The Next Block

Today’s key story focuses on a hybrid hypothesis for Traditional Finance (TradFi) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi), suggesting each are on a path of convergence as they tackle similar challenges to modernize financial services, with the following hypotheses. Thread below 👇

Coinbase has achieved a milestone by securing approval from the NFA to operate as a Futures Commission Merchant in the U.S. @coinbase can now offer futures contracts in $BTC and $ETH to eligible customers. coindesk.com/business/2023/…

Cloud Migration Services Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Platform (Solution, Service), By Deployment (Private, Public, Hybrid), By Enterprise Size, By End-use Industry, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2023 - 2030 businesswire.com/news/home/2023…

Here are 78 charts that explain the current state of the US economy. Some of these will shock you!

Since the launch of CCIP, I have seen the topic of LINK tokenomics come up often. People have been asking, “How does CCIP generating revenue benefit me?” or “How do tokenomics work with no token burn?” or “Where do the paid LINK fees go?” This thread explains it ALL:

99% of people don’t understand @Chainlink They think it’s an oracle network, but with Chainlink 2.0 it’s evolving into something much more Here’s what everyone misses (and why this could drive the price of $LINK to $1,000) [A microthread ⚡ 🧵] 1/10

Amazon has spent $78 BILLION on research and development in the last 12 months. That is insane 🤯

Download and read the full report here: gfma.org/wp-content/upl…

News coverage from @blockworks blockworks.co/news/tokenized…

GFMA and Boston Consulting Group released a report on how tokenized assets and distributed ledgers could save finance billions. DLT could unlock $20 billion in annual savings across global clearing and settlement costs. Full report and press releases 👇

Mastercard, PayPal and Robinhood dive deeper into crypto as industry shows 'promise' tcrn.ch/42CmSJs via @techcrunch

Link to announcement: fdic.gov/news/press-rel…

BREAKING: FDIC entered into an agreement with JP Morgan Chase Bank to purchase and assume all deposits and assets of First Republic Bank.

Habemus MiCA! 🇪🇺🚀 After more than 2.5 years of consultation, heated debates, last-minute amendments, and very close votes in the committee, the EU Parliament's plenary today passed the new EU crypto framework with an impressive majority of 517 MEPs for and 38 votes against. MiCA is the most comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets in the world, which is why (besides fears that it could ban bitcoin in the EU at some point last year) it has attracted global attention in the crypto community. Providing regulatory clarity amid global uncertainties, combined with its large single market of 450 million consumers, could make the EU the next natural global hub for crypto projects. Since there is still a lot of confusion about MiCA’s rules and their impact on crypto projects (be it CeFi, DeFi, NFTs etc.) and I received a lot of questions that I unfortunately can't answer all, I wrote an in-depth "MiCA Primer" about everything you need to know now - from MiCA’s origins, goals, rules for token issuers or crypto asset service providers to my thoughts on its implications for the industry in the EU and globally. I hope this is helpful. Feel free to ask any other questions in the comments, and let me know if you disagree. And last but not least: It’s spoken “mee-kaa” :P paddihansen.substack.com/p/the-eus-mica…

JPMorgan is ineligible to acquire First Republic Bank. It controls +10% of U.S deposits. Too big to fail. This ends well.

Coinbase responds to the SEC’s Wells notice | Full video youtu.be/zq2jf4sBdYE via @YouTube

Why do AI chatbots make things up, and will we ever be able to fully trust their output? We asked several experts and dug into how these AI models work to find the answers. trib.al/2NvcgcB

Apple launches Apple Card’s savings accounts with 4.15% interest rate tcrn.ch/3MKy4iI via @techcrunch

The 2022 Web3 and Digital Assets Year in Review, and Trends for 2023, by @TheNextBlockIO open.substack.com/pub/thenextblo…

This week, Jamie Dimon published a massive 16,000-word $JPM Letter to Shareholders, sharing his views on topics such as inflation, fiscal policy, AI, and interest rates. Here are 15 Key Highlights from the letter 📄🧵 1. Are we moving from a virtuous cycle to a vicious cycle?