Welcome back to Chain reaction.
This week I am writing the newsletter from the currently sunny and always beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. I’m here for the Avalanche Summit II, which is hosted by Ava Labs, the creator of the layer-1 blockchain Avalanche.
So far, there have been many discussions about blockchain gaming, decentralized finance, and regulation.
Avalanche also announced a partnership with Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence division of Alibaba Group, to deploy metaverses for the online marketplace’s customers. The news was covered exclusively by TechCrunch – more on that below.
I moderated two panels titled ‘Expert Insights on the State of Crypto Markets’ and ‘Stablecoins: The Internet Payment Layer’. The TL;DR takeaway point right now is that market players are long term bullish and expect the cryptocurrency market cap to grow significantly in the near future (we’ll see) and that the stablecoin industry has a lot of room to grow and the ability to internet payments shake up space.
There are still more interviews to be done, content to roll out, and panels to attend, so stay tuned for more of that in the coming days and weeks.
This week in web3
Alibaba Cloud joins forces with Avalanche to deploy metaverses on the blockchain
Alibaba Cloud has partnered with layer-1 blockchain Avalanche to provide Alibaba’s customers with a launch pad, Cloudverse, which aims to help companies customize, launch and maintain their own metaverse spaces on Avalanche’s blockchain. “You and I can now create a metaverse. The chain hangs up within 15 minutes; within hours the wallet is gone and the key is ready,” said Emin Gün Sirer, the founder and CEO of Ava Labs. The technology is made “really easy” and all tools are open source, he added.
While the US is cracking down on crypto, Hong Kong is giving a warm welcome
To create a favorable environment for web3 companies, the city is facilitating communication between banks and crypto startups, many of which are looking for alternatives after the collapse of Silvergate Bank. Tightening crypto regulations in the US could give Hong Kong a chance to step up and become the next crypto hub.
How Jack Dorsey’s Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund Fights for the Future of Open Source Software
A crypto wallet theft lawsuit brought by a man claiming to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could jeopardize the future of open source software development. That’s according to the Jack Dorsey-backed Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, which is filing a case to defend 11 Bitcoin developers named in a lawsuit brought by Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who came to the limelight in 2016 with a fierce controversial claim to be the founder of Bitcoin.
Brett Harrison “never lost faith in the company” while now working at FTX (TC+)
It’s been nearly six months since FTX collapsed, and a lot has happened since then, from executives being indicted to industrial companies facing ripple effects of the downfall. At Consensus 2023, Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director and founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, which invested in the exchange, and Brett Harrison, founder and CEO of Architect and former FTX.US president, shared their experiences during the downfall. of FTX and what life has been like since then.
The latest pod
For this week’s episode, Jaquelyn interviewed Jake Chervinsky, the chief policy officer at Blockchain Association, a non-profit organization focused on promoting a “pro-innovation” policy for the digital asset world. He is also a board member of the DeFi education fund and an advisor to web3 seed-stage fund Variant.
Prior to working with the Blockchain Association, Chervinsky began his career as an attorney in private practice with a focus on anti-money laundering and anti-corruption compliance and investigations, financial services litigation, and government defense. He spends a lot of time in DC and testifies at hearings to bring clarity to the crypto industry in hopes of guiding it in the right direction.
We dived deep into conversations about all things regulatory, from how Chervinsky sees the current regulatory landscape to whether or not we’re in what people call a “crackdown” era.
We also discussed:
- The views of regulators are changing
- US crypto companies
- Are cryptocurrencies commodities or securities
- Stablecoin Law
- Future legal frameworks and guidelines
Subscribe Chain reaction on apple podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to stay up to date with the latest episodes, and leave us a review if you like what you hear!
Follow the money
- Hardware crypto wallet provider Tangem AG has raised $8 million
- FARE Protocol raised $6.2 million in a seed round led by Goat Capital
- Entender Finance has raised $4 million to support bookkeeping and accounting for blockchain operations
- Nolus raised $2.5 million to build cross-chain DeFi leases
- OKX Ventures invested an unknown amount in Cetus Protocol
This list was compiled using information from Messari and TechCrunch’s own reporting.
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follow me on twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto news, memes and more.