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Episode 26 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Enclave Markets CEO David Wells.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

David Wells is the CEO of Enclave Markets — a development team whose first product, Enclave Cross, essentially creates on-chain OTC dark pools for digital assets.

In this episode, Wells explains why OTC traders benefit from maintaining confidentiality via Enclave’s Fully Encrypted Exchange (‘FEX’), and how Enclave aims to combine the best elements of centralized and decentralized exchanges in its products.

During this episode, Chaparro and Wells also discuss:

• How Enclave Cross eliminates MEV
• Why crypto needs crossing networks
• The ‘giga-FUD’ in the market

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Railgun, and Flare Network

About Railgun
Railgun is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let Railgun’s zero-knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with Railgun SDK, and be sure to check out Railgun with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more.

About Flare
Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network.

© 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 bulls are back, as the biggest crypto token by market capitalization surged past $28,000 for the first time since June. 

The coin was trading at $28,399 at 3:09 p.m. EDT on Sunday, up 5.2% over the past 24 hours, according to TradingView data. It’s surged a staggering 37.8% over the week and is up 20.8% over the past month. 

The rally comes amid speculation that the Federal Reserve could slow, or even pause, the pace of interest rate increases this week as contagion from the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank continue to reverberate around the world. Credit Suisse is the latest financial institution to fall victim. CME’s FedWatch tool shows a 62% chance that rates will be hiked by 25 basis points, with the chance that rates are unchanged coming in at 38%.

Risk profile

Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Manas Agrawal said Saturday that the crypto rally was due to a reset in the risk profile of assets. They said uninsured deposits of cash are no longer seen as the safe haven they once were.  

Interest in central bank digital currencies is rising, but these so-called CBDCs are “far from ready except some academic pilots,” they wrote. 

They concluded: “But then what is the closest that comes with no-counter-party risk, decentralized and with complete self-custody – Bitcoin!”

They said that cryptocurrencies are volatile, but have outperformed the U.S. dollar, gold and stocks over long periods.

Twitter bulls

 Twitter users and commentators were quick to jump back on the bitcoin bull bandwagon on Sunday. Many referenced the banking crisis and ongoing money printing by the Fed.

“You can’t be bearish on scarcity assets once the FED is printing!,” one user wrote.

“People would rather hold their wealth in #Bitcoin than in a bank…,” said another. “Next week if we see another bank bailout, #Bitcoin will break $30,000.”

(With additional reporting assistance from Adam McCarthy.)

© 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.

As the NCAA’s March Madness gripped the U.S. this week, market madness took hold in the crypto world. Bitcoin and ether surged 35% and 25% respectively even as turmoil persisted in the banking industry. Some regional banks witnessed double-digit declines in their share prices toward the end of this week and the chaos looks set to continue with regulators and key banking players debating how to stem contagion, which is all happening alongside a key macroeconomic event, the Fed’s decision on rates.

(And yes, let’s not talk about how my alma mater Northwestern failed to advance to the NCAA’s Sweet 16 bracket last night). 

Expect more turmoil

Turmoil is set to persist in the banking sector despite regulators confirming last week that depositors of both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be made whole. Attention has now turned to other regional banks that may face similar challenges.

One of those banks is First Republic, whose shares fell more than 30% on Friday after an announcement that several big banks would come together to orchestrate a rescue deal for the regional player. The announcement did not succeed in shoring up confidence. Meanwhile, a coalition of midsize banks in the U.S. has approached regulators about extending FDIC insurance to all depositors for the next two years as another measure to increase confidence, according to a report from Bloomberg. 

The KBW Nasdaq bank index ended the week down about 11%. Investors are likely to experience more turbulence heading into the open on Monday unless regulators can restore confidence. 

Across the pond, Switzerland is preparing to use emergency measures to fast-track the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, so banks and regulators can seal the merger deal before markets open on Monday, according to a report from the Financial Times. All eyes will be on Credit Suisse and the knock-on effect the news has on markets. 

Fed watchers stand guard

Speaking of markets, as banking stocks tumbled, bitcoin and ether surged. Analysts and investors will be watching closely to see whether the crypto assets maintain this rally with the Federal Reserve expected to hike interest rates on Wednesday. 

On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve will kick off its two-day Federal Open Markets Committee meeting for March. The meeting will close out with a news conference and interest rate decision on Wednesday. The Fed is expected to hike rates by 25 basis points despite the turmoil in the banking industry, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. 

“We expect that the [Bank Term Funding Program] will be enough to stem further bank runs, and at least quell market volatility until next week’s FOMC, allowing them to hike 25 basis points,” said crypto trading firm QCP Capital in a market update this week. 

Drop it likes its hot

A day after the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, a highly anticipated airdrop will take place. 

Layer 2 scaling solution Arbitrum will airdrop its token on Thursday. About 12.75% of its total token supply will be airdropped to the community. The tokens will be given to those who have used the network over the last year. Offchain Labs, the developer of Arbitrum, worked with crypto data provider Nansen to design the criteria designating who should receive the airdrop, The Block reported. 

The airdrop was announced to give recipients time to nominate themselves as delegates and give the Arbitrum Foundation time to handle approvals. Offchain Labs hasn’t communicated with any centralized exchanges to list the Arbitrum token, The Block reported. 

Crypto VCs recently told The Block that at least half of their portfolio companies were holding back token launches amid headwinds around exchange fees and regulatory concerns. In recent weeks, several high-profile projects such as Arbtitrum and Blur have announced airdrops. 

© 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.