Here's your Thursday edition of Cryptonews Crunch, featuring the latest stories with Celsius initiating Chapter 11 proceedings in the US, Christine Lagarde continues to push for the creation of a CBDC in Europe, and episode 143 of the Cryptonews Podcast.
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Source: CoinMarketCap.com
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- After reportedly returning all of its debt to DeFi lending protocols, Celsius said it has initiated voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the US in an attempt to stabilize its business. "This is the right decision for our community and company," Alex Mashinsky, Co-Founder & CEO of Celsius, was quoted as saying in the announcement. "We have a strong and experienced team in place to lead Celsius through this process." The company said it has USD 167m in cash on hand, which will provide "ample liquidity to support certain operations during the restructuring process" as it aims to "continue to operate in the normal course."
- The European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde's new blog post again pushes for the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Europe. But although it argues that a digital euro would protect the privacy of its users, the crypto community is not impressed, with some opining that the euro is “failing.”
- Following the collapse of Terra and the subsequent crypto crash, stablecoin active addresses surged to a new all-time high. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and Ethereum active addresses have plunged drastically during this period. According to Coin Metrics, stablecoin active addresses hit a new all-time high in May 2022, peaking at over 748,000 on May 18. This number has remained at over 650,000 since then, per the analysts.
- Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has approved new tax rates for crypto miners – and tax bodies have been instructed to charge miners at a rate of up to USD 0.052 per kilowatt hour (kWh) as of January 1, 2023.
- Reports that prosecutors in the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, Ukraine, have recently busted a gang of over-the-counter (OTC) crypto brokers – who allowed individuals in Russia and areas under Russian control to swap silver, cash, and land for cryptoassets – appear to be somewhat wide of the mark.
- In July last year, UK superstar artist Damien Hirst kicked off a unique experiment, creating a collection of 10,000 art pieces that come with accompanying digital artwork. However, the catch is that owners can't keep both. Hirst gave owners one year (until July 27, 2022) to decide whether they want to keep the NFT or exchange it for the physical equivalent - depending on the decision, only one version will survive. But as the deadline for the NFT burn approaches, more and more owners proceed to burn their NFT in exchange for corresponding original work on paper. However, NFTs still seem to be winning this art experiment.
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Dominic Law is the Chief Metaverse Officer of Neopets Metaverse, a community-driven, Web3 game built for generations of Neopets players: past, present, and future. Building on the nostalgia of the hit online site, Neopets Metaverse allows players to interact with their beloved Neopets in both classic and new ways.
Dominic has a passion for community building & consumer technology, joined NetDragon (the group behind Neopets) in 2020, bringing his expertise and leadership into the realm of blockchain opportunities.
In this conversation, we discuss:
- Living in Hong Kong - Neopets brand pivot - Neopets Metaverse - Highlights from NFT NYC - Web3 growth hacks - Neopets free-to-play game - Game dynamics (pet caring, bank, neohome, etc) - Land sale + beta launch - The move into crypto - Current crypto market sentiment
Tune In!
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- Digital asset gateway Fasset announced a collaboration with global payments technology company Mastercard to expand financial capabilities in Indonesia and create economic opportunities, they said. Fasset is focused on promoting “financial inclusion and democratizing access to opportunity by enabling a new wave of digital asset owners in our target emerging markets,” they added.
- Bitcoin company NYDIG announced a multi-year partnership with the New York Yankees to become the team's official Bitcoin Payroll Platform. This offers employees of the Yankees organization access to NYDIG's Bitcoin Savings Plan (BSP), which allows them to convert a portion of their paycheck to Bitcoin via the NYDIG platform.
- Data transfer technologies company Plaid added support for thousands of crypto exchanges to its data network, per TechCrunch. “This is something many customers have asked for, particularly companies offering wealth management and financial planning services,” Alain Meier, head of Identity at Plaid, told the outlet.
- Disney announced that blockchain project Polygon has been chosen to be part of the 2022 Disney Accelerator program. They added that over the course of the program, each participating company will receive guidance from Disney’s senior leadership team and a dedicated executive mentor.
- US Senator Cynthia Lummis collected thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the crypto industry over the last three months, according to the Wyoming Republican’s latest campaign finance report. Donors included executives from venture capital firms Multicoin Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Pantera Capital, and Compass Mining, among others, along with a pair of former social media giant Meta employees who recently launched the blockchain startup Aptos.
- OKX has been awarded a provisional virtual assets (VA) license in Dubai. The license, issued by the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), will allow OKX to provide trading services to investors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
- Binance-launched blockchain network BNB Chain announced it launched DappBay, a decentralized application (dapp) aggregator with a feature called 'Red Alarm', to warn users of potential rug pulls and scams.
- Bitpanda announced the launch of new thematic Bitpanda Crypto Indices (BCI), which will offer investors the opportunity to invest in crypto projects in the areas of the metaverse, infrastructure, smart contracts, and DeFi. Crypto projects within each ‘basket’ are chosen based on the overarching theme, and balanced around market capitalization, they added.
- Bitfinex will donate BTC 36 and USD 600,000 in Tether (USDT) to assist small businesses and communities in El Salvador. The funds are being distributed in towns and cities where street gangs have been accused of extorting money from businesses, they said.
- CoinShares announced the listing of their physically-backed staked Algorand (ALGO) exchange-traded product (ETP) on Germany’s primary market Xetra.
- A recently published policy brief from the United Nations (UN) recommended developing nations take action against crypto, warning of risks associated with leaving the industry unregulated. The document goes as far as to suggest developing nations require the mandatory registration of all crypto wallets and ban advertisements related to crypto.
- The US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, in the case of payment system Ripple versus the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has denied the SEC’s motion to keep the speech by its former official William Hinman protected under attorney-client privilege, calling the agency’s litigation tactics “hypocrisy.” Ripple has argued that Hinman’s remarks that applying federal securities laws to ETH would “add little value” contradict the SEC’s claims that XRP is a security, while the watchdog fought hard to keep the speech under wraps and block it from being used as evidence in court.
- Ethereum scaling solution StarkNet announced the launch of their native token that will be used to operate the ecosystem, and maintain and secure it. They added that they have minted an initial 10bn tokens, which are being allocated to Core Contributors of the StarkNet ecosystem, to StarkNet software developer partners, and to the Foundation behind the project.
- Distributed ledger fintech company Millicent announced that it has successfully performed a test of a Full-Reserve Digital Currency (FRDC) aimed at the retail market. Millicent’s FRDC are privately-issued digital currencies pegged to a traditional fiat currency and 100% collateralized by liquid ‘cash’ deposits, held in a ringfenced account safeguarded by a regulated third party, at the central bank, they explained.
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