Crypto assets tumbled during the week with the total market capitalization hovering around $1.9 trillion on Friday. Macro trends continue to drive the overall direction of the crypto and stock market. Annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 8.5% in March of 2022, the highest since December of 1981 from 7.9% in February.

Head of the International Monetary Fund warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine risks eroding the world’s recovery from the pandemic and urged central banks to act decisively to curb inflation before it gets harder to control.

Crypto Sector Performance

Web3 was the worst-performing sector during the week, down -12.57%. The currencies sector declined the least returning -7.8%. Monero (XMR) and Bicoin Cash (BCH) were the only two currencies ending the week in green.

Top News Recap

• BlackRock, Fidelity and others to invest $400M in USDC stablecoin issuer Circle - Techcrunch

• Near protocol is planning to introduce its own stablecoin called USN - Theblockcrypto

• Meta begins to allow sale of digital goods on Horizon Worlds, taking nearly 50% in transaction fees - CNBC

• President Biden announces former Ripple adviser as pick for Fed vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve - Cointelegraph

• Circle will apply for U.S. crypto bank charter in the near future - Bloomberg 

• Bison Digital Assets becomes the first bank in Portugal to gain approval to offer crypto services - Beincrypto

• Ethereum merge has been delayed until the latter half of 2022 - Decrypt

Elon Musk Offered $43B to buy Twitter

Elon Musk’s Twitter bid promoted the company to adopt a “poison pill” defense. This move would allow existing shareholders to purchase additional shares at a discount making it harder for Musk to control a majority of shareholder votes.

Crypto Adoption News

• Opera expands crypto browser to iOS for access to 9 blockchain ecosystems

  - Blockworks

• Warner Music partners with the proof of attendance protocol (POAP) for event NFTs - Ledgerinsights

• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says Amazon could sell NFTs in the future - The Block

Top Venture Funding Activity

• Epic Games raises $2B to 'build the metaverse' - Decrypt

• NFT avatar platform Genies achieves unicorn status after a $150M raise at a $1B valuation - Decrypt

• Uniswap Labs launches venture unit to invest in web3 projects - The Block

• Ignite (Formerly Tendermint) launches $150M accelerator for web 3 projects

  - The Block

• CertiK reaches $2B valuation with new funding from Goldman Sachs and others - The Block

Latest Crypto Policies from G20

Source: crypto.com

Other News and Top Reads

• The US Government suspects that a North Korean hacking group was behind last month's $600M Ronin exploit - The Block

• Russia goes bullish on Bitcoin as finalized bill suggests adopting crypto as legal tender - ZYCrypto

• Mozilla will accept crypto donations, but only from proof-of-stake coins

  - Coindesk

• Lido, one of the largest liquidity pools for Ethereum staking plans to lower requirements to become a validator - Coingape 

• ​​Crypto lender Celsius will stop paying interest on new deposits from the U.S.

  - Celsius

• Polygon commits to going carbon neutral in 2022 - Cointelegraph

• Central banks in emerging economies look to CBDCs for payment efficiency

  - Finextra

• Gemini exchange officially launched Its crypto rewards credit card in the United States - CNET