Crypto Weekly Roundup Newsletter 005
Crypto in Asia, Big Banks using Defi, US Bank starting Custodial Service
Hello. Welcome to this week’s edition of Crypto Weekly Roundup Newsletter. We’ll be talking about Crypto in Asia, Big Banks using Defi, US Bank starting Custodial Service and more.
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US Bank launches bitcoin custody service as institutions race to cater to crypto demand: Buying Bitcoin has become easier over time but storing it and making sure it is safe is still too technical for a normal user. A lot of the assets owned by people is stored in a custody service (art, gold, contracts, etc), makes sense that people would want to store Bitcoin too in a safe place.
U.S. Bank, the fifth-biggest retail bank in the nation, announced Tuesday that its cryptocurrency custody service is available to fund managers. The offering will help investment managers store private keys for bitcoin, bitcoin cash and litecoin with the help of sub-custodian NYDIG. Support for other coins like ethereum is expected over time.
Major French Bank Wants to Back the $DAI Stablecoin with $40M in Bonds: Société Générale will experiment with using regulated security tokens on Ethereum to back a stablecoin loan in historic merging of TradFi and DeFi
SG — Forge, which is an investment firm and subsidiary of SocGen, is proposing that MakerDAO accept its OFH Tokens as collateral in the protocol, in exchange for up to 20M Dai. OFH Tokens represent covered bonds backed by home loans, with a 0% rate, maturing in 2025, worth 40M EUR.
The proposal would have SG — Forge granting a loan to SocGen. To do so, SocGen would transfer ownership of the OFH tokens to SG — Forge, which would then deposit the tokens in Maker and borrow DAI against them. SG — Forge would then exchange the DAI for USD, and loan those USD to SocGen.
Essentially, through the transaction, Société Générale is able to get leverage on its assets, by taking out a loan against them, through DeFi.
If the proposal passes, this would be the first time a major bank has deposited collateral in MakerDAO, DeFi’s first protocol. Now it’s time to wait and see which other banks hop on the train.
Crypto in Emerging markets: New report shows Crypto adoption is highest in Asian countries. This documentary(youtube) shows how Axie Infinity, a crypto based game similar to Pokemon, helped a community in Philippines to earn during the pandemic. You can read about it here too.
Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber raised $260 million in a Series C that included a16z valuing it at 1.9 $ billion. Indian TikTok competitor Chingari raised $19 million via a token sale to develop a "social token." India-based crypto staking project Stader Labs raised $4 million in a seed round.
Crypto is like the Wild West with better transparency: RBN airdrop drama: Crypto-structured products protocol Ribbon Finance airdropped RBN tokens to its users back in the spring. On Wednesday the tokens unlocked, at which point drama ensued. Why? Blockchain sleuths discovered an analyst with VC firm Divergence Ventures — which counts Ribbon among its portfolio investments — conducted a sybil attack of sorts against the RBN distribution. They did so by creating dozens upon dozens of wallets and then used them to interact with Ribbon’s Vaults. They basically split their holdings into multiple accounts to be eligible for more airdrops.
To make matters worse, the analyst quickly sold millions of dollars worth of RBN for ETH. Divergence has since apologized and returned ETH to the Ribbon DAO treasury, which is good. In the very least, the episode is a wake up call to major crypto stakeholders to never lose sight of ethics and analysts to keep an eye out for such antics.
Bitcoin proved as a non-correlated asset this week by zigging while the S&P zagged.
Mainstream Adoption:
An SEC filing shows that Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis purchased up to $100,000 worth of bitcoin in August.
Grayscale Adds Solana and Uniswap to $495M Investment Fund
AMC Theatres Begin Accepting Dogecoin Payments after Allowing Bitcoin
Fiat-Crypto Interface:
A new paper from the US Federal Reserve said digital currencies could “reduce reliance” on the dollar. Duh!
The US Department of Justice is forming a “National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.”
Investments into Crypto:
George Soros’s family office owns some bitcoin, but not a lot.
Axie Infinity developer nets $152M in a16z-led Series B funding round
Other News:
A collector acquired Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers #109 for 2,100 ETH! $6.3 Millon!!
US-listed bitcoin mining firms have stockpiled more than a billion dollars worth of the currency. Miners HODLing Bitcoin means they are expecting its price to rise. They are prepared to take loans to fund their operations but aren’t prepared to sell BTC. They are really Bullish.
That is it for this week. Thanks for reading this week’s edition of the Crypto Weekly Roundup Newsletter. If you found this informative please share it with your everyone. Thank you!