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Crypto market values exceed $ 2 trillion. Playboy launches NFTs? And who are the new Bitcoin billionaires this year? Those stories and more this week in crypto.
Price increases for cryptocurrencies alongside Bitcoin have brought the total market capitalization of the digital asset industry to around $ 2 trillion, doubling in just a few months. Altcoins like Binance Coin as well as Bittorrent, XRP and Stellar saw double-digit percentage growth over the past week.
Several prominent names in the crypto space have made their way onto Forbes’ 2021 Billionaires List. This year’s ranking includes 12 crypto personalities – a huge increase over the previous year when there were only four. The top people to earn spots on the list included the Winklevoss twins and Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy.
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel is a big fan of Bitcoin. In a recent interview, however, he expressed concern that Bitcoin could potentially be used as China’s financial weapon against the US. Despite owning and investing in multiple virtual currencies, Thiel urged the US government to consider stricter regulations for cryptocurrencies in the future.
The leading cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, announced that the first quarter of this year was a record-breaking one. The company had sales of approximately $ 1.8 billion while trading volume increased more than 300%. The record sales report comes out just a week before Coinbase’s direct listing on NASDAQ, which is slated for April 14th.
Kraken, another U.S. crypto exchange, is also considering going public directly in 2022. When the company started, four times as many new users signed up for the platform in the first quarter as in the previous year. Kraken is currently in talks with investors about funding that could reportedly increase its value to as much as $ 20 billion.
State Street Corporation, the second oldest US bank, has announced that it will enable trading in cryptocurrencies through its infrastructure. State Street’s entry confirms the growing adoption rate of banking institutions in the cryptocurrency industry, as the oldest U.S. bank, BNY Mellon, recently announced that it will also offer digital asset custody services starting earlier this year.
Cult brand Playboy launches non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the new art form that has grown in popularity over the past year. Playboy works with the NFT auction house Nifty Gateway and plans to showcase new NFTs in addition to the original works printed in the past.
The musician Akon has received a square mile of land from the Ugandan government to start building the second “Akon City”, a region of Africa that is operated entirely on blockchain. Like the city he is building in his home country Senegal, it is operated exclusively with his AKoin token, a star-based cryptocurrency.
This is exactly what happened in Crypto this week. Until next week.
