Chain Reaction - 27th February 2023
Chain Reaction - 27th February 2023
Sydney meetups, Coinbase getting BASED, DeFi Summer 2 and more
Highlights this week include the Aus DeFi meetup we had in Sydney which was our first official one for the year. We were lucky to be joined by Minister Victor Dominello who spoke with our very own Arturo Rodriguez (NotCentralised) about blockchain as technology to solve real-world problems and the NSW Government Task Force for Data, Digital and AI that’s just been formed. Additionally, we talked about healthcare and web3 with Nathalie Mann and had a session on the Token Mapping consultation with Jazz Osvald and Jabran Chaudhry on the panel. Highlights and photos below
Video replay:
And some tweets
NEWS
Chainalysis Crypto Crime report is out at https://go.chainalysis.com/2023-crypto-crime-webinar-apac.html
And as expected, illicit activity volume as a percentage of overall crypto market volume was still quite low (but as folks note, this is from what is detectable and will be revised higher as they find more). The main point here is that crypto still has a lot to do because even if malicious actors aren’t as bad as we think, this does not take into account the bad business models out there that will still hurt many investors, workers and industries if we don’t fix crypto.
Coinbase in the news with the announcement of a permissible layer 2 they're building (based on Optimism) called Base. It's all about building bridges not islands. Very interesting if this is successful given it adds things like instant proof of reserves on a layer 2 and is permissionless
Elsewhere, it turns out that Jump Crypto made $1.2bn from the failed Terra/Luna ecosystem https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/02/17/jump-crypto-is-unnamed-firm-that-made-128b-from-do-kwons-doomed-terra-ecosystem-sources/
Speaking of bad actors, jumping to FTX, another exec (Nishad Singh) is planning on pleading guilty to their crimes https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/17/former-ftx-executive-nishad-singh-planning-to-plead-guilty-to-fraud-bloomberg/
Back over to government updates and we see the BoJ (Bank of Japan) going ahead with a CBDC trial. This is months after they initially delayed this initiative citing a lack of interest from the public.
Current pilot: https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/41831/bank-of-japan-kicks-off-cbdc-pilot
Original cancellation: https://nftnow.com/culture/japans-central-bank-has-abandoned-its-digital-currency-plans/
Additionally, we see Hong Kong in the mix looking at virtual asset trading platforms https://www.linkedin.com/posts/urszula-mccormack-6303a987_hot-off-the-press-the-sfc-has-just-released-activity-7033358623946805248-aqum?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
And stablecoin regulation too it seems https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/21/how-hong-kong-is-gearing-up-to-regulate-stablecoins/
Back to Australia and there was news about Binance cancelling derivatives products
Crypto crackdowns coming in the US it seem with more myth-conceptions again
Also this video from our very own homegrown blockchain OG, Kain Warwick talking on The Defiant about DeFi summer 2 and more
Here's a great chat about Layer 2s with StarkNet and Canvas (think of Immutable but for finance)
We'll leave you with the week in review from the Bankless crew which includes market updates, more on CoinBASE and more.