For years banks around the world worried that regulating cryptocurrencies would legitimize them and pose a threat to the existing financial system. So they tried to kill bitcoin calling it a fraud, a Ponzi scheme, a vehicle for money launderers and terrorists to fund their activities. While in September 2017, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, called…
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Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week we dove into Bezos’s Blue Origin suing NASA. This week, I’m writing about the unlikely and triumphant resurgence of the NFT market. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my…
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The cryptocurrency industry has been on a roll, peaking at a market capitalization of $2.2 trillion this April. Motivated by its growing popularity, major corporate investors evinced an interest. Tesla acquired $1.5 billion of bitcoin (BTC) in January 2021 while MicroStrategy stockpiled $2.2 billion of BTC. Insurers slow to enter the crypto world, are warily…
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Even as NFT sales dip below their most speculative highs, startups aiming to tap into their potential are still scoring big funding rounds from investors who believe there’s much more to crypto collectibles than the past few months of hype. Mythical Games, an NFT games startup based out of Los Angeles, has banked a $75…
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Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, I wrote about tech taking on Disney. This week, I’m talking about the search for a new crypto messiah. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny. The…
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A lot of 9 CryptoPunks portraits ended up selling for just under $17 million in a Christie’s auction Tuesday evening, marking another substantial moment for NFT art sales. The lot of pixelated portraits were from the collection of the NFT platform’s co-creators Matt Hall and John Watkinson. The CryptoPunks platform is one of the first…
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Last week we saw some major backing of the Secret Network blockchain, as significant blockchain players Arrington Capital and Blocktower Capital invested in the privacy-first smart contract platform. What this is signaling is the rise of privacy-oriented financial blockchain projects, which are crucial if “DeFi” (decentralized finance) is to have any kind of future. We…
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Institutions need to keep their crypto assets somewhere. And they aren’t going to keep it on some random, or consumer-grade crypto operation. This requires more sophisticated technology. Furthermore, being in the EU is going to be a key barrier to entry for many US or Asia-based operations. Thus it is that Berlin-based digital asset custody…
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Tesla’s relationship with bitcoin is not a dalliance, according to the comments made by the company’s CFO and dubbed “master of coin” Zach Kirkhorn during an earnings call Monday. Instead, the company believes in the longevity of bitcoin, despite its volatility. Tesla invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin this quarter and then trimmed its position by 10%,…
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After a years-long crypto winter, it been the spring of NFTs, but as digital art prices sober up after an explosion in sales, blockchain founders are looking to find more stable opportunities in the space that can grow over time even as speculative interest in NFTs shifts. One particular interest has been using NFTs to…
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