The global crypto market cap is $1.65T 3.94%▼ with a 24-hour market volume of $85.30B 0.98%▼. Bitcoin's dominance is currently 41.47% 0.41%▼. CURRENT PRICES BY MARKET CAP | # | Name | Price | 24h % | | 1 | Bitcoin BTC | $36,236.95 | 6.24% ▼ | | 2 | Ethereum ETH | $2,440.46 | 9.38% ▼ | | 3 | BNB BNB | $370.61 | 6.92% ▼ | | 4 | Cardano ADA | $1.04 | 8.43% ▼ | | 5 | Solana SOL | $91.37 | 10.71%▼ | Source: CoinMarketCap, 14:00 EST
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 Meta Platforms Inc Meta Platforms Inc. has been approached by Silvergate Capital Corp., looking to buy Diem’s intellectual property for $200M. The California-based bank had approached Diem Association, previously known as Libra, to issue stablecoins in May 2021. More: - Diem was founded by Facebook in 2019 and aimed to create a global digital currency.
- However, Diem has faced considerable backlash and regulatory hurdles throughout its tenure.
- The company launched a digital wallet called Novi in Oct. 2021 amidst major criticism.
- The U.S. Federal Reserve denied approval for Diem USD, Diem’s stablecoin issuance in partnership with Silvergate.
- Meta allegedly wanted to sell the assets in hopes of returning some value to its investors.
- Reportedly, Meta only owns one-third of the project.
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TOP NFT COLLECTIONS (24hr Volume) | # | Name | 24h Volume | 24h % | | 1 | Bored Ape YC ETH | $8.95M | 22.5% ▲ | | 2 | Mutant Ape YC ETH | $7.97M | 41.67% ▼ | | 3 | Cryptopunks ETH | $6.75M | 68.59% ▼ | | 4 | Genesis Creepz ETH | $6.66M | 45.43% ▲ | | 5 | CLONE X - X TAKASHI MURAKAMI ETH | $4.43M | 206.68%▲ | Source: DappRadar, 14:00 EST (0% royalty NFTs with the majority of their daily transaction volume on LooksRare omitted)
TOP ETH NFT COLLECTIONS (Floor Cap) | # | Name | Floor Price (ETH) | 24h % | | 1 | Bored Ape YC | Ξ 95 | 2.15% ▲ | | 2 | CryptoPunks | Ξ 79.5 | 0.56% ▼ | | 3 | Mutant Ape YC | Ξ 19.1269 | 1.91% ▼ | | 4 | CLONE X | Ξ 8.8 | 10% ▲ | | 5 | Cool Cats | Ξ 14.54 | 3.07% ▼ | Source: NFT Price Floor, 14:00 EST
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 Elevate's "Cash or Coin" program Elevate Brands, which holds a portfolio of Amazon-focused product companies, will offer a choice to be paid in cryptocurrency while acquiring Amazon sellers. The company has integrated Coinbase Prime to facilitate the transaction in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. More: - Elevate's program is titled the "Cash or Coin" acquisition program.
- The crypto option is also available for the referral program, which will grant any person who refers an Amazon business that is later acquired successfully up to $500,000 in cash or cryptocurrency.
- Elevate has received $370M in funding from investors and owns 32 brands.
- Elevate will pay Nick Eary's company acquisition payout in BTC.
- Similarly, Empowery ECommerce Cooperative will receive its referral fee payout in BTC.
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 🍋 Fresh Funding 🍋 Fireblocks, Crypto settlement: $550M. The Series E funding round was co-led by D1 Capital Partners and Spark Capital. The funding saw participation from General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Mammoth, CapitalG, Altimeter, and ParaFi Capital. More: - Fireblocks is a crypto custody service and management platform.
- It has $45B worth of assets under custody.
- The platform has witnessed transactions of over $2T worth of crypto assets.
- The recent funding has increased its valuation to $8B, from $700M a year prior.
- Last year, it received a $310M Series D funding at a $2.2B valuation.
- Fireblocks has received $1B in funding so far.
- The incoming funds will be used to double the workforce, support more DeFi protocols and blockchains, and expand operations.
CoinTracker, Crypto tracking: $100M. The Series A funding round was led by Accel with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Intuit Ventures, General Catalyst, Initialized Capital, Y Combinator Continuity, and Seven Seven Six Ventures. More: - CoinTracker is a cryptocurrency portfolio tracking and tax compliance platform, which was recently valued at $1.3B.
- The fresh funding will be used to expand its workforce, develop the platform, and partner with more crypto exchanges.
- Accel partner Sagar Sanghvi will join CoinTracker’s board as part of the funding deal.
Blockdaemon, Blockchain infra: $207M. The Series C funding round was led by Tiger Global and Sapphire with participation from SoftBank, Boldstart Ventures, Galaxy Digital, StepStone Group, Matrix Capital Management, Lerer Hippeau, and others. More: - Blockdaemon is a scalable blockchain node management platform that currently supports over 40 blockchain networks.
