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Xangle’s Take on the Market This Week

• Correction was prevalent in crypto as the CFTC filed a complaint against Binance while the banking turmoil subsided. 
• Ripple (XRP) outran most other top market cap cryptos as the market bet bigger on Ripple’s win against the SEC ahead of the court decision soon to be handed down.

Top Stories & Takeaways

CFTC Sues Binance for Unregistered Derivatives for Offering Unregistered Derivatives

• The CFTC filed a lawsuit on the 28th against Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao, accusing them of violating derivatives regulations.  
• The regulator alleges Binance has offered and executed commodities, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) during the operation of its derivatives exchange business.
• The CFTC filing also alleges that the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange has encouraged U.S. customers to use VPN to bypass restrictions and access the platform. 
• In addition, the CFTC cited internal chats between Binance employees to pinpoint the exchange’s lax compliance oversight.
• Binance saw a net outflow of $1.2B since the CFTC complaint.

Xangle’s Take: The regulators in the U.S. seem to be in an all-out war against Binance, upping the pressure on its overwhelming dominance post-FTX. The turf war between the SEC and the CFTC over regulatory control of cryptocurrency looks set to intensify as the CFTC has called LTC, USDT, and BUSD—in addition to BTC and ETH—commodities.

Link: CFTC Complaint (PDF) 

zkEVM Mainnets Are Coming

• There has been a series of announcements on zkEVM launches, namely zkSync’s zkSync Era on the 24th, Polygon’s zkEVM mainnet beta on the 27th, and ConsenSys’ Linea zkEVM testnet on the 28th.
• Already, dapps like QuickSwap have gone live on Polygon zkEVM with many more to come on board, including multichain dapps like Aave v3.
• MATIC will be used for staking and governance, and ETH for fees payment.
• The zkSync Era launch has also bumped the mainnet transactions up above 2 million.

Xangle’s Take: The zkEVM wars have begun. Based on Vitalik Buterin’s definition, where each type of zkEVM features different levels of EVM compatibility and functionality, the above zkEVM implementations differ with Consensys’ being Type 2, Polygon’s Type 3, and zkSync’s Type 4. Polygon zkEVM seems to have a better chance of gaining a larger user base given the larger number of dapps ready to be onboarded. But, with less than a year away from the token launch, users are also flocking to zkSync in anticipation of an airdrop.

Announcements: Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta Launch | zkSync Era Mainnet Launch | ConsenSys zkEVM Testnet Launch

Mainnet

dydx V4 Milestone 3 Is Complete

dydx has completed the third out of five milestones in its migration to Cosmos.

Link: dydx Exchange’s Blog Announcement

DeFi

Trader Joe Puts on a Searing Rally

Trader Joe DEX’s key metrics, including transactions, TVL, and $JOE, have galloped higher throughout the past week.

Link: CoinDesk Report

Lido to Sunset Liquid Staking on Polkadot and Kusama 

Lido announced that its staking program on Polkadot and Kusama will be discontinued from August 1.

Link: LidoFinance Twitter Announcement | Governance Forum

NFT

y00ts Migration to Polygon: 77% Complete

Solana’s flagship NFT project, y00ts has announced 77% completion of its migration to Polygon.

Link: Polygon’s Blog Announcement on y00ts Migration

Games/Metaverse

Ronin Network to Onboard New Games 

As Sky Mavis has entered partnership with four game studios, new games will be onboarded to the Ronin blockchain. 

Link: CoinDesk Report

Otherside to Debut Legends of the Mara 

Yuga Labs' metaverse project Otherside will unveil a 2D strategy game, Legends of the Mara.

Link: Yuga Labs Announcement

Regulatory Landscape

Anticipation of Ripple’s Victory Leads to Bullish Bets on XRP  

XRP price has zoomed higher as investors expect the court to rule in favor of Ripple in its legal battle with the SEC.  

Link: CoinDesk Report

Macro/Industry/Corporate

Disney Shuts Down Its Metaverse Unit

Disney has closed its metaverse division and laid off about 7,000 jobs. 

Link: WSJ Report

Alibaba Cloud to Open a Blockchain Lab in Japan

Alibaba Cloud will launch a blockchain lab in Shibuya, Japan, aiming to support game developers in the country looking for Web3 business opportunities.

Link: Coin Edition Report

South Korea’s Money Laundering Watchdog Financial Intelligence Unit

The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit disclosed the result of the on-site inspection of South Korea’s five largest crypto exchanges, detailing breaches and unfair practices identified. 

Dunamu’s 4Q 2022 Earnings Released

Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s leading crypto exchange Upbit, reported its 4Q 2022 earnings at its shareholders’ meeting on March 31.