Coinbase made a splash on its market debut last Wednesday, ending its first day with an $85.7bn market valuation. Standing ready was ARK Invest fund manager Cathie Wood, who over the course of two days bought nearly 750,000 shares for three of her exchange-traded funds, selling some Tesla shares to make the room.

According to The Block, Coinbase's market close made it the largest direct listing ever – eclipsing the performance of Palantir, Spotify and Roblox. However, attention quickly turned to the actions of the exchange's executive team after one spectator noted on Twitter that management had been selling off the lion's share of their equity. CFO Alesia Haas was rumoured to have dumped ALL 250,000 of her shares – hardly inspiring confidence.

It has now been clarified that Haas sold 15% of her total holdings, and CEO Armstrong just 1.5%. It's actually the firm's Chief Account Officer who sold the most stock among executives in percentage terms - 38% of her total holdings.

The drama didn't stop there. The mania that drove cryptoassets to record highs as Coinbase went public turned on itself over the weekend, sending Bitcoin tumbling by as much as 15%. Ether fell as much as 18% to below $2k before also paring losses to the 7% range. Binance Coin, XRP and Cardano each lost more than 12% at one point. Remarkably, Dogecoin bucked the trend to jump more than 10%.

Let's jump into all those stories in our weekly roundup of industry news below. If you’d like to get in touch with us about any of our products or services, we look forward to hearing from you. Just send us a note.

This week's top stories

$10bn in liquidations as the crypto market cap evaporated $360bn in hours

Almost $10bn worth of trading positions in the crypto derivatives market were liquidated this weekend as the crypto market experienced a sharp sell-off on Sunday, shrinking the market from more than $2.2 trillion to less than $1.9 trillion at around 1pm BST. While the reason for the flash crash is still debated, some analysts are pointed to blackouts witnessed across Xinjiang, home to one of the world's largest Bitcoin mining facilities, as the reason why this drop happened.

This morning , the market has climbed back to roughly $2.08 trillion, with the price of Bitcoin floating at around $57k. Read more

‘Joke’ cryptocurrency Dogecoin rockets by nearly 140%

Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency created as a joke, has rocketed a blistering 3,000% so far this year.

The digital asset, represented by a Shiba Inu dog, added almost 400% last week alone, breaking into the cryptocurrency top five with its market capitalisation peaking at around $50bn. The cryptoasset's market cap has since fallen to $44.2bn, slipping into 6th place. However, last week's surge has pushed Doge beyond the value of several major banks, including Lloyds Banking Group, which is worth $42bn. Read more

HSBC confirms banning customers from buying MicroStrategy shares due to Bitcoin concerns

Last week, HSBC confirmed banning customers of HSBC InvestDirect from buying MicroStrategy shares due to Bitcoin concerns. An HSBC spokesperson told The Block: "HSBC has no appetite for direct exposure to virtual currencies [VCs] and limited appetite to facilitate products or securities that derive their value from VCs."

The bank's decision appears to run counter to the growing acceptance of digital assets by other large banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which are now making concerted efforts to offer their clients more opportunities for exposure to the emerging digital asset class. Morgan Stanley even now directly owns a 10% stake in MicroStrategy. Read more

In case you missed it..

⚡️ Turkey to ban cryptocurrency payments.

⚡️ MicroStrategy now pays its board of directors in Bitcoin.

⚡️ Binance Coin sets a new ATH surpassing $600 ahead of the BNB quarterly burn.

⚡️ Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital joins growing list of Bitcoin ETF contenders.

⚡️ Major Thai bank experimenting with DeFi.

⚡️ ConsenSys raises $65m from JPMorgan, Mastercard, UBS and others.

⚡️ NYSE celebrates historic 'first trades' with NFT series.

⚡️ The Hollywood premiere of “Lotawana” is America’s first movie NFT.

⚡️ First Bitcoin ETF in North America hits $1bn.

⚡️ Goldman Sachs CEO talks Bitcoin and cryptocurrency during earnings call.

⚡️ Senate confirms Gary Gensler as next SEC Chief.

⚡️ European Central Bank releases results of digital euro consultation.

⚡️ Crypto can become a great asset class, says BlackRock CEO.

⚡️ Ether futures on CME hit new highs for volumes, open interest.

⚡️ Ethereum’s Berlin hard fork is live but sync issues are reported.

⚡️ Switzerland’s largest insurer AXA starts accepting Bitcoin as payment.

⚡️ Mark Cuban one-ups Elon Musk: Mavs to hold Dogecoin on balance sheet.

⚡️ Cardano prepares for Plutus powered smart contracts.

⚡️ Binance destroys $595m worth of BNB tokens in its largest-ever burn.

⚡️ European hedge fund Brevan Howard to invest $84m in digital assets.

⚡️ Rothschild Investment Corporation buys $4.75m of Ethereum.

⚡️ Canada approves two Ethereum ETFs in one day.

⚡️ Edward Snowden NFT sells for $5.4m in Ethereum.

From Copper

New article: Altcoin season is now

The first cryptoasset that most people buy is Bitcoin. That’s natural. But as investors move from nervously dipping their toes into crypto to gaining confidence and investigating the rest of this vast market, there comes a natural trend towards portfolio diversification. And there are several more reasons why altcoin season is now back on the table. Read More

Podcast: Copper CEO - building crypto settlement infrastructure

Our CEO, Dmitry Tokarev, was recently invited to join Castle Island Ventures 'On the Brink' podcast. Listen now to hear about my journey to founding Copper, learn about MPC cryptography and why it's important for institutional entry to crypto, and find out what it’s like to hire in a rapidly growing firm.