Weekly Market Review - May 5th

Njani Ruetsch

We compile the top news stories weekly within the crypto, blockchain, metaverse, and NFT space. The weekly wrap-up covers everything from BTC & ETH updates, recent investments, developments of exciting new projects, and other relevant topics.

Here is everything you need to know for the week of May 1st to 5th.

📈 Weekly BTC and ETH Overview

Bitcoin fell slightly (1%) after the Federal Reserve (FED) hiked rates by 25bps mid-week. On Wednesday, 3rd May, the decision to raise rates marks the 10th raise in the past 14 months. In their statement, they also mentioned more likely increases to come. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are finding it hard to move up these days. Bitcoin consolidated below $29K with a 50-day moving average at $28,310 and the $30K resistance region. Ethereum, on the other hand, plummets 5% daily and holds resistance to $2K, seen just a couple of weeks ago.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $29.09K, down 0.04% in the last 24 hours, and Ethereum is at $1.89K, down 0.09% over the previous 24 hours.

🗞️ Top Market News

Coinbase faces too much regulatory uncertainty - cutting rating to “Neutral” reported by Citi. Until crypto regulations are better established in the U.S., Coinbase will remain weighed down by high levels of uncertainty. The bank is rating on the stock exchange from “buy” to “neutral” - cutting its price target from $80 to $65. Read more here.
Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy impairment loss reduced to $18.9M in Q1 2023 from $197.6M in Q4 2022. The largest Bitcoin holder booked a smaller accounting write-down due to the crypto rally at the beginning of this year. Read more here.
a16z crypto is urging the UK to consider a “more nuanced” regulatory framework of digital assets. As the UK is considering a new framework to govern the trading and lending of digital assets, a16z argues that a “one size fits all” approach will not be a consistent regulatory approach to the crypto industry. Read more here.

🚀 New Project Developments

ZkLink announces the launch of Dunkirk, a security test program to establish new DeFi standards. On the 11th to 13th of May zkLink with shut down its servers for 72 hours to test the new security program. They will invite users to test the emergency asset recovery feature and earn rewards while testing. Read more here.
Unity China endorses Fusionist as one of the better games made with the Unity Engine. Since the engine announced a game combining build simulation, turn-based combat, and 4X gameplay elements last November, Fusionist has gained tremendous momentum on Discord (940,000 members) and Twitter (821,000 followers), respectively making it one of the most highly anticipated games in the industry. Read more here.
Blur (BLUR) introduces a new perpetual lending protocol for NFTs called Blend. The rationale behind Blend is to create means of “financialization to scale” that matches users who want to borrow against their NFT collateral to a lender who is willing to offer the most competitive rate. Read more here.
Hashflow announces a partnership with MoonPay to integrate a global simplified payment on ramps system. With the new partnership, traders can purchase digital assets and start trading immediately on Hashflow using credit cards or bank transfers across 160 countries. Read more here.
FARE Protocol Raises $6.2M Ahead Of The Ecosystem And Native Token Launch. Set to launch on the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum, FARE's ecosystem is built on probability smart contracts triggered by transparent on-chain events based on probability variables. Investors include; C Squared Ventures and Goat Capital. Among investors: 6th Man Ventures, Arrington Capital, Eniac Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Quantstamp and DWeb3, and more. Read more here.

🔍 More Featured Stories…

Sotheby’s launches an NFT marketplace for secondary sales of digital art. The on-chain marketplace will let collectors list and make offers on works from select artist on the platform. The auction house launched the portal on Sotheby’s Metaverse and is marking this as their next step into Web3. Read more here.
Bhutan announces plans to set up $500 million fund for crypto mining in the Himalayas. The Kingdom of Bhutan is looking for potential investors and partnerships to start the fun later on this month. Read more here.