Headlines
Feds Collins said there are risks in cutting interest rates too early and the U.S. economy needs to cool down to get inflation back to the Feds 2% target. When it comes to monetary policy, Collins said the recent unexpected rise in economic activity and inflation suggests that policy may need to be maintained at current levels until there is greater confidence that inflation will continue to move toward 2%. Monetary policy and balance sheet policy are very different, and the market has already priced in the Feds balance sheet actions. (Jinshi)
Robinhood Q1 Cryptocurrency Notional Trading Volume Increased 224% YoY to $36 Billion
Robinhoods net revenue in the first quarter was $618 million, while analysts expected $546.8 million. In the first quarter, transaction-based revenue increased 59% year-on-year to $329 million, while analysts expected $255.3 million. In the first quarter, cryptocurrency trading revenue increased 232% to $126 million, while analysts expected $70.9 million. Options revenue increased 16% to $154 million. The number of monthly active users in the first quarter was 13.7 million, while analysts expected 11.29 million. The company maintained its full-year overall operating expense forecast at $1.85 billion to $1.95 billion.
Robinhood assets under custody (AUC) grew 65% to $129.6 billion, driven by rising stock and cryptocurrency prices.
Robinhood’s Q1 cryptocurrency notional trading volume increased 224% year-over-year to $36 billion, a much higher increase than the 40% growth in notional trading volume for stocks, even though the latter had a larger trading volume of $225 billion.
Additionally, Robinhoods Q1 net revenue increased to $157 million, compared with a net loss of $511 million in the same period last year.
Robinhood shares rose 6% to $18.82 in after-hours trading. The stock is up 44% so far this year. (The Block)
FTX: Almost all customers will receive a full refund
According to CNBC, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX said that almost all customers will receive a full refund, or even more. According to the reorganization plan released on Tuesday evening, FTX estimates that it owes creditors about $11.2 billion. FTX said it has $14.5 billion to $16.3 billion to distribute to creditors, and the plan said that customers with claims of $50,000 or less will receive approximately 118% of their allowed claims. About 98% of creditors will receive this compensation.
Sunil Kavuri, a representative of the creditor group of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, suggested voting against its compensation plan. Sunil Kavuri insisted on his view that when the FTX exchange filed for bankruptcy, cryptocurrencies should be paid in kind rather than in dollar value. (TheBlock)
Industry News
BitMEX announces options trading launch in a bid to take market share from Deribit
BitMEX announced a partnership with PowerTrade to launch options trading on its platform, aiming to grab market share from Deribit. PowerTrade is a cryptocurrency options platform whose backers include Ascend Ventures, Pantera Capital and Ledger Prime. (TheBlock)
Mastercard joins hands with Citi, JPMorgan and other US banking giants to pilot tokenized settlement
Payment settlement giant MasterCard has teamed up with major US banking institutions such as Citigroup, Visa and JPMorgan Chase to test the use of distributed ledger technology for bank settlements through tokenization. It is reported that the cooperation between several banking giants and payment processors aims to test a shared ledger technology called the Regulatory Settlement Network (RSN). RSN enables tokenized assets such as treasury bonds, investment-grade debt instruments and commercial bank funds to be centrally settled. (Cointelgraph)
UK Economic Minister: Stablecoin and staking legislation may be passed in the coming weeks
British Economic Minister Bim Afolami said that the British government may pass stablecoin and pledge legislation in the coming weeks, and will introduce more content later, saying that these two things are absolute priorities in the coming weeks and months. (Coindesk)
Indonesias government agency, Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Authority (Bappebti), whose responsibilities include regulating cryptocurrencies, has recently established a special committee to oversee the industry. The Crypto Asset Committee was established based on regulations issued in January. Cryptocurrencies fall under Bappebtis jurisdiction because cryptocurrencies are considered a commodity in Indonesia.
“The committee will serve as a driving force to ensure that the crypto asset industry continues to operate smoothly and remains within the applicable legal framework,” Bappebti head Kasan said at the opening ceremony of BLK 2024 in Jakarta on May 2. “Therefore, optimizing the role of the crypto asset committee should be a focus of the deployment of the current crypto asset ecosystem.” (CoinDesk)
Project News
According to Tether’s transparency page, the authorized issuance of USDT on TON has reached 180 million US dollars, surpassing Cosmos and Near to become the sixth largest blockchain in terms of USDT issuance, second only to Tron, Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and Omni.
Ekubo: Token airdrop is now live
Starknet Ecosystem AMM Protocol Ekubo posted on the X platform that the token EKUBO has been officially launched. The token is mainly divided into 3 parts: 1/3 is distributed to users, 1/3 is distributed to the team, and 1/3 is sold by DAO through TWAMM as ETH/STRK/USDC within 2 months starting from May 23. There is no equity, no low circulation, high FDV market value game, it is as simple as posting half a tweet, and it is open to all qualified people.
LayerZero CEO: Only 6.67% -13.33% of 6 million addresses are eligible for airdrops
LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino said in the TG group that considering that nearly half of the addresses have only made one transaction, he believes that only 400,000 to 800,000 of the 6 million addresses are real, which may mean that only 6.67% -13.33% of the addresses are eligible for airdrops. At the same time, Bryan Pellegrino also said that data work is still in progress.
Character*Voice
FOX reporter Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that Grayscale never submitted an S-1 application for its Ethereum futures ETF, so the application is incomplete. The SEC may want to see if a completed futures application appears before considering its spot application.
It also said that investor demand for existing Ethereum futures ETFs has been relatively sluggish since its launch last year.
Earlier today, it was reported that Grayscale submitted a notice to the U.S. SEC on May 7 to withdraw its 19 b-4 application for Ethereum futures ETF, with only three weeks left before the SEC was forced to make a decision on its application.
The SEC originally planned to make a final decision on the Grayscale Ethereum Futures ETF on May 30. Grayscale initially submitted a 19 b-4 application on September 19, 2023, hoping to list its Ethereum Futures ETF on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart initially believed that Grayscale planned to strategically use its Ethereum futures ETF as a Trojan Horse to force the SEC to approve its Ethereum spot ETF. But he is confused as to why Grayscale is withdrawing its application now, as the SEC will be forced to decide on May 23 whether to approve at least one Ethereum spot ETF application.
Investment and Financing
Crypto trading platform Arbelos completes $28 million in financing, led by Dragonfly
Crypto trading platform Arbelos announced that it has completed a $28 million financing round, led by Dragonfly and participated by FalcolnX, Circle, Paxos, Polygon and Deribit.
Arbelos Markets will focus primarily on derivatives and over-the-counter transactions for institutional participants, providing trading liquidity to companies such as hedge funds and venture capital firms, acting as counterparties for popular products such as options and futures. This round of financing will be closed in mid-2023. (Fortune)
The Lava Foundation, which is committed to developing the modular blockchain network Lava, announced the completion of a $11 million financing round, with participation from Animoca Brands, Gate.io Ventures, Coingecko Ventures, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Ash Crypto, CryptoLark, and media Crypto Times Japan, Le Journal Du Coin and The Rollup. It is reported that the Lava mainnet launch and airdrop are expected to take place in the coming months. (TheBlock)
Zero-knowledge startup Lagrange completes $13.2 million in financing, led by Founders Fund
Zero-knowledge cryptography startup Lagrange announced the completion of a $13.2 million financing led by Peter Thiels Founders Fund. Lagrange Labs is a crypto startup based on Ethereums EigenLayer re-mortgage platform, focusing on researching zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology. (Coindesk)
Owlto Finance, an intent-centric cross-chain interoperability protocol, announced the completion of an $8 million strategic round of financing. This round of financing was jointly led by Bixin Ventures and CE Innovation Capital, and followed by Presto, Hailstone Labs, Skyland Ventures, Blocore, SNZ Capital, BESTO, Kroma, Coinseeker.co, Stratified Capital, X 21 Digital, Maxx Capital, Incubate Fund, GSR, ChainCatcher, etc.
This round of financing will mainly be used to accelerate the upgrade of AI-intended cross-chain products, the development of modular cross-chain interoperability protocols, global operations and marketing, full-chain liquidity solution V2, and capitalized market operations.
Bixin Ventures, the co-lead investor in this round, said: Owlto is a very innovative team. They were the first to propose an intent-centric AI cross-chain product. In the past, we have witnessed Owltos rapid growth and thriving community. We believe that in the near future, Owlto will unleash its huge potential, become a leading infrastructure project, and revolutionize the Web3 technology field. We are very happy to include Owlto in our portfolio and look forward to its success.
It is reported that Owlto is a cross-chain bridge that started from ETH Layer 2. It has grown into the top three cross-chain bridges in the Ethereum ecosystem in just about half a year after its launch. It accounts for more than 75% of the third-party cross-chain volume in some ETH Layer 2, and has recently become the number one cross-chain bridge in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Owlto already has 1.6 million independent user addresses in more than 206 countries and regions.
