Perhaps the biggest news in blockchain and cryptocurrency last week was Andreesen Horowitz launching a second crypto investment fund that shows the venture capital firm is targeting specific areas to invest in the crypto space. The firm said Thursday it has raised a total of $515 million, more than the original $450 million target, for a second fund called "Crypto Fund II" dedicated to crypto and blockchain projects. In the blog post announcement, Andreessen said it is researching projects related to next-generation payments, decentralized finance, new monetization models, and Web3, the idea of a decentralized Internet. The firm added it sees great potential in decentralized finance especially but warned it is still early in the crypto movement, which means the application infrastructure must be improved.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
Telegram on Wednesday postponed the launch of its TON blockchain again, delaying the new launch date to April 2021 and offering to return up to 72% of investors' stake. The terms were agreed upon when Telegram first postponed TON's launch in October, after a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charging Telegram with running a $1.7 billion unregistered securities sale in 2018. The messaging firm lost an initial court battle with the SEC, with a federal judge ruling Telegram cannot launch its blockchain or issue its gram tokens until the case is resolved. So Telegram this week proposed an option for investors who choose to forgo 72% of their stake. Investors can lend their investment to Telegram until a year later and receive 110% of their original amount in return. But if regulators continue blocking the launch of TON, Telegram promises it will repay the debt using equity, which it claims is a good deal for token investors.
iFinex, the parent company of major crypto exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin firm Tether, filed for subpoenas to depose 3 banks in the U.S. it believes held funds for Crypto Capital, Bitfinex's payment processor. iFinex applied for subpoenas in Colorado, Arizona, and Georgia, asking federal courts to help it depose banks that may have held funds for Crypto Capital, the payment processor that stored Bitfinex customer and exchange funds. Bitfinex is seeking discovery to bolster its legal claims to around $880 million held in bank accounts in Poland, Lisbon, London, and elsewhere that have been seized by authorities pursuing anti-money laundering criminal charges against Crypto Capital. Bitfinex claims Crypto Capital managed to store Bitfinex reserves in banks across the world, including SunTrust
Crypto prices rose this week to $247 billion. For the majors, Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), and Litecoin (LTC) all posted outsized gains, while Tezos (XTZ) and Tether (USDT) slipped. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Hive (HIVE), down 57%, Nervos Network (CKB), down 12%, and Algorand (ALGO), down 8%. The biggest gainers were Hyperion (HYN), up a whopping 127%, Streamer DATAcoin (DATA), up 44%, and THETA, up 27%.
The author owns a small amount of BTC and LTC.
