The Angolan National Assembly recently approved legislation aimed at addressing the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining and maintaining the country's "monetary sovereignty." The purpose of this legislation is to prevent bad actors from using cryptocurrency for money laundering and to curb illegal activities. In addition, since crypto assets are not under the supervision of the National Bank of Angola, this law ensures that Angolan users have a legal recourse to seek redress in the event of disputes related to digital currencies.

Today's panic and greed index is 70 (yesterday was 74), and the level is still greedy. Note: The panic index threshold is 0-100, including indicators: volatility (25%) + market trading volume (25%) + social media popularity (15%) + market survey (15%) + proportion of Bitcoin in the entire market (10%) + Google hot word analysis (10%).

Deep dive on open interest, liquidations, funding, and cumulative volume delta.

Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have reviewed the current policies for intermediary institutions wishing to engage in virtual asset related activities. In addition to existing cryptocurrency futures ETFs, the SFC stated that it is "prepared to accept authorization applications for other funds involved in virtual assets, including virtual asset spot trading exchange traded funds (VA spot ETFs)." In another notice released today, the SFC stipulated the requirements for funds to "directly invest in the same spot VA tokens that the Hong Kong public can trade on virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) licensed by the SFC."

Cryptocurrency tax startup Tres Finance raised $11 million in Series A funding. The investment was led by Lightspeed's new fund Faction, with participation from NewForm, Boldstart Ventures, CyberFund, and Ambush Capital. This funding brings Tres' total funding to $18.6 million. Tres provides accounting, auditing, reporting, and other financial services for web3 companies. The startup plans to use this funding to drive its growth, with the goal of expanding its customer base in the US, EU, and Asia-Pacific regions and increasing its customer base by 300% by the end of the year.

The IRS has revealed the findings of its investigation into the use of virtual currency in 2020 tax returns, allowing for the identification of areas with high levels of cryptocurrency ownership. California has the highest number of areas with a high percentage of bitcoin owners, but Washington tops the list when ranked by state. The government's crackdown on digital assets has resulted in taxpayers being required to disclose any crypto transactions on their tax returns. Crypto adoption is highest among younger populations and those in software-heavy areas, with residential areas near tech firms or wealthy neighborhoods having a high density of digital asset ownership.

After a challenging 2022, this past year brought a number of positive developments across the ecosystem, from new institutional entrants to key technical upgrades. While the regulatory environment was arguably the most challenging it has ever been, especially in the US, the new battles should force clarity on a number of outstanding questions. With a period of monetary tightening seemingly coming to an end, both crypto and equities surged in 2023, with many digital assets posting gains above 100%, including bitcoin (BTC), which has risen 150% in 2023. The table below shows the performance of all assets in the datonomyTM universe with a market cap above $1B.

Each month FYEO publishes an update on cybersecurity developments, trends and the volume of leaked credentials added to our exposed login credential database (now 27 billion and growing). For a broader perspective on cybercrime and its attack vectors, here we step back from the near-term particulars to look at trends using data from other sources and provide a forecast for 2024.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat from Massachusetts) wrote a letter to the blockchain association stating that lobbying efforts in the cryptocurrency industry have "undermined" the federal government's counter-terrorism efforts and claimed that cryptocurrencies are being used by terrorist organizations, including Hamas, to circumvent sanctions. Warren accused the blockchain association and "other cryptocurrency interest groups" of lobbying efforts that are "focused on delaying and denying new rules that would restrict terrorists and criminals from using cryptocurrency."

Data shows pre-market rise in US cryptocurrency stocks, with Proshares Bitcoin Strategy ETF up 2.8%.