Crypto memes are keeping the world turning, so hang in there through this week’s weekly wrap and you will see them at the end. Otherwise, it has been another freakishly busy week in the non-stop hustle and bustle of Web3. Let’s not waste another minute and jump right into this edition of The Chainsaw Weekly Wrap. LFG.
News Roundup (with crypto memes at the end)
DOGE out here acting like a greyhound
You’re probably sick to death of seeing Ol’ Musky in the headlines but there’s no denying the dude has a way of pumping up crypto markets, particularly when it comes to everyone’s favourite memecoin: DOGE.
The pooch-inspired token underwent an absurd rally over the past week, closing up nearly 90% higher than this time last Friday, which isn’t too shabby for a token that literally trades on the back of Elon’s tweets. Aussie crypto exchange Swyftx reported that trading volume for DOGE was up more than 1500% making it the fourth most traded token on their platform…
Giving ’em pumpkin to talk about
Markets surged over the Halloween weekend, leading to a good deal of debate about whether or not something called “The Halloween Effect” is legit or not. Oh yeah and we used the spooky holiday to revisit some of the most vicious, hair-raising tales of crypto over the last year. If you missed it, definitely go check it out.
Bitcoin miners… are you guys ok?
The energy crisis combined with Bitcoin’s mostly stagnant price action saw some of the biggest Bitcoin miners in the game land themselves in a spot of trouble. The share price of Core Scientific (CORE) — one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners — plummeted more than 35% as the firm started discussions with lawyers about potentially declaring bankruptcy. Ouch.
Another major BTC mining firm, Argo wasn’t faring much better, in fact it fared much, much worse. Things went sour quickly for Argo after a strategic investment deal worth £35 million went entirely tits up, sending its share price tumbling a touch over 70%. Double ouch.
Nikolai Mushegian – drowned or was he “suicided” by the CIA?
Midway through this week the crypto community was hit with some heartbreaking news. Nikolai Mushegian, the co-founder of MakerDAO (MKR) and decentralised stablecoin DAI, was found dead floating in the waters of Condado Beach in Puerto Rico.
According to local news sources he died from drowning, but troubling tweets from an account linked to Mushegian suggest that foul play may have been at work.
Just hours before his untimely passing, Mushegian claimed that the CIA, Mossad and the “pedo elite” were running a “sex trafficking blackmail ring” out of Puerto Rico and planned to “torture him to death”.
What makes things even more concerning is that nearly two months ago, he actually predicted that his most likely cause of death would be from getting “suicided” by the CIA. While there’s still no clear reporting as to exactly the circumstances surrounding Mushegian death, it certainly paints an eerie picture.
(Nearly at the crypto memes) Binance continues its quest for total crypto domination
Over the past few days Binance has been making some serious moves to expand its reach beyond just being the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume. The company’s CEO Changpeng Zhao threw a cool US$500 million to Elon to help him finance his acquisition of Twitter, with Zhao saying he’d be stoked with a seat on Twitter’s board.
While Zhao told attendees of Portugal’s Web Summit that he’s still “pretty busy” with Binance, he says he could probably find some spare time to help integrate crypto payments into the Twitter platform. Adding fuel to the “Twitter’s going to add in crypto payments” fire here, Binance even introduced a new financial product called ‘The Bluebird Index’ comprised of BNB, DOGE and MASK (Metamask’s native token).
All of these things considered together make it clear that Zhao is seriously vying for a seat at the table when it comes to launching crypto on the bird app.
Show me the money
And next on The Chainsaw Weekly Wrap, news on all things venture capital and fundraising. To be fair, it’s a tough market out there, but the flow of capital just keeps on coming.
These are the stories that caught our eye this week:
- EOS Network Foundation, OKX Blockdream Ventures, AlphaNonce and others have agreed to invest US$100 million to establish a blockchain ecosystem in South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan, which is looking to become one of the world’s most crypto-friendly investment destinations.
- Crypto wallet Braavos has raised US$10 million in a funding round led by crypto-focused investment firm Pantera Capital. The funds are to be used to grow the company to achieve its goal of offering self-custodial wallets with a slick user interface.
- Crypto-focused firm CoinFund is looking to raise US$250 million for seed investments, less than three months after announcing a U$300 million crypto venture capital fund.
- Blocto, a multi-chain crypto wallet and ecosystem, opened a US$3 million Aptos Ecosystem Fund to help projects onboard new users.
- Digital asset platform Bakkt Holdings is going to acquire crypto trading infrastructure firm Apex Crypto. It was reported that Bakkt will initially pay US$55 million in cash at the closing of the deal, and up to $145 million in Bakkt stock and seller notes upon achievement of some financial targets.
- Tharsis, the developers of Evmos blockchain, raised US$27 million in a token sale round led by Polychain Capital. The funds are intended to be used for development of decentralised applications in the Evmos network ecosystem
- Lingfeng Innovation Fund (LIF), a new venture capital fund led by former Binance Labs executive Nicole Zhang, landed US$20 million to invest in crypto startups.
- Crypto-friendly US bank Custodia, formerly known as Avanti, raised US$7 million to further expand its growth.
Thanks Uptober, fingers crossed for no-nuke November
And finally, for The Chainsaw Weekly Wrap, we look at markets. This week we finally saw the mythical “Uptober” — crypto slang for when price goes up in October — come to fruition. Over the past seven days Bitcoin (BTC) rallied a solid 7% before pulling back again following US Fed Chair Jerome Powell telling everyone that future rate hikes are very much still on the cards for December, dashing any hopes of a much-desired “pivot”.
The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap Ethereum also had a spectacular innings, witnessing a spooky 20% surge over the course of the Halloween weekend.
Winners & Losers
The biggest winner of this month was easily Dogecoin (DOGE), which went on a neck-breaking run after mega-impregnator Elon Musk (he now has ten kids with three different women) finalised his acquisition of Twitter. Musk’s long-running association with the memecoin as well as references he’s made to using it for payments in the past was largely seen as the reason why DOGE soared more than 100% over the last week.
The biggest loser this week was the brand new, self-styled “Solana killer” Aptos (APT) which dropped 18% following some vicious backlash from the crypto community. Major personalities in the crypto space levied a wide range of criticism at the new kid on the blockchain, claiming that it was technically faulty, its ownership was far too centralised in the hands of venture capitalists, and basically, it didn’t solve any real problems. So yeah, that the reason why Aptos copped the biggest ‘L’ this week.
Following all of the recent macro turmoil, all we can do is hope that it’s a no-nuke November. As always thanks so much for reading this week’s The Chainsaw Weekly Wrap. That’ll be 8 bucks thanks.
Crypto memes
Have a sick weekend from the crew here The Chainsaw.
But before you go, these are the memes generating lols all over the cryptosphere.
Crypto memes of the week
crypto memes web3
