Crypto Trends Weekly Feb. 5 – 11

Breaking crypto news from the last week (Feb. 5 – 11, 2022):

Feb. 6: While money returns to the crypto market, derivatives data shows that investor confidence is strengthening as the market forms a bottom, signaling a possible trend reversal. The Tether/CNY premium and CME futures basis have recently flipped bullish, indicating a positive investor attitude.

Feb. 7: Polygon, a decentralized Ethereum scaling platform, has raised $450 million in a private token sale led by Sequoia India. The funding will be used to build Web3 decentralized applications or dApps, including Polygon PoS, Polygon Edge, and Polygon Avail. This is Polygon’s first major financing round since the project began in 2017.

The Canadian branch of accounting giant KPMG allocates Bitcoin and Ether to its corporate treasury. The firm’s executives “expect to see a lot of growth” in DeFi, NFT, and metaverse areas in the years to come.

Feb. 8: The US Justice Department said it seized more than $3.6 billion in allegedly stolen cryptocurrency linked to the 2016 hack of Bitfinex. As part of the operation, authorities detained a New York couple on allegations they planned to launder the digital goods.

Feb. 9: Smartphone manufacturer Apple Inc. announced a new Tap-to-Pay feature on the Apple Pay app. Stripe will be the first company to offer Tap-to-Pay to their business clients. The merchant will need to have at least an iPhone XS and maintain different payment methods, including cryptocurrencies.

Feb. 10: Binance is making a $200 million strategic investment in Forbes ahead of the publication’s plan to go public through a special purpose acquisition company in the first quarter of 2022. The world’s largest crypto exchange is branching out with a remarkable media investment.

Feb. 11: BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is reportedly planning to offer a crypto trading service to its investor clients, three sources revealed. Clients would be able to trade crypto through the firm’s Aladdin investment platform, one of the sources said.

According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, the total value of crypto-related mergers and acquisitions (M&A) rose to $55 billion in 2021 versus $1.1 billion a year earlier. The average deal size has more than tripled since 2020 to $179.7 million, while the total value of crypto fundraising deals climbed by 645%.