Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Visa’s head of crypto revealed the plans at a StarkWare event this week.
• The payments giant has been trialing large-value USDC settlements on the Ethereum blockchain.
• Swarm Markets co-founder Philipp Pieper says Visa’s crypto strategy could be key to further DeFi/TradFi integration.

Payments giant Visa is reportedly testing a payments system that could see it accept digital assets payments from its customers.

The cryptocurrency news relates to an announcement Visa Head of Crypto Cuy Sheffield shared during the StarkWare Sessions 2023 event.

. @cuysheffield and @visa have fell into the rabbit hole of Account Abstraction!

This is huge! pic.twitter.com/CFniLLBq5C

— Starknet-Ecosystem.com ✨ (@StarkNetEco) February 5, 2023

According to Cuy Sheffield, Visa has recently trialed large value transfers where the network accepts tokenised digital dollar payments with settlements in traditional dollars. Specifically, Visa is looking to start with USD Coin (USDC) transactions on Ethereum. USDC is a major stablecoin issued by Circle and which Visa added support for in March 2021.

“We’ve been testing how to actually accept settlement payments from issuers in USDC starting on Ethereum and paying out in USDC on Ethereum,” Visa’s head of crypto strategy said during the StarkWare event.

Visa’s crypto strategy huge for crypto, says Swarm Markets co-founder

Visa’s plans on crypto settlements come as the global focus on stablecoins increases from a regulatory perspective following recent events in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. They also follow increased interest in central bank digital currencies, with the UK’s consultation paper on its digital pound the latest move in the CBDCs race.

Some experts view these developments as what’s likely to spark further innovation in crypto, rather than be the end of it.

Philipp Pieper, co-founder of blockchain platform Swarm, commented on Visa’s reported foray into crypto payments settlement as a major development set to bolster innovation across the global financial infrastructure.

The company’s move could also mark a key pivot in the adoption of blockchain technology and digital assets, significantly aiding decentralised finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi) integration, Pieper noted.

In a comment sent to CoinJournal, the Swarm Markets co-founder added:

“If Visa can begin to introduce seamless settlement between stablecoins and fiat then this overcomes a significant obstacle toward greater DeFi/TradFi integration. With the advent of digital assets such as stablecoins revolutionizing the way users transact and settle payments, it makes sense for Visa to start working toward this future now.”

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• Alameda Research filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November.
• The defunct Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading house filed for bankruptcy alongside FTX and other affiliated firms.
• Wallets linked to the firm have suddenly resurrected and transferred millions of FTT tokens.

In an unprecedented turn of events, crypto wallets linked to Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm linked to Sam Bankman-Fried came to life on February 7 and transferred millions of FTT (the native FTX token). The wallets then proceeded to open a loan position on Abracadabra, which is a decentralized crypto-lending platform.

In particular, two wallets were involved in this recent transaction. The Alameda wallet address ‘brokenfish.eth’ made a transfer of FTT tokens worth $2 million from the BentoBox smart contract on SushiSwap, which Sam Bankman-fried has had a history with since 2020 after taking over the DEX from Chef Nomi.

The other wallet, the “Alameda Research 4” bought more than 1 million of FTT tokens worth about $2.3 million. The same wallet then went ahead to open a loan position on Abracadabra mortgaging 73,000 FTT tokens and $31,000 cash.

It is not the first time Alameda wallets are seeing some huge activity post the FTX bankruptcy filing; something which has become a big concern for the crypto community. The wallets previously became active immediately after Sam Bankman filed for bail.

On February 2, Blockchain security firm PeckShield alerted that “Alameda Consolidation” received $13 million worth of crypto assets from three different wallets. Arkham Intelligence also revealed that Alameda Research withdrew $204M ahead of its bankruptcy filing.

#PeckShieldAlert ～$13M worth of cryptos have been transferred to Alameda consolidation-labeled address, including ~6M $USDT & 1,545 $ETH ($2.5M) from Bitfinex, ~4.6M $USDC from 0x7889
Wondering why Bitfinex transferred ~$8.5M worth of cryptos to Alameda consolidation address pic.twitter.com/YU8RNcrdxs

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) February 2, 2023

The crypto community is questioning the capabilities of law enforcement agencies since it is not clear how these wallets are being accessed and operated in such circumstances.

The recent fund movement involving the wallets is believed to be linked to the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. A majority are also of the view that the court-appointed FTX CEO, John Ray III authorized the transactions.

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• Lido DAO community has approved by over 99% of vote to allow for staking rewards distribution across Aave v3 liduidity pools.
• LDO rewards will now be distributed across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Optimism blockchains.
• Users earn rewards when they stake Ethereum (ETH) on Lido.

Lido, the liquid staking protocol for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) coins, will now distribute staking rewards in LDO,  the native LidoDAO token through three major Aave v3 liquidity pools.

The distribution across Aave v3 is for staked Ether (stETH) liquidity pools across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Optimism.

Aave v3 to distribute Lido staking rewards

The news follows a community vote on an LDO rewards distribution proposal, which garnered 99% of the support. With this development, every LDