Kalam Crypto #59: Tesla Diamond Hands & 21 NEW digital assets

"I don't have talent, so I just get up earlier." Henry Rollins

Ahlan wa sahlan, and welcome to the 59th edition of CoinMENA's weekly newsletter, Kalam Crypto. This week, Tesla’s diamond hands through Q4 2022, liquid ETH staking withdrawals on Lido, and CoinMENA lists 21 new digital assets including SOL and ALGO. All that and more, so let's dive into this week's letter, and talk crypto:

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Global News 🌍

Tesla’s Diamond Hands: In its fourth-quarter earnings report, Tesla opted to hold onto their BTC throughout the market downturn in the wake of the FTX collapse. Tesla sold 75% of its BTC holdings in Q3, 2022 for $936 million, but held its remaining bitcoin through the 4th quarter and reported no losses. CEO Elon Musk stated that the company is open to increasing its bitcoin holdings in the future, but sold due to concerns over liquidity during Covid shutdowns in China. Their diamond hands have been rewarded nicely as Bitcoin's price has rebounded and is up 40% year-to-date.

Staked ETH Withdrawal: As the Shanghai upgrade, which will allow Ethereum validators to withdraw their staked ETH, is approaching in Q1, liquid staking protocols like Lido are making plans for their own withdrawal processes. The rise of interest in liquid staking has led to the creation of stETH, which represents staked ETH on Lido but cannot be directly redeemed for ETH. The Shanghai upgrade will allow for direct unstaking from Ethereum validators, which is required for Lido's redemption feature. The ability to redeem stETH for ETH is crucial for Lido's success as it currently accounts for 29% of all staked ETH.

Aave v3 to launch on Ethereum: Aave v2, the previous version, is currently the largest lending protocol in DeFi, with over $4 billion in assets primarily on Ethereum. Aave v3 is already available on six other blockchains and was added to Ethereum after the Aave DAO community approved a proposal. Upon launch, Aave v3 will support seven assets with pricing information gathered by the Chainlink decentralized oracle network. Of course: Aave, Chainlink and Ethereum are all available to trade, send, receive and hold on CoinMENA.

Keep an eye on 👀

POS Giant Integrates Bitcoin Lightning Payments: Jack Maller’s Strike has partnered with Firserv, one the largest payments companies in the world, to enable payment through the Bitcoin lightning network at millions of merchants. In his announcement, Jack Mallers stated that merchants would not be limited to using Strike for Lightning payments. Instead, any source that can make a Lightning payment can be used, including Cash App or a node over Tor. 

CoinMENA News 🗞

🚨Introducing 21 new digital assets: We are listing 21 new digital assets to the platform including SOL and ALGO. You can diversify your crypto portfolio by choosing from 49 crypto assets on CoinMENA including Trade-Only & Full Listed cryptocurrencies.

End the month on a high note 🎼30% OFF Trading Fees and 1,000 USDT Giveaway ends tonight at 11 PM Bahrain time! Trade and save now and qualify to win 500 USDT with just a deposit of $20!

Tweet of the week 🐥

Its been a while, so let’s enjoy it 🙂

Quiz Corner ✅ 

Last week’s question: The term Web3 was coined by:

Answer: Gavin Wood

This week’s question: What is the Proof of Work consensus mechanism?

1. Agreement mechanism on transactions

2. Mechanism to track workload

3. Mechanism to track

4. None of the above

See the answer in next week’s newsletter.