companies withdrawing en mass, appear to have had an affect. Russian tycoon Oleg Tinkov this week publically denounced Moscow’s "massacre" in Ukraine and called for an end to "this insane war." One step ahead: This morning, crypto exchange Binance has announced it will bring in tougher Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for Russian users after the latest wave of European Union sanctions. The Block has a write-up. "While these measures are potentially restrictive to normal Russian citizens, Binance must continue to lead the industry in implementing these sanctions," Binance wrote in a blog post, warning other exchanges will "follow the same rules soon." Now read this: No taxes. No welfare. Welcome to libertarian paradise island

Coinbase NFT enters beta 🧪



	Coinbase's blog posted screenshots of the new NFT platform, now in beta. Coinbase


	🎨 Coinbase, after first announcing it was developing a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace in October last year, has now opened up the ethereum-based platform to "a small set of beta testers who’ll be invited based on their position," it wrote in a blog post. 🤳🏻 The company is looking to take on the dominate platform Opensea by adding social features, like a comment system (with upvotes and downvotes) and an algorithmic feed. Coinbase said it plans to add "drops, minting, token-gated communities and support for NFTs on multiple chains." It also wants to "decentralize more features over time." 📉 However, the NFT market, after blazing red hot through 2021, is showing signs of cooling. Blooomberg asked whether NFTs are the answer to the exchange's growth problems that have seen Coinbase's stock plummet since its direct Nasdaq listing almost exactly a year ago. Good to know: German banking giant Commerzbank has applied for a crypto license

Binance's swastika blunder 😬


	🐦 Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, revealed a new Twitter hashtag emoji on Wednesday but quickly took it down and deleted posts containing #Binance or #BNB after users pointed out its resemblance to a Nazi swastika. You can see it here in a tweet screenshot. 📤 "Well that was obviously really embarrassing," Binance's official account later posted to Twitter. "We’re not sure how that emoji got through several layers of review without anyone noticing." 🤦 It's not the first time Binance has made posts perceived as insensitive. In November 2017, the exchange said it would distribute "gas" tokens by using a banner ad that prominently displayed a six-pointed star, the same shape as the Star of David. Now read this: Goldman Sachs sought to woo FTX at Caribbean meeting

	Billy Bambrough
	Forbes Senior Contributor

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business. I write about how bitcoin, crypto and blockchain can change the world.

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