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How stable are stablecoins in the FTX crypto market contagion?
The collapse of crypto-exchange FTX hit the crypto world like a tropical storm. It bears asking once again: How stable are stablecoins?
“The cracks in the crypto eco-system are increasing, and it would not be surprising to see a significant de-pegging event” in the future, Arvin Abraham, a United Kingdom-based partner at law firm McDermott Will and Emery, told Cointelegraph. Particularly at risk are those stablecoins that use other cryptocurrencies for their asset reserves, rather than fiat currencies like the euro or U.S. dollar, he said.
“There is some evidence that FTX contagion did spread to stablecoins,” Ryan Clements, assistant professor at the University of Calgary Faculty of Law, told Cointelegraph, citing the brief USDT de-pegging event. “This shows how interconnected the crypto market is to it.”
On Nov. 10, Tether fell to $0.97 on Bitstamp and several other exchanges and to $0.93 for a few moments on Kraken. Tron’s USDD stablecoin also wobbled. Stablecoins are never supposed to fall below $1.00.
For its part, Tether blamed the depegging on crypto-exchange illiquidity. Relatively few crypto trading platforms are well capitalized, and sometimes “there is more demand for liquidity than exists on that exchange's order books and has nothing to do with Tether's ability to hold its peg nor the value or makeup of its reserves,” said the company. Read More
Brazil's Congress Moves to Regulate Crypto Payments
Brazil’s congress has passed a bill that paves the way for banks to begin offering payment services around Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
Brazil's Congress today passed a bill that would regulate the use of cryptocurrency as a means of payment throughout the country, potentially providing a boost toward the adoption of digital assets in the South American nation.
Brazil's Chamber of Deputies approved a new regulatory framework—signed under code PL 4401/2021—that will include digital currencies and frequent traveller rewards from airlines (the popular "miles") in the definition of "payment agreements" under the supervision of the country's central bank.
The bill, which still requires the signature of the president, would give legal status to payments made in cryptocurrencies for goods and services—but would not grant them the status of legal tender.
What this means is that banks, if they chose, could soon begin offering crypto payment services, facilitating the use of crypto for buying and selling ordinary goods, in the same way that consumers currently use credit cards or other similar services. Read More
What’s Happening With Wrapped Bitcoin on Ethereum?
Wrapped Bitcoin—WBTC—lost its peg last week. Here's what that means, and why it matters.
An important “wrapped” token nearly unravelled last week—the latest crypto product to be hurt by the fallout of the once-dominant FTX exchange which collapsed earlier this month.
For those who don’t know, Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is the 23rd largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $3.5 billion. It runs on Ethereum, the leading blockchain for DeFi and NFTs, and is a token that is meant to represent Bitcoin.
The idea—mostly—with WBTC is that traders who want to use their Bitcoin holdings in the Ethereum ecosystem can do so with tokens that are one-to-one backed by Bitcoin. It’s how Bitcoin holders can interact with DeFi tools without spending more money on Ethereum or other Ethereum-based tokens.
It’s an important tool in the world of DeFi—financial products that allow their users to borrow, lend, or trade digital assets without third-party intermediaries. In the past 24 hours, over $88 million-worth of WBTC tokens traded hands, according to CoinGecko. Read More
OpenSea’s Seaport Protocol onboards creators and NFT holders on BNB Chain
BNB Chain’s integration into the Seaport Protocol aims to provide BNB Chain creators with multiple creator payouts, real-time payouts and collection management.
Crypto collectables and nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has announced plans to integrate BNB Chain on its Web3 NFT marketplace protocol by the end of 2022. The integration with Seaport Protocol will allow users to buy, list and trade BNB Chain NFTs on OpenSea.
BNB Chain was built by Binance to operate as a Web3-focused blockchain network powered by the exchange's in-house token, BNB.
BNB Chain’s integration into OpenSea's Seaport Protocol aims to provide BNB Chain creators with multiple creator payouts, real-time payouts and collection management, among others.
Gwendolyn Regina, investment director at BNB Chain, said the intent is to deliver better experiences to NFT creators and users. She added:
“The integration will bring a large number of creators into the wider system, as well as empower the creators and NFT initiatives inside the BNB Chain ecosystem.”
The integration aims to lower gas fees, provide easier signature confirmation actions and eliminate setup fees. In addition to BNB Chain, OpenSea plans to leverage Seaport across multiple blockchains to reach more users. Read More
Phase Two of the Markethive internal wallet is complete, a considerable milestone for the company and the Markethive community. The impending release of the wallet is a pivot point for Markethive to secure its future as a completely decentralized social media broadcasting and marketing platform the world so desperately needs for these significant times.
The Markethive wallet is not just an ordinary wallet: It’s a transactional interface that services and keeps track of all your accounting and transactions, including your loans to Markethive and interest paid by Markethive to you via the ILP.
With Phase Two now in operation, you can access and set up your personal requirements and view your status in The Vault, Hive Rank, Staking, KYC Application, ILP Report, payments, and Markethive Credit threshold and balance. Plus, you can now transfer Markethive Credits to other members within Markethive.
Note that full access to all of the Markethive systems requires complete KYC documentation and an Entrepreneur One membership. The Markethive platform, with its general newsfeed, is free to use; however, the marketing systems and aspects thereof within Markethive will be limited, including Hivecoin transactional activity and micropayments of MHV.
Once the Markethive wallet is fully operational and launched, the Premium Upgrade will be introduced, which offers additional features and benefits to achieve a significant presence online for your marketing efforts and business growth, especially with the upcoming unique dashboard interface. It will be beyond anything else out there today. Read More
Coinbase Wallet Delists XRP, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum Classic
America’s biggest crypto exchange has scrapped a number of assets from its self-custody mobile app citing waning customer interest.
Coinbase today delisted a number of big cryptocurrencies—including Ripple’s XRP, the seventh largest digital asset by market cap—from its wallet app.
In a Tuesday announcement, America’s biggest exchange said that from January 23 it would no longer support Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ripple (XRP), or Stellar (XLM) on Coinbase Wallet.
Coinbase said the move was “due to low usage” of the assets on the platform. Coinbase Wallet is a self-custody mobile app, similar to other software wallets such as MetaMask, though with a wider array of support for crypto assets.
Today’s announcement from Coinbase means that from next year, users will not be able to buy, sell, send or receive the assets via this app.
Users will still be able to access the coins and tokens via its exchange, though.
Coinbase added that despite it removing the assets from its wallet product, users would be able to recover them via their recovery phases. Read More
Why Is It Just About Crypto? - Credit Suisse First Bank To Fall?
Crypto is a tiny asset class of around $850 billion. Failures here will not impact the financial system. Collapsing banks will.
Mainstream media would have you believe that the only malaise in world finance is crypto. World financial leaders such as Janet Yellen, Secretary of the US Treasury, and Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, have spoken of crypto failures possibly affecting the financial system at some future point.
However, neither of them, or indeed no other leaders of banks or other financial institutions make anywhere near as much reference to failing banks.
Depositor Insurance Might Not Be Enough:
Of course, it might be mentioned that even if a bank did go down, there is always insurance for the depositors, such as the FDIC in the US, or the FCA in the UK.
Be that as it may, if just one bank went down, the contagion would very probably spread to others, just like in the case of centralised crypto exchanges.
In such a situation the deposit insurance would very likely not be able to cover the depositor’s losses to the extent at which they are currently guaranteed. Read More
Telegram founder wants to build new decentralized tools to combat power abuse
The messaging platform is building a set of decentralized tools, including noncustodial wallets and decentralized exchanges.
Telegram is set to build a set of decentralized tools, including noncustodial wallets and decentralized exchanges, said founder Pavel Durov via his Telegram channel on Nov. 30.
The initiative is a response to the recent FTX collapse, said Durov, as the industry wound up concentrated in the "hands of a few to abuse their power. As a result, a lot of people lost their money when FTX, one of the largest exchanges, went bankrupt."
The announcement comes weeks after the launch of Fragment, a decentralized auction platform for unique usernames based on The Open Network, or TON, layer-1 blockchain. According to Durov, Fragment has seen $50 million in usernames sold in less than a month.
Besides founding Telegram and Fragment, Durov was also behind the first official version of the TON blockchain. Regarding the new decentralized tools being developed, he said:
"The solution is clear: blockchain-based projects should go back to their roots – decentralization. Cryptocurrency users should switch to trustless transactions and self-hosted wallets that don't rely on any single third party." Read More
Notebook Labs announces partnership with NEAR Protocol on Twitter
Notebook Labs recently released an official tweet to inform users about its partnership with NEAR Protocol. The integration will allow NEAR Ecosystem to access privacy-preserving Zero Knowledge credentials.
According to the string of tweets, NEAR Protocol acts as a high-speed, low transaction fee and climate-neutral L1 blockchain. The platform has collaborated with Notebook Labs to steer on-chain accountability to secure customer privacy.
During the first stage of the partnership, Notebook Labs will whitelist every NEAR project to help Notebook Auth’s use. It will allow them also to introduce zero-knowledge privacy to existing authentication flows.
This will be integrated into KYC from Facebook, Twitter, or Google Verification. The platform has requested users to join the Notebook Labs Telegram channel to gain early access. It will help users enjoy credentialing and privacy-based services to enjoy Web3 in a safe environment. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
