Bitcoin and Ethereum decline on the week, Worldcoin to launch a new Orb and Terraform Labs files for bankruptcy

Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, previously often called Chain Response.

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s largest and most necessary crypto tales delivered to your inbox each Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here.

Hiya, and welcome again to the second version of the brand new and improved TechCrunch Crypto publication. As beforehand talked about, alongside our usually scheduled information bits, I’ll be including some contemporary recurring segments and options — so if you happen to do (or don’t) like what you see, let me know at jacquelyn@techcrunch.com.

Fortunately, the crypto world wasn’t too chaotic this week — however let’s get into the largest headlines.

This week in web3

1. Worldcoin to launch new Orb to make its eyeball scanning device look ‘more friendly’
2. 1RoundTable bets on ‘long-term, less volatile’ strategy with new growth-stage crypto fund
3. Can crypto’s recent wins resurrect venture interest?
4. Terraform Labs files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
5. After 12 years, Ripple’s president sees its payment and enterprise businesses evolving further

Crunching numbers

This week the crypto market noticed crimson as the 2 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin and Ether, dropped 7% and 13.5%, respectively, on the week, in keeping with CoinMarketCap data. Even with that stated, the worldwide crypto market cap was comparatively unchanged on the week round $1.55 trillion.

Within the NFT world, gross sales quantity declined 16.4% over a seven-day interval to $248 million, however the variety of patrons — and sellers — elevated round 50%, in keeping with CryptoSlam data. The highest three collections by gross sales quantity have been CryptoPunks at $19.33 million, CryptoUndeads at $12.36 million and Ordinals at $8 million, throughout the identical interval.

Our favourite ‘Crypto Twitter’ put up

Binance went to courtroom on Monday to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee June lawsuit towards them — and the choose wasn’t entertaining a few of their arguments, as Fortune reporter Leo Schwartz, highlighted under.

In right now’s listening to for Binance’s movement to dismiss the SEC’s lawsuit, Binance’s legal professionals are echoing Coinbase from final week that Howey wants a contract.

This time, the choose is pushing again. “You’re being slightly too cute,” she says, arguing its language is broader.

— Leo Schwartz (@leomschwartz) January 22, 2024

The most recent pod

For this week’s episode, I interviewed Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, the expertise firm that goals to assist develop the ecosystem for the layer-1 blockchain Solana.

The dialog centered on Solana Cellular and its flagship web3 Android smartphone, Saga, which bought out in mid-December, in addition to its new cellphone, Chapter 2 — which was introduced final week.

Inside its first 30 hours, Chapter 2 had over 30,000 preorders — signaling quite a lot of demand for the next-generation Android-based cellphone. On the time of recording, Anatoly shared there have been over 40,000 preorders.

Anatoly and Jacquelyn mentioned the lengthy street to promoting out Saga, how necessary rewards and builders are and the nitty-gritty particulars for Chapter 2. In addition they dove into the corporate’s technique and long-term mission of going up towards Google and Apple app shops and the way lengthy it could take for Solana Cellular to interrupt even.

For those who want a refresher on Solana Cellular’s Saga cellphone, we’ve acquired you lined:

Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the most recent episodes, and please go away us a assessment if you happen to like what you hear!

Observe the cash

1. Polymer Labs raises $23M to construct out the Ethereum blockchain’s interoperability
2. Avalanche-based Masa raised $5.4M to construct a “private knowledge community”
3. Scene Infrastructure Firm raised $3M from a16z to develop FWB token’s utility
4. Web3 gaming startup Arcade2Earn raised $4.8M in non-public token spherical
5. Ingonyama raised $21 million to enhance zero-knowledge expertise

This listing was compiled with info from Messari in addition to TechCrunch’s personal reporting.

What else we’re writing

Wish to department out from the world of web3? Right here’s some articles on TechCrunch that caught our consideration this week.

1. VCs are not done betting on fintech
2. As the Mac turns 40, a tip of the hat to Mr. Macintosh
3. Tesla says EV sales growth may be ‘notably lower’ in 2024
4. Here’s what to know to raise a Series A right now
5. iPhone users should turn on Apple’s stolen device protection feature