Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes,
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Jack Dorsey has stepped down as Twitter CEO
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced Monday that he has stepped down from his role as CEO. Replacing Dorsey will be Twitter board member and chief technology officer Parag Agrawal, who was unanimously appointed to CEO by the company’s board of directors.
Dorsey also serves as the CEO and chairman of crypto-friendly payments tech firm Square, and it is unclear if he left Twitter to solely focus on the platform’s plans to develop a decentralized Bitcoin (BTC) exchange. He did note, however, that the company does not need to be founder-led to thrive.
“I believe it’s really important to give Parag the space he needs to lead,” said Dorsey. “I believe it’s critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder’s influence or direction.”
Former Citi banker launches $1.5B crypto fund, taps Algorand as first partner
On Monday, 14-year Wall Street veteran and former Citi banking executive Matt Zhang announced a $1.5 billion multi-strategy fund called Hivemind Capital Partners that is aiming to support up-and-coming crypto projects.
In particular, the fund will place a strong emphasis on crypto infrastructure builders, virtual worlds and Metaverse projects, and programmable money. The fund’s first technology partner will be proof-of-stake-based blockchain Algorand.
While Hivemind is yet to announce any major funding, Zhang said the firm will support crypto entrepreneurs with infrastructure that cannot currently be offered by traditional asset management models.
Square rebrands to Block as focus shifts to blockchain
Speaking of Square, the firm revealed on Wednesday that it had rebranded to Block, suggesting it may be ramping up its focus on the blockchain sector.
The company said the rebrand will bring the payments firm together with Cash App, the decentralized Bitcoin exchange project tbDEX, and music and video streaming platform Tidal. As part of the rebrand, Square Crypto, the cryptocurrency-focused unit of the payments firm, will be changing its name to Spiral and joining the Block family.
“Block references the neighborhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks, and of course, tungsten cubes,” said Square.
MicroStrategy purchases $414.4 million worth of Bitcoin, with total BTC balance eclipsing $3.5 billion
MicroStrategy, the analytics software firm led by fervent Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor, announced on Monday that it had snapped up a 7,002 BTC worth $414.4 million.
After the purchase, Saylor stated that the company’s total BTC holdings stood at a whopping 121,044, acquired for roughly $3.57 billion at an average price of $29,534 per BTC. To fund that latest shopping spree for digital gold, the firm sold 571,001 shares of company stock between Oct. 1 and Nov. 29 at $732.16 apiece.
MicroStrategy first bought Bitcoin back in August 2020 as part of its treasury strategy, and with Saylor at the helm, the firm has purchased the asset relentlessly since—regardless of price—and is showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
Meta expands crypto advertisement eligibility on Facebook
Social media virtual reality firm Meta expanded the eligibility requirements for running crypto ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram this week, enabling companies more freedom in running digital asset product-related promotions.
Prior to Meta’s latest update of its crypto advertising guidelines, a limited number of crypto firms were able to advertise on Facebook as the platform only recognized a small number of regulatory licenses.
According to the updated policy, crypto exchanges, trading platforms, wallet providers, mining infrastructure firms, crypto lenders and borrowing services can now receive written permission to run ads on Facebook. The firm cited maturation and increased regulation of the sector as the reasons why it changed its tune.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $55,468, Ether (ETH) at $4,407 and XRP at $0.95. The total market cap is at $2.54 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Terra (LUNA) at 62.30%, Stacks (STX) at 33.85% and Polygon (MATIC) at 29.04%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Gala (GALA) at -30.67%, WAX (WAXP) at -19.18% and Immutable X (IMX) at -17.85%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
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