Translated by elcreto

Xangle’s Take on the Market This Week

• Coupled with SEC’s clampdown on CEX Kraken, the U.S. agency’s ban on stablecoin BUSD came as a real downer for the crypto space, casting a chill over risk sentiment. The market managed to bounce back despite a higher-than-expected CPI in anticipation of a slowing inflation.
• By sector, the pace of growth of mainnet (5.8%) and defi (4.2%) has decelerated as BNB had been range-bound (1.1%) since the SEC threatened lawsuit against BUSD while Frax Share took a nosedive (-14.1%).

Top Stories & Takeaways

WEMIX Relisted on Coinone

• WEMIX was relisted on Coinone on Feb 16, 2023, 6 p.m., after it had been delisted from South Korea’s big 4 crypto exchanges providing Korean won-denominated crypto services.
• Coinone relisted WEMIX, citing reasons that the following issues were found to be addressed:
  • (Material Breach of Circulating Supply) The project has resolved issues regarding WEMIX’s circulating supply and introduced a third-party platform that has improved investors’ accessibility to the total supply and circulating supply of the token.
  • (Provision of Misinformation or Lack of Information) The exchange had received assurance from the project that the prior problems that could have misinformed or misled investors would never be repeated. 
  • (Erroneous Information in the Documents Submitted During the Explanation Period) The project built a system that exclusively manages WEMIX and carried out a reshuffle of the organization.
• WEMIX’s price took off 50% and WeMade’s share traded 17% higher on the back of this news.
• Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA), a trade group representing South Korea’s five largest crypto exchanges, refused to comment on the matter, saying that listing is subject to each exchange’s discretion.

Xangle’s Take: The catalyst behind this outcome is a fitting match between Coinone’s needs to secure transaction volume and WEMIX’s needs to be relisted on the KRW market. Once delisted, WEMIX became the first of its kind to be relisted on one of South Korea’s big 4 crypto exchanges. Seeing that the project relisted WEMIX tokens native to the WEMIX blockchain, instead of WEMIX Classic, Coinone and WEMIX may have had discussions in the run-up. WEMIX’s implementation of Xangle Live Watch, an independent platform that keeps track of circulating supplies of cryptocurrencies, is deemed conducive to resolving the issue. As the project had WEMIX relisted on Coinone, it dropped all lawsuits against big 4 exchanges, seeking to clinch a spot in their listings once again.

Link: Xangle Events | Coinone Notice

The SEC Issues a Wells Notice to BUSD Issuer Paxos for Sale of Unregistered Securities

• The U.S. SEC issued a Wells notice to BUSD issuer Paxos regarding the offer and sale of the stablecoin, which the regulator deems an unregistered security. Paxos is also said to have been ordered to end its relationship with Binance.
• Circle’s complaint about insufficient BUSD reserves last year is considered the trigger that led up to this SEC action.
• Apart from ceasing to issue BUSD, the firm “categorically disagreed” with the SEC that BUSD is a security.

Xangle’s Take: The SEC seems to be upping the ante in its efforts to regulate the crypto space in light of its latest actions against Kraken’s staking service and stablecoin BUSD. Some view SEC’s crackdown on the staking service provider as part of a dispute over the scope of authority between the U.S. SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and scrutiny of the stablecoin as U.S. corporates and regulators’ effort to keep Chinese-owned services in check. So far, only the providers of such services have been in the SEC’s crosshairs, but if the regulator’s interpretation of securities starts to extend to the essential crypto services such as staking and stablecoins, the crypto market will inevitably suffer the consequence. The recent moves the SEC has made to loosely classify certain crypto services as securities seem excessive and against the interest of consumers, given the absence of a clear guideline on staking services and stablecoins.

Link: WSJ Report

Mainnet

Polygon’s zkEVM Mainnet Beta Confirmed to Launch on March 27

Polygon announced that one of its zk solutions, zkEVM, will launch mainnet beta on Mar 27.

Link: Polygon’s Announcement

Germany’s 3rd Largest Company Siemens Issues a $64M Bond on Polygon

Siemens, the third largest publicly traded company in Germany by market cap, made an announcement that it had issued a bond worth $64M on the Polygon blockchain.

Link: Siemens Press Release

RollApp Solution dYmension Raises $6.7M in Funding Round

dYmension, which provides infrastructure to build app-specific blockchains called RollApps, raised $6.7M in a seed funding round.

Link: The Block’s Report

NFT 

Blur Releases Native Token $BLUR

NFT marketplace Blur released its native token $BLUR, further solidifying its dominance in the market.

Link: blur.io

Square Enix Set to Launch Polygon-Based NFTs

Japanese video game giant Square Enix will launch the Symbiogensis NFT collection on Polygon.

Link: CoinDesk’s Report

Games/Metaverse

SoftBank Joins Oasys Validator Network

SoftBank announced its participation in the Oasys blockchain as a validator.

Link: Medium Post

The Sandbox Enters Partnership with Japanese Animation Company, TOEI

The Sandbox has forged a partnership with TOEI, Japan’s animation giant behind mega-hit IPs like Dragon Ball, Sailormoon, and One Piece.

Link: Medium Post

Regulatory Landscape

SEC Sues Terraform Labs and Do Kwon for Securities Fraud

The U.S. SEC has charged Terrafrom Labs and its founder Do Kwon with crypto securities fraud. The court’s decision on the SEC’s lawsuit will have broad repercussions for DPoS, PoS and UST.

Link: Related Tweet | Complaint Filed by SEC

Research

Stablecoin Shadow Banks - Dirty Bubble Media

USDC is often used by dubious actors in fraudulent transactions, which is increasingly serving as grounds for regulatory interventions.

Link: Dirty Bubble Media’s Research Article

Previous Xangle Weekly Reports

• [Weekly Xangle] SEC Suing Kraken, Marblex, WEMIX Game Lineup, Optimism Bedrock Upgrade, and More!
• [NFT Weekly] $BLUR Listing and DigiDaigaku’s Super Bowl Ad
• [On-chain Weekly] Ethereum Revenue Growth Trend, Uniswap BNB Chain
• [Weekly Xangle] Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade, WeMade MIR M, and Rally Shutdown
• [NFT Weekly] MetaKongz Price Surge, Hype for Checks & On-chain Analysis!