Sat - 22 April

Good Morning & Happy Saturday! As always you can find your personal referral links at the bottom 🫡. All those who received your referral rewards, please tweet and tag web3samaj!

Headlines for today: Crypto Exchange Gemini To Open Engineering Hub In India, Bitbns Tries To Build A Bridge Between UPI & Crypto, US Congress To Introduce New Draft Bill For Stablecoins and VC Funding Into Web3 Start-ups Down 82% Year-over-year

🏢 Crypto Exchange Gemini To Open Engineering Hub In India: Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the United States, has announced plans to establish an engineering hub in Gurgaon, India, which will be its largest hub outside of the US. Pravjit Tiwana, Gemini's Global Chief Technical Officer, has been named as the Asia-Pacific chief executive. In addition to India, Gemini also revealed plans to expand its team in Singapore as part of its growth strategy in Asia. This move by Gemini is reminiscent of its competitor Coinbase, which established a similar engineering hub in India last year. The Indian hub will focus on developing new features for Gemini's non-fungible token and cryptocurrency asset marketplaces, with the aim of serving retail and institutional customers in over 70 countries.

🌁 Bitbns Tries To Build A Bridge Between UPI & Crypto: Transferring funds to and from Indian cryptocurrency exchanges can be cumbersome and doesn’t involve UPI for users. However, Bitbns, a crypto exchange, has found a workaround through its subsidiary OnRamp. OnRamp has integrated UPI into its payment flows, allowing users to make instant transfers and purchase over 300 crypto tokens. Instead of using a payment processing firm, OnRamp displays a UPI ID for a bank account with a private bank, where customers send funds in exchange for their chosen crypto tokens. While some view this as a loophole that exploits the stance of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on cryptocurrencies, Bitbns argues that it is in compliance with the Supreme Court's 2020 order that overturned the RBI's circular restricting financial services for crypto businesses, stating that it violates the constitutional freedom to carry on trade.

🪙 US Congress To Introduce New Draft Bill For Stablecoins: Recently proposed bill outlining regulations for stablecoins in the United States was made available in the House of Representatives document repository just days before a scheduled hearing. The bill states that insured depository institutions would be supervised by federal banking agencies if they want to issue stablecoins, while non-bank institutions would be overseen by the Federal Reserve. Failure to register could result in imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of $1 million. Foreign issuers would also need to register to operate in the U.S. Additionally, issuers must demonstrate technical expertise, established governance, and the benefits of financial inclusion and innovation through stablecoins. The proposed legislation also includes a two-year ban on issuing stablecoins not backed by tangible assets, and mandates a study by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on "endogenously collateralized stablecoins."

🔻 VC Funding Into Web3 Start-ups Down 82% Year-over-year: Data from Crunchbase reveals a sharp decline in venture capital (VC) funding for Web3 startups, with an 82% year-over-year (YoY) decrease from $9.1 billion in Q1 2022 to just $1.7 billion in Q1 2023. Crunchbase News reported on this data on April 20, emphasizing that the $1.7 billion figure is also the lowest amount of funding for Web3 startups since Q4 2020, a time when the concept of Web3 was not widely known. In this context, Web3 startups are defined as early-stage companies involved in cryptocurrency or blockchain technology, or both. The report also highlights a significant drop in deal flow, with only 333 deals recorded in Q1 2023, marking a YoY decline of approximately 33% in the number of total deals between VCs and Web3 startups. Furthermore, the report notes that the number of large funding rounds, reaching nine figures, has significantly decreased over the past year.