✈️ Crypto Markets Soar To New 2023 Highs

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TLDR Leading crypto markets rallied into new 2023 highs in recent days, with ETH trading above $2,250 and BTC exceeding $41,500 for the first time in 19 months. Gold also posted a new all-time high, while the S&P 500 is up 12% in five weeks.

SO WHAT Analysts are attributing the bullish market momentum to expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve has likely finished raising interest rates and could begin reducing rates in early 2024. Sustained spot Bitcoin ETF hype is also propelling digital assets.

READ MORE: BTC and ETH Surge To New 2023 Highs

TLDR Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, said his country's Bitcoin portfolio is now in the black following the recent bullish momentum in the crypto markets. Bukele said the country's Bitcoin holdings were up $4.2 as BTC tagged $42,000.

SO WHAT The news follows sustained criticism levied at the pro-crypto policies of El Salvador, with the country's treasury suffering sizable draw-downs during the 12 to 18 months after it began accumulating BTC in September 2021.

Read More: Bukele Announces El Salvador's Bitcoin Gamble is Now Profitable

TLDR Folks Finance, the leading DeFI Protocol on the Algorand network, has begun issuing tokenized representations of gold and silver on-chain. Users can now borrow, lend, or trade GOLD and SILVER via the Folks Finance protocol.

SO WHAT The news comes against the backdrop of increasing adoption of real-world assets across web3. Folks Finance also launched Stasis's EURS token two weeks ago, allowing users to access exposure to the Euro on-chain.

Read More: Folks Finance Launches DeFi Services For Gold and Silver Tokens

TLDR Andre Cronje, the popular and controversial web3 developer, will lead an accelerator program supported by the Fantom Foundation. Grants of 1M FTM (nearly $300,000) are available to participating projects.

SO WHAT Cronje jumped to Fantom from Ethereum during the last bull trend, with his recent comments suggesting the developer will remain loyal to Fantom, at least for now. However, Fantom's TVL and the price of FTM are down more than 99% and 90% respectively.

Read More: Fantom Foundation Launches Accelerator Program with Andre Cronje as Mentor

TLDR Safe and Web3Auth have teamed up on an initiative intended to simplify the process of onboarding to web3. The new SafeAuth wallet leverages account abstraction and multi-party computation to enable crypto account log-ins via web2 credentials.

SO WHAT The new wallet's release comes as account abstraction is enjoying increasing adoption across web3. Both account abstraction and multi-party computation facilitate advanced wallet functionality.

Read More: Safe and Web3Auth Collaborate To Simplify Web3 Onboarding

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