- The company last raised $155M Series B in Sept. 2021 at a $1.26B valuation.
- The latest funding has increased its valuation to $3.25B.
- The fresh funding will boost the company’s efforts to build network resilience and open source tooling development.
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▲ TOP GAINERS | # | Name | Price | 24h % | | 1 | Theta Fuel TFUEL | $0.1773 | 9.37% ▲ | | 2 | The Sandbox SAND | $3.44 | 5.46% ▲ | | 3 | Ankr ANKR | $0.07235 | 3.23% ▲ | | 4 | FTX Token FTT | $38.25 | 1.77% ▲ | | 5 | BORA BORA | $0.9556 | 1.68% ▲ | ▼ TOP LOSERS | # | Name | Price | 24h % | | 1 | Gala GALA | $0.19 | 12.64%▼ | | 2 | Convex Finance CVX | $25.74 | 11.41%▼ | | 3 | Axie Infinity AXS | $47.25 | 11.25%▼ | | 4 | Quant QNT | $93.51 | 10.71%▼ | | 5 | Fantom FTM | $2.13 | 10.46%▼ | Source: CoinMarketCap, 14:30 EST
*Limited to cryptocurrencies in the Top 100
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Apifiny Group is expected to go public and list on the Nasdaq following its reverse merger with Abri SPAC I, Inc. The deal is expected to be completed by Q3 this year. More: - Abri SPAC I, Inc. was formed as a blank-check company in Aug. 2021 with the intent to form strategic business partnerships through merger, share exchange, stock purchase, etc., across disruptive financial and insurance sector startups.
- The digital asset trading exchange platform Apifiny’s merger will increase the pro forma enterprise value of the merged entity to $530M, of which $57M will be held as cash in Abri’s trust account.
- Apifiny offers a trading network across 25 exchanges.
- The exchange, since its launch in 2018, has partnered with Huobi Global, OKEx, Kucoin, OKCoin, and Blockchain.com’s exchanges.
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Propy announced a real estate-backed NFT service in the U.S. with two residential properties in Florida available at launch. The properties will be sold via auction. The real estate blockchain company Propy has developed smart contracts, an underlying legal framework, and has facilitated blockchain-based real estate sales since 2017. More: - Propy sold TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s Kyiv apartment in a pilot last year to showcase the use of NFTs in real estate.
- Propy’s platform caters to all stakeholders, including agents and brokers, and facilitates end-to-end real estate transactions, including a secure mode of payment.
- The platform accepts money transfers, cryptocurrency, and NFTs for purchase.
- The company will roll out the platform worldwide and provide a single underlying framework for real estate blockchain-based purchases.
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Matter Labs and Mirana Ventures received approval from BitDAO to fund a $200M decentralized autonomous organization, zkDAO. The funds will be utilized to expand the Ethereum layer 2 scaling protocol zkSync ecosystem. More: - Public infrastructure developments, security framework enhancement, and R&D grants will be provided through the fund.
- zkSync, engineered by Matter Labs, helps to ease Ethereum scalability issues such as network congestion and high fees.
- BitDAO is the largest decentralized treasury and has $2.5B in funds.
- Head of Mirana Ventures Jonathan Allen hopes the funds will benefit not only Ethereum scaling but also add to the BitDAO ecosystem.
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- Tesla's bitcoin holdings in Q4 2021 have remained unchanged at $1.26B worth of crypto. The automaker has not purchased or sold any bitcoins since Q2. It had purchased $1.5B worth of crypto in Feb. 2021 and later liquidated a part of its digital asset.
- Anheuser-Busch, the producer of Bud Light, is creating an NFT initiative dubbed "Bud Light N3XT Collection" that will feature 12,722 distinct tokens. The NFTs are being launched alongside its first zero-carb beer.
- cREAL, the stablecoin tied to Brazil's currency real, was launched by Celo and will be available on Ripio, FlowBTC, and NovaDAX crypto exchanges. The underlying framework is a proof-of-stake and open-source blockchain.
- Fidelity's application for spot market Bitcoin ETF trading was rejected by the SEC, citing insufficient fraud prevention mechanisms. The regulatory body is concerned about price manipulation in the crypto industry.
- The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) approved cryptocurrency exchange Gemini's affiliate Gemini Galactic's SEC broker-dealer registration and FINRA membership.
- Rio de Janeiro's secretary of economic development Chicão Bulhões informed CoinDesk about the city's plan to become a crypto hub by investing 1% of its treasury reserves in crypto. Chicão hopes that by leading the investments, the city can rally citizens' faith in the digital asset and can help reduce their distrust.
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- March 10 - NoCode's Impact on the Gig Economy (Register Here)
- March 23 - Need to Know NoCoder: Nichole Bestman (Bubble) (Register Here)
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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