BRIEFINGS

Brave has announced that it has now added support for the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a peer-to-peer network protocol for distributed file storage and sharing. Brave, a privacy-focused browser with over 24 million monthly users, is the first to offer this functionality. IPFS will provide users with “a significantly enhanced browsing experience,” according to the...

During a Senate confirmation hearing yesterday, Janet Yellen was questioned by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) as to whether cryptoassets are an emerging threat relating to financial terrorism. Yellen said, “I think many are used at least in a transaction sense mainly for illicit finance.” She expressed that this is a “particular concern” for those in...

The cryptoasset exchange Kraken has announced that it will suspend XRP trading in the U.S. at the end of January. The move comes after a recent lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives. The lawsuit alleges that Ripple Labs engaged in unregistered security offerings...

Dan Larimer, the co-founder of Block.one, the software company behind EOS, left the company as of Dec. 31, 2020. His departure is reportedly motivated by his desire to “pursue new personal projects” according to the company. More specifically, Larimer says he has become concerned that “censorship has gotten out of control,” as illustrated by the...

Tether, the stablecoin issuance firm responsible for USDT, has announced that it will launch the stablecoin on the Hermes Network, an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution that uses ZK-rollups. This scaling solution seeks to facilitate orders of magnitude more transactions per second than on-chain transactions while also comparing favorably versus other second-layer systems. With the...

Acquired this week by Coinbase for an undisclosed amount, Routefire is a San Francisco-based technology company founded in 2017 that seeks to help institutional customers execute large trade values at high speeds and low costs. With institutional interest in cryptoassets and crypto-related companies on the rise, Routefire will help expand Coinbase’s prime brokerage business. Routefire...

Several prominent exchanges including Coinbase, Binance US, and eToro have begun to delist Ripple (XRP). The moves follow accusations made by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that XRP is an unregistered security. While the majority of the measures involve suspending trading for U.S.-based customers, many of these exchanges will reportedly continue to facilitate trading...

Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation has reached an agreement with the Stellar Development Foundation related to the development of the country’s central bank digital currency. In addition to efforts related to CBDCs, Stellar will also assist in developing a broader strategy for digital asset regulation and establishing digital asset infrastructure in the country.

The total market capitalization of all cryptoassets surpassed $1T this week, according to CoinGecko, which tracks 6,124 cryptoassets. The event marks a new all-time high cryptoasset market capitalization, with BTC and ETH representing roughly 67% and 13% of this sum, respectively. The total cryptoasset market capitalization was around $760B at the start of 2021.

Cover Protocol, a decentralized insurance provider, was hacked on Dec 28th. The hacker, Grape.Finance, exploited the protocols rewards program, causing it to mint 40 quintillion COVER tokens, which were then sold for $4 million in cryptoassets, but later returned. The protocol has since warned users not to buy COVER tokens, and has indicated that it...