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Sushi Swap Head Chef Jared Grey fielded questions from his community about an SEC subpoena he received during a Thursday call.

Circle’s USDC continues to see redemptions en masse as the stablecoin’s market cap fell to about $32.5 billion, a decline of roughly $10 billion over the last two weeks.

“It appears that the events of early March have damaged the trust crypto investors and traders have in the reliability of the stablecoin, despite Circle offering full redemptions without delays for USDC,” said Steven Zheng, director of research at The Block.

Net redemptions in the past 24 hours reached close to $463 billion, with $487 billion burned and just $24.1 million minted. USDC’s market cap has gone from around $33.3 billion to $32.8 billion over the same period, according to data from The Block.

USDC market cap chart via CoinGecko

Troubles with the stablecoin began in early March when news surfaced that Circle had $3.3 billion of reserve funds held in Silicon Valley Bank, which led to USDC de-pegging from the US dollar. After U.S. federal bank regulators guaranteed the full return of customer deposits from Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, however, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire announced that operations would resume. Still, redemptions have continued. 

Last week, Allaire addressed concerns in a post on Twitter, connecting the sell-off to a wider de-risking process among investors from projects exposed to U.S. banks and U.S. regulatory risk. For Circle, Allaire said, “we are going to keep doing what we have always done,” noting that the stablecoin has “never failed to mint or redeem USDC for $1, including during the past weeks stress test.”

“USDC as a protocol and digital currency continues to function on public chains, protocols and wallets uninterrupted,” Allaire said. 

Circle directed The Block to Allaire’s tweet.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

USDC, the key stablecoin in decentralized finance, temporarily lost its dollar peg earlier this month after the collapse of its key banking partner.

Traders are placing their bets on Ethereum, as the monthly volume of ETH futures in March reached its highest point since May 2022, according to data from The Block.

The spike is being driven, in part, in anticipation of Ethereum’s  Shanghai-Capella upgrade, or Shapella, which is scheduled for April 12 and will enable staked ether withdrawals for the first time, among other technical upgrades.

The ability to withdraw staked ether is significant because it provides validators with easier access to their funds, which is  likely to cause an increase in liquidity while boosting the number of validators on the network.

Following “The Merge,” when Ethereum switched from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake network, the minimum amount of ETH required to participate in staking rewards as a validator was 32 ETH, or close to $128,000 at that time. Because funds were “locked up,” validators were not able to use those funds for other purposes. Still, the number of validators on the Ethereum network currently is about 560,000.

Enabling withdrawals of staked ether will make it easier for individuals and groups to participate in the network. With a more clear path to withdrawal, it is likely that more people will be willing to participate as validators, thus increasing the security of the network.

Ahead of the upgrade, traders are placing their bets on the future price of Ethereum, with open interest reaching all-time highs for ether options on CME this month. The volume of completed trades for Ethereum options lagged behind, signaling that traders are accumulating contracts in anticipation of the update, betting on which direction the price will swing.

“We have seen increased buying of ETH calls this week,” said Joe Kruy, head of institutional coverage for America’s at Paradigm, a liquidity provider for crypto derivatives. “However, I do not view most of these upside flows as bullish,” he said.

Kruy noted that short ETH and long BTC has been a popular volatility spread trade this year. “I believe some of this call buying is closing out of short ETH positions to monetize this spread,” he said, “rather than adding risk ahead of the event.”

“We have seen a bit of vol buying ahead of the event as a hedge,” he said, “just not much in comparison to overall BTC flows.”

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

TeraWulf reiterated its 5.5 EH/s computing power target for the second quarter of the year.

Coinbase (COIN) has named Lucas Matheson as its country director in Canada and said it signed an enhanced Pre-Registration Undertaking with that country’s regulators, according to a Thursday afternoon blog post.

The low-cost carrier has expanded its partnership with NFT ticketing company TravelX to offer all tickets as NFTs on the Algorand blockchain.

A trio of conservative groups are holding Sen. Roger Marshall’s, R-Kan., feet to the fire over his work on digital asset legislation with Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

“We are extremely disappointed in your effort to attack digital asset companies,” the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform and FreedomWorks said in the letter, which was shared first with The Block. “Why are you supporting new, big government regulation?”

Marshall, who sits on both the Senate Agriculture Committee that oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, co-authored anti-money laundering legislation specific to digital assets last year with Warren. The Massachusetts Democrat pledged last month to reintroduce the bill with him. The Kansas senator has been one of the more vocal Republican critics of digital assets, also joining Warren in inquires to Silvergate Bank and Binance in recent months. 

The conservative groups claim Marshall’s efforts “are likely to encourage digital asset companies to move outside of the U.S.’s jurisdiction.” The letter also pointed to the recent collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, saying that Marshall, Warren and Van Hollen are trying to “prevent and slow alternative vehicles for investment” with their crypto policy moves.

“Millions of Americans hold digital assets and they should not be punished because of Washington’s long history of serving the banking lobby,” the groups said. The letter was signed by Club for Growth President David McIntosh, FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist. 

The letter comes after Marshall, Warren and Van Hollen penned their own letter slamming the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, claiming the company has “purposefully evaded regulators” and “cast serious doubt on the stability and legitimacy” of its business. Weeks later, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance for allegedly violating its own compliance protocols and operating illegally in the United States. 

Marshall’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Conservative groups have become more active on digital asset issues in recent years. During the last election cycle, the Club for Growth launched a pair of crypto-focused super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited funds. FreedomWorks hosted a cryptocurrency conference at its Washington, D.C. headquarters last fall and the libertarian-leaning Americans for Tax Reform often weighs in on crypto issues. 

For her part, Warren embraces her role as a crypto critic. The Massachusetts lawmaker launched her reelection bid this week, touting a headline that says she is “building an anti-crypto army.”

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin mining stocks tracked by The Block were mixed on Thursday, with nine gaining and the other ten declining.

Bitcoin fell 1.5% to $27,962 by market close.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin miners are on track to hit their best month in terms of revenue since May 2022, when Terra collapsed and crypto winter really started chilling the industry.

Miners brought in at least $718 million in March so far, according to data from The Block Research.

“With the bitcoin price run, we saw another month of meaningful increase in hashrate, which in turn accelerated block times and resulted in more value being generated for the mining industry as a whole both in terms of BTC and USD,” said Charles Chong, Foundry’s senior manager of business development.

Hashrate refers to the total computing power from mining machines plugged into the network, and it has gone up by about 20% since the start of the month.

Revenue for miners had been on a decline since March 2022, at the same time bitcoin traded lower. That, combined with a spike in energy prices, drastically thinned margins for companies in the space

A reversal in those trends starting earlier this year has given miners some much-needed breathing room. 

At the same time, transaction volume on the Bitcoin blockchain also jumped from $499.34 in February to $689.68 in March as of Thursday.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.