Market focus

Top investment deals across the crypto sector over the last week (Dec. 3–9, 2022): Uniswap-based DeFi protocol Panoptic raises $4.5 million Panoptic, a Uniswap-based decentralized finance protocol for trading perpetual options, raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round. Gumi Cryptos Capital led the round, with Uniswap Labs Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Jane Street, Avalanche Foundation’s…

Shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the world’s largest bitcoin fund, reached a record-high discount rate of above 47% relative to the price of Bitcoin (BTC). Bearish sentiment surrounding the trust deepened over fears that crypto trading firm Genesis Global Trading, with the same owner, could file for bankruptcy. GBTC is a way for investors…

Institutional investors continue to show interest in the crypto sector, even despite the negative effects caused by the FTX debacle, data from the crypto exchange Bitstamp shows, with institutional registrations increasing by 57% in November. Other traditional finance capital allocators also seem to view the situation as an opportunity to enter. According to crypto exchange…

Investment bank Goldman Sachs plans to spend “tens of millions of dollars” to buy or invest in crypto firms whose valuations declined after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, Reuters reported. “We do see some really interesting opportunities, priced much more sensibly,” said the bank’s digital asset head Mathew McDermott. According to a Reuters report,…

Sam Bankman-Fried is a con man and fraudster of historic proportions. But you might not learn that from the New York Times, CoinDesk’s Chief Insights Columnist David Z. Morris writes. In the weeks since Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire was revealed to be a house of lies, mainstream news organizations and commentators have often failed to…

Breaking crypto news from the last week (Nov. 26–Dec. 2, 2022): Nov. 27: Recently announced, Binance’s Proof-of-Reserves system met criticism from Kraken’s CEO Jesse Powell. Soon, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao responded on Twitter to the remarks made by Jesse Powell. CZ was quoted as saying “Upcoming Plans: Involve third-party auditors to audit PoR outcomes.”…