Bitcoin highs and dog-focused memecoins spike, whereas Binance launches a crypto fragrance and Coachella companions with OpenSea

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Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, previously generally known as Chain Response.

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Hey and welcome again to the TechCrunch Crypto e-newsletter.

To begin issues off, right here’s a shameless plug: I went on Yahoo Finance final week for a roundtable dialogue alongside Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein, CoinDesk Indices managing director Andy Baehr and Matt Kohrs, host of the crypto-centric Matt Kohrs present.

We mentioned spot bitcoin ETFs, regulation of digital property and what the following period for crypto might appear like. Watch right here.

It was an eventful week within the crypto world: bitcoin’s value hit a brand new all-time excessive on Tuesday, Spain’s information safety authority quickly banned Worldcoin and Binance raised eyebrows after making a crypto fragrance to have a good time Worldwide Ladies’s Day.

Curious? Try extra under.

This week in web3

Bitcoin hits new all-time excessive passing $69,000 for first time since November 2021
Binance made crypto fragrance in a baffling try and woo girls
Worldcoin hit with momentary ban in Spain over privateness issues
OpenSea’s partnership with Coachella is an indication that NFTs might be greater than profile photos
Binance to halt naira companies amid ongoing regulatory probe in Nigeria

Crunching numbers

As talked about, this week the crypto house noticed all-time highs for bitcoin. However the grandfather of cryptocurrencies has since fallen about 3%, from round $69,000 to $67,000, on the time of publication. Nonetheless, bitcoin is up 6.5% on the week and 56% on the month. The second-largest crypto, ether, is up 9.7% on the week to $3,800, in response to CoinMarketCap information. The complete crypto market cap elevated 7.7% throughout the identical time-frame to $2.53 trillion.

Smaller tokens have additionally gained loads of traction this previous week. Solana-based dog-themed memecoins noticed renewed curiosity after hype rose in December. Bonk and dogwifhat elevated 15% and 115%, respectively, on the week. Individually, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, rose 19% and 125%, respectively, throughout the identical time interval.

Which begs the query…who let the canines out?

Our favourite ‘Crypto Twitter’ put up

Excuse the language, however when you didn’t notice how massive some memecoins grow to be…possibly now you’ll. When this X put up was written, dogwifhat (WIF) had a market capitalization thrice the dimensions of Spirit Airways’.

For what it’s price, it has declined since, however dogwifhat (WIF) has a market capitalization of $1.8 billion, which continues to be 213% larger than Spirit Airways.

A screenshot of a post on X by user IcedKnife

Picture Credit: IcedKnife on X (opens in a brand new window)

The newest pod

Chain Response is doing a month-to-month collection diving into completely different matters and themes in crypto. This month we’re specializing in blockchain and AI integrations.

For this week’s episode, I interviewed Dee Goens, the co-founder of Zora.

Zora is a platform and protocol that helps builders and creators deliver their concepts on chain and on Ethereum by way of an open and shared surroundings. The platform has minted greater than million NFTs, and has over $300 million in secondary gross sales and about 1 million distinctive collectors, in response to its web site.

Goens beforehand labored at Coinbase for two.5 years doing danger administration, operations and model partnerships. Earlier than that, he analyzed rising applied sciences’ danger with a spotlight in blockchains at KPMG.

As we simply wrapped up our NFT collection for February, Goens is the right visitor to transition from that matter to AI and blockchains given Zora’s deal with bringing AI on-chain.

In a primary for Chain Response, we additionally minted this podcast on Zora’s platform, which you can try right here.

Jacquelyn and Goens focus on how Zora envisions blockchains and AI working collectively, the roles they’ll play for NFT creators and what the platform’s builders and group members need extra of.

Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the newest episodes, and please depart us a overview when you like what you hear!

Observe the cash

Zama’s homomorphic encryption tech lands it $73 million on a valuation of almost $400 million
Taiko raises $37 million to construct web3 infrastructure for a censorship-free web
Karma3 Labs raises $4.5 million to enhance belief in web3 with scores and suggestions
Utila raised $11.5 million in a seed spherical for its enterprise-grade crypto operations platform
Safety infra startup Firewall raised $3.7 million to make sensible contracts mainstream

This checklist was compiled with info from Messari in addition to TechCrunch’s personal reporting.

What else we’re writing

Wish to department out from the world of web3? Listed here are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our consideration this week.

Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over ‘betrayal’ of nonprofit AI mission
And…Former Twitter CEO sues Elon Musk
Roku disables TVs and streaming gadgets till customers consent to new phrases
A leaky database spilled 2FA codes for the world’s tech giants
When your cap desk makes your startup uninvestable
Goal to launch its personal model of Amazon Prime, beginning at $49/12 months



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