Crypto Crime, Mine and more

Each week, I cover the &#8220;So What?&#8221; of 5 stories from the world of crypto in about 5 minutes. Let&#8217;s go. <br/><br/>Crypto crime drops to 0.34%<br/><br/>Chainalysis reports total cryptocurrency sent or received by criminals dropped to 0.34% of total in 2020 down from 2% in 2019 <br/><br/>In contrast, the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime estimates money laundering takes up 2-5% of the global GDP each year <br/><br/>So what?<br/><br/>Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin earned a bad reputation because criminals were amongst its earliest adopters; now it appears that cryptocurrency has a lower share of criminal activity than the traditional fiat payment systems<br/><br/>Scams accounted for 54% of the criminal crypto activity with ransomeware accounting for 7% of crime but increased 311% year-over-year <br/><br/>Firms like Chainalysis partner with the FBI, IRS, DEA, ICE and EuroPol to track the flow of illicit funds along the blockchain; they have identified and seized substantial amounts of money<br/><br/>Source: Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report<br/><br/>Coinbase has over 43M users: <br/><br/>Coinbase now reports 43+M users across 100+ countries with $90+B assets on the platform <br/><br/>The number of users has increased by 8M (22%) since the last update in mid-2020<br/><br/>Coinbase&#8217;s custody business for institutional investors now has $20B assets with $14B received within the past 6 months<br/><br/>So what? <br/><br/>Coinbase is cementing it&#8217;s leading position in the cryptoexchange market as interest has grown<br/><br/>Some industry analysts estimate that it&#8217;s IPO could fetch $28B or more. <br/><br/>Coinbase could see increased competition for institutional investors as Anchorage recently obtained a federal banking charter and is well positioned to provide sub-custodial services and other crypto-related financial services to large institutions. <br/><br/>New $10B Samsung plant could support US bitcoin mining<br/><br/>Samsung may invest $10B in a 3nm computer chip making facilit