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Greetings and welcome back to the TechCrunch Crypto newsletter.
This week, Starbucks discontinued its Odyssey NFT program from 2022, Solana continued to gain momentum in the memecoin space, and India is facing challenges in the crypto realm as government agencies intensify their crackdown.
Read on for more details.
Highlights in the Web3 Universe
- OKX halts operations in India
- Solana fuels excitement with new memecoin mania
- The success story of crypto exchange Backpack post the demise of major investor FTX
- Starbucks pulls the plug on its Odyssey NFT initiative
- Blockchain technology could be the key to combating deepfakes and verifying content
Market Insights
This week, crypto market prices experienced a slight drop but remained robust compared to previous months.
At the time of this publication, Bitcoin was down 6.5% for the week at $67,300 and 32% up for the month. The second-largest crypto, ether, saw an 8.6% decline for the week at $3,550. The total crypto market cap decreased by 6.3% to $2.55 trillion during the same period as per CoinMarketCap data.
Latest Podcast Episode
Chain Reaction is delving into various topics and themes within the crypto space through a monthly series. This month, the focus is on blockchain and AI integration.
For this week’s episode, Tegan Kline, the CEO and co-founder of Edge & Node, joins in for a discussion. Edge & Node specializes in dApps and protocols, with a notable role in The Graph, a protocol akin to the “Google of web3” for organizing open blockchain data. Tegan’s journey from investment banking to web3 is an intriguing one, and she shares valuable insights in this episode.
Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred platform to stay updated on the latest episodes and leave a review if you enjoy the content!
Recent Funding News
- Former Grindr executive and a married couple launch Rails with $6.2 million for their decentralized FTX alternative
- Avalanche Foundation introduces $1 million liquidity mining incentive program, Memecoin Rush
- Morph secures $20 million in seed and angel funding for its EVM layer-2
- Mantra raises $11 million to expand real-world asset tokenization in MENA region
- Ago raises $2.5 million to enhance DeFi accessibility through an all-in-one platform
This compilation is based on information from Messari and TechCrunch’s reporting.
Editor’s Picks Beyond Web3
Looking to explore beyond the realm of web3? Check out these interesting articles on TechCrunch:
- Reddit sets IPO price at $34 per share, at the top of the range
- NBCUniversal’s Peacock offers the ability to watch 4 livestreams simultaneously during the 2024 Paris Olympics
- Astera Labs IPO to reveal investor interest in AI
- After raising $1.3B, Inflection gets absorbed by its major investor, Microsoft
- Late-stage VCs possibly delaying their startups from going public in 2024
