“Unleash Your Cryptocurrency Scent with Binance’s New Perfumery, Teaming Up with Coachella and OpenSea”

Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, the rebranded version of Chain Reaction, where we bring you the most significant and essential stories in the world of crypto. Subscribe to our newsletter and get a weekly roundup of the biggest events and developments delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT.

Hello and welcome back to the TechCrunch Crypto newsletter.

But first, a little self-promotion. Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in a roundtable discussion on Yahoo Finance with some industry heavyweights: Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein, CoinDesk Indices managing director Andy Baehr, and the host of the Matt Kohrs show, Matt Kohrs himself.

Our lively conversation covered topics such as spot bitcoin ETFs, regulation of digital assets, and the future of crypto. If you missed it, you can watch the full discussion here.

Moving on to some of the top crypto news from the past week:

This week in web3

As always, the crypto space was buzzing with activity. Here are some notable stories:

Bitcoin’s price skyrocketed to a new all-time high on Tuesday, reaching $69,000. But since then, it has fallen about 3%, currently sitting at around $67,000. Nonetheless, bitcoin is still up 6.5% for the week and an impressive 56% for the month. The second-largest crypto, ether, also saw a 9.7% increase this week, reaching $3,800. Overall, the total crypto market cap grew by 7.7% to $2.53 trillion.

But it wasn’t just the big names that grabbed the headlines. Smaller tokens also had their moment in the spotlight. Solana-based meme coins, particularly those with dog-themed names, saw a surge in popularity. Bonk and dogwifhat, for example, saw a 15% and 115% increase in value, respectively. Separately, the notorious Dogecoin and Shiba Inu tokens rose 19% and 125%, respectively, in the same time period.

It begs the question: Who let the dogs out?

On a lighter note, this tweet from none other than Elon Musk serves as a timely reminder of how big meme coins can get. When this post was written, the WIF token had a market cap three times larger than that of Spirit Airlines. Pretty impressive for a “joke” currency. And while its value has declined since then, WIF still boasts a market cap of $1.8 billion, which is still 213% higher than that of Spirit Airlines.

The latest on Chain Reaction

Our monthly series on different topics and themes in crypto continues. This month, we explore the integration of blockchain and AI.

In this week’s episode, we interview Dee Goens, the co-founder of Zora.

Zora is a platform and protocol that enables developers and creators to bring their ideas onto Ethereum through an open and shared environment. The platform has already minted over one million NFTs, with secondary sales totaling over $300 million and a community of one million unique collectors.

Prior to co-founding Zora, Goens worked at Coinbase for 2.5 years, gaining experience in risk management, operations, and brand partnerships. He also has a background in blockchain risk analysis from his time at KPMG.

This episode also marks a first for Chain Reaction – we have minted this podcast on Zora’s platform. You can check it out here.

We discuss how Zora envisions the collaboration between blockchains and AI, their roles in the NFT space, and what the platform’s developers and community members are looking forward to.

If you enjoy our podcast, make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review!

Follow the money

It’s no secret that the crypto space is a hotbed for innovation and investment. Here are some notable funding rounds from the past week:

• Zama, a company specializing in homomorphic encryption, raised $73 million at a valuation of almost $400 million
• Taiko, a startup focused on building web3 infrastructure for a censorship-free internet, secured $37 million in funding
• Karma3 Labs, a company that aims to improve trust in web3 through ratings and recommendations, raised $4.5 million
• Utila, a platform for enterprise-grade crypto operations, raised $11.5 million in a seed round
• Firewall, a security infrastructure startup, raised $3.7 million to make smart contracts mainstream

This list was compiled with data from Messari and TechCrunch’s own reporting.

What else we’re writing

If you’re looking to expand your reading beyond the world of web3, check out some of the articles from TechCrunch that caught our attention this week:

• Everything you need to know about the fancy new OLED function key bar on the MacBook Pro
• Watch Aela Mansour turn heads with her knitting robot
• Samsung’s new ‘Dash’ will let you see through the camera
• Meet the 15-year-old cryptocurrency whiz kid

Thanks for reading! We’ll be back next week with more exciting news and updates from the world of crypto. Until then, stay curious and keep exploring!