Transparency On Wall Street 🔎⚔️🚀

Valko

Transparency On Wall Street 🔎⚔️🚀 Valko

Specs’ Insights

Bitwise Becomes First Spot Bitcoin ETF Provider to Provide Wallet Address

The move drew applause from industry experts.

⌐◪-◪ → Bitwise just published the BTC wallet address behind their newly launched spot Bitcoin ETF, and in doing so may have created the world’s most transparent traditional financial product ever.

This is a pretty big step for mankind as it creates tremendous pressure on other ETFs (both crypto and non-crypto) to be more transparent.

More importantly, it highlights the benefits of blockchain technology over more archaic means of transparency, like audited financials. It sets a new bar with the public for transparency.

Hats off to the Bitwise team for leading by example with 1) lowest fees 2) profits support to open source development, and 3) transparency of BTC holding address. Every Bitcoin ETF provider should copy Bitwise.

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Lido DAO Rebukes LayerZero by Endorsing Rivals Wormhole, Axelar for Crypto Bridge

LayerZero launched a Lido stETH bridge last October without asking for Lido DAO's permission. The community responded this week by endorsing a pair of its biggest competitors.

⌐◪-◪ → Maybe I’m missing something here, but this feels like some seriously immature — high school-level — crypto drama to me.

Some context: Last October, LayerZero set up a crypto bridge that let users move Lido’s staked ETH (stETH) to other networks like Binance’s BNB chain or Avalanche.

While LayerZero did ask Lido DAO for its endorsement, they ended up deploying the bridge before receiving any official green light — and some members of Lido DAO got pissed.

Fast forward: This week, Lido DAO made their displeasure known with a poll that closed 81% in favor of endorsing LayerZero’s biggest competitors, Wormhole and Axelar. Pending a formal vote ratifying the proposal, the bridge will soon become Lido's "official" provider.

Power to Lido DAO, at the end of the day, they can govern their protocol however they want, but…

I find their reaction pretty immature/tone-deaf considering. They literally built something permissionless, then got mad that somebody didn’t ask for permission. Dumb.

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Google to start allowing #Bitcoin ETF ads in 4 days — effective from 29th of January.

⌐◪-◪ → Last but not least, Google just announced an update to their “Cryptocurrencies and related products” policy and will allow spot Bitcoin ETFs to start running ads on the Google network starting January 29th.

Love or hate advertisements, this is definitely bullish news for the entire crypto industry and will help drive adoption, because adoption first starts with awareness.

Google processes 100,000 searches per second, which means Bitcoin is about to 1) have unprecedented levels of institutional and retail exposure; and 2) offer easy accessibility to invest via the new spot Bitcoin ETFs.

No wonder the whales have been accumulating for 8 days straight.

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Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

AltLayer opens airdrop claims, token traders at $2.9B FDV
Former Ozys exec accused of sabotage ahead of $81.5M exploit
Telecom giant Telefónica launches SOL-powered Helium hotspots
Synthetix deploys first perpetual protocol on Base blockchain
Sandeep Nailwal’s web3 accelerator Beacon unveils 10 startups
Polygon to launch 'AggLayer' focused on blockchain interoperability
Solana Labs releases token extensions for SPL token standard
Bitcoin whales accumulate for 8 consecutive days

🏦 Wallstreet & VC

Web3Intelligence raises $4.5M for investment app, Dopamine
Sygnum crypto bank raises $40M at $900M valuation
Tesla’s BTC holdings remain unchanged in Q4, worth $387M
Solana startup, Dialect, builds 'conversational' Telegram trading bot

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

SEC delays BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF
Judge Blocks CZ’s UAE travel, despite $4.5B Binance collateral
Elwood gets FCA nod for trading security tokens & derivatives
Gensler says BTC ETF approval was limited, ETH not a given
Samourai Wallet responds to FinCEN rule on mixing services
Experts predict if spot ETH ETF will be approved in 2024

🌎 Rest of the World

South Korean telecom giant TK shuts down NFT platform
Digital Pound consultation will drop Thursday, says UK officials

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

Gas Hero generated $90M in NFT trading in 1 month

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