HSBC Enters the Metaverse

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

Mar. 16, 2022

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Supported by

Welcome to The Node.

In today's newsletter: Banking behemoth HSBC is entering the metaverse. NFTs could soon be coming to Instagram. And DeFi analytics firm Treehouse raises $18 million in seed funding round.

Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you – simply reply to this email.

–Daniel Kuhn

Today's must-reads

Top Shelf

INTO THE METAVERSE: Global banking giant HSBC is entering the metaverse through a partnership with metaverse startup The Sandbox. In a statement, the bank said it plans to buy a plot of land it will develop to engage with sports, esports and gaming fans. Although details of HSBC's development in the virtual plot were not announced, the chief marketing officer at HSBC, Asia-Pacific Suresh Balaji, said the bank sees "great potential" in creating "new experiences through emerging platforms."

INSTAGRAM NFTS: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a panel at Austin's South by Southwest Festival on Tuesday that NFTs are coming soon to Instagram. Zuckerberg, however, noted that, "I'm not ready to kind of announce exactly what's going on today." During the panel, The Verge's Platformer newsletter writer Casey Newton tweeted that Zuckerberg said "hopefully" in the coming months Instagram members will be able to mind their own non-fungible tokens within the app.

CRYPTO FRENZY: Argentina-based crypto exchange Lemon Cash is expanding into Brazil amid a crypto boom. Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer Borja Martel Seward told CoinDesk the platform plans to hire 60 employees in Brazil by the end of this year. Lemon Cash also plans to launch a crypto card this year via a partnership with Visa. The proposal, which does not have a finalized date, will focus on young consumers. The move comes as crypto trading ticks steadily upward in South America's largest economy.

MINING DEPLOYMENT: A few months after completely moving out of China, crypto miner Bit Digital has deployed over 39% of its total crypto mining rigs in North America. Although all of Bit Digital's rigs have been in North America since Nov. 17, the miner said it takes a while to secure electricity and develop facilities to house them. As of March 15, over 10,400 bitcoin miners and 712 ether miners have been deployed in the firm's North American sites.

MORE FUNDING: Decentralized finance (DeFi) analytics firm Treehouse has raised $18 million in seed funding as it aims to provide retail investors with the infrastructure they need to make more informed decisions about their DeFi positions. Funding was led by an "undisclosed large fintech investor," the company said in a statement Wednesday. Other investors, including Binance, Lightspeed, Wintermute and Jump Capital, also contributed. The funds will be used to expand Harvest's blockchain, the firm's flagship product, as well as protocol coverage, including building more products for retail and institutional users.

–Fran Velasquez

Overheard on CoinDesk TV...

Sound Bites

"If the Fed raises rates and tightens those financial conditions, which includes lower equity prices, then it will affect crypto overall."

––Ben Emons of Medley Global Advisors on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover."

What's the best way to beat the crypto market volatility? By sidestepping it altogether.

This is the premise of Earn – Nexo's industry-leading solution, that allows you to utilize your idle assets into a predictable source of passive income.

Unlock your crypto's full potential by earning up to 17% interest on hot assets, including BTC, ETH, AVAX, SOL, FTM, LUNA, DOT, MATIC and more.

Get daily compounding interest with our FLEX offering, or maximize your yield by opting for our Fixed Terms. Whatever you choose, rest assured – all assets in your Nexo account benefit from a $375M insurance by our industry-renowned custodians.

Get the ball rolling by depositing your digital assets till March 31 for a welcome bonus of up to $100.

Open your account now at nexo.io

What others are writing...

Off-Chain Signals

Argentina Cracks Down on Crypto With Anti-Money Laundering Rules (Decrypt)
How Andrew Yang Aims to Change Washington With a DAO (Decrypt)
Bored Ape startup plans virtual land sales, APECoin token to kick-start metaverse gaming project (The Block)
FTX partners with African payments company AZA Finance to boost Web 3 adoption (The Block)
Answering a morbid question: What happens to your bitcoin when you die? (Cointelegraph)
ConsenSys Notches $7B Valuation Amid Flurry of Legal Challenges (The Defiant)
The fight over anonymity is about the future of the internet (Protocol)

It's never been easier to earn interest on Bitcoin and Tether with BitMEX EARN. Enjoy up to 10% APR on Tether and 4% on Bitcoin, fully backed by the BitMEX Insurance Fund.

With new products, reliable security, and responsive customer service, there's never been a better time to join BitMEX. Start earning interest today by subscribing to EARN here.

BitMEX products and services are not available to US Persons and in other specified jurisdictions.

Putting the news into perspective

The Takeaway

A 'Petroyuan' Could Further Shake the Dollar's Dominance

In the latest sign that dollar-centric global financial system is under immense strain, China and Saudi Arabia have "accelerated" ongoing talks to price oil contracts in yuan instead of greenbacks, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The dollar's ongoing steady decline as a global trading and reserve instrument has significant implications for the U.S. economy, and could make neutral or non-state monetary networks more useful to a wider range of actors.

Crucially, the "Petroyuan" talks were not triggered by events in Ukraine, but have been ongoing for six years. They have been accelerated not by Russia's invasion, according to the Journal, but by U.S. Middle East policy in recent months. That includes the military withdrawal from Afghanistan and a White House more assertively critical of the allegedly Saudi-planned murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

U.S. support for the regional political agendas of OPEC nations was key to the arrangement that standardized the dollar pricing of oil in the 1970s, so hints of a pullback shouldn't be surprising. The U.S. is also consuming only one-quarter as much Middle Eastern oil as it was when the petrodollar system was established, while Chinese imports have grown. In many respects, that's for the good – Saudi Arabia is a brutally repressive monarchy, hardly less politically toxic than Putin's Russia, and the U.S. willingness to step back from a dangerously cozy relationship there is good for the world.

But the ongoing shift creates a fundamental structural problem. The dollar-denomination of OPEC oil sales plays a huge role in unifying global markets around a common currency. If the U.S. itself has looser ties to OPEC, both this powerful dollar-trade node and the broader dollar network will almost inevitably begin to splinter and unravel.

Read the full story here.

–David Z. Morris

Why Val Kilmer Believes in the Dynamic Utility Traits of NFTs

The non-fungible token (NFT) industry is rapidly moving from simple JPEGs to NFTs with real utility, and the dynamic utility traits that users can attach to their NFTs are at the forefront of this new trend. These NFTs enhance the relationship between any creator and his or her community by imbuing simple NFTs with bespoke utilities that can grow and change, provide owner-specific benefits and open an essentially unlimited set of interactive tools to cultivate and engage communities.

Some examples of these creator-community relationships: entertainers, athletes, celebrities and their fans; art creators and collectors; social causes and their supporters; open-source and open ecosystem projects and their users; as well as corporations and their stakeholders. Community members get real ownership and benefits in an ecosystem that respects their privacy by not requiring any of their personal information.

*This is sponsored content from Galaxis.