Crypto Weekly Roundup Newsletter 004
Visa's big Crypto push, NFT Oracle, Second order effects of the China Ban and more
Hello. Welcome to this week’s edition of Crypto Weekly Roundup Newsletter. We’ll be talking about Visa's big Crypto push, NFT Oracle, Second order effects of the China Ban and more.
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Visa develops interoperability concept: You may never be able to send a message from Telegram to a friend on WhatsApp, but, if Visa’s vision is realized you might be able to send American dollars from a digital wallet to a wallet from India and the recipient will receive the payment in INR. Visa calls it a "universal payment channel" for stablecoins and central bank digital currencies(CBDCs).
“We believe that for CBDCs to be successful, they must have two essential ingredients: a great consumer experience and widespread merchant acceptance, It means the ability to make and receive payments, regardless of currency, channel, or form factor. And that’s where Visa’s UPC concept comes in.” - Catherine Gu, Global CBDC Lead at Visa
The project is still in its early stages but if it catches on, it could serve as a critical part of the world's financial infrastructure—and ensure that Visa stays relevant even as plastic credit cards go the way of video rental stores. Most interesting of all, Visa is pitching the plan as something for highly regulated services, but it's building the hub on decentralized Ethereum. Read full paper here
Effects of China’s crackdown on Cryptocurrencies last week:
China’s crackdown causes Chinese users to flock to Decentralized Exchanges. Decentralized exchange DYDX Protocol Sees Trading Volume Double That of Coinbase(US’s biggest centralized exchange).
Trading volumes at dYdX surpassed $6.3 billion in derivatives and $3 billion on spot markets. Trading volumes over the past 24 hours at Coinbase were at $3 billion. Other major DEX tokens are on the rise as well, with Uniswap (UNI) and SushiSwap (SUSHI) recording gains of 36% and 29%, respectively.
China doubled down on Friday, with the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) releasing a list of prohibited crypto-related activities, including trading and token issuance, while also barring overseas exchanges from providing services to investors in mainland China.
China-based Ethereum mining pools Sparkpool (second-largest ETH pool by hash rate) and BeePool (4th largest by hash rate) are shutting down all services. Also, CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, TradingView now blocked in China
JPEG’d: a new Chainlink-powered NFT lending protocol that’s aiming to bridge the gap between DeFi and NFTs: We all know that we can get credit against our homes and other hard assets. What if you could easily lend and get credit against your CryptoPunk (NFT) without selling it? Thats what this team has built. Read more to find out. It is a little technical but mindblowing.
A Crypto-Trading Rodent is Beating the Market. Fund managers are FOMOing behind it.
Mainstream Adoption:
El Salvador has started mining bitcoin with volcanos. Yes, you read that right
Almost a Third of Salvadorans (2.1M/6.5M) Are Using the Bitcoin Wallet less than a month after the Country adopted Bitcoin as legal tender.
Coinbase to let you deposit part of your paycheck directly into your Coinbase account
Missouri Mayor To Give $1,000 In Bitcoin To Every Household
DC Comics Is Giving Away Potentially Millions of Free Ethereum NFTs to people who register for their FanDome Event
Miami mayor Francis Suarez says a cryptocurrency called MiamiCoin has raised $7 million for the city since August.
Investments into Crypto:
Metamask challenger XDEFI Wallet secures $6 million to scale its next-generation DeFi wallet
Social Token Platform Roll Completes $10M Series A Funding Round
Facebook Is Spending $50 Million to Build Metaverse—'Responsibly'
Crypto - Fiat Interface:
Fed won't ban private stablecoins, Powell says.
A New York Congressman Wants the Treasury to Mint a $1 Trillion Coin to Pay off US Debt. Looks like the congressman also likes meme coins
SEC kicked the can down the road (again) on Bitcoin ETF decisions: they have to take a final decision by 14 Nov and it doesn’t look like they found a reason not to allow it
Other News:
TikTok Announces its own “Top Moments” NFT Collection
Ripple launches $250 million fund for NFT community building on XRP Ledger
DeFi bug accidentally gives $90 million to users, founder begs them to return it
Bitfinex Paid Over $23 Million in ETH Fees to Send $100K Worth of USDT. The miner who mined it benevolently returned it too
6,000 Coinbase Users Robbed in Phishing Attacks, Company Says It Will Reimburse
Play-to-Earn (P2E) game Axie Infinity Rolls Out Staking Program, Shakes Up Gaming Business Model. They also launched a Decentralized Exchange (DEX)
‘The Sims’ Creator Is Releasing an NFT Game That Plays on Your Subconscious
Dolce & Gabbana’s First NFT Collection Sells for $5.7M
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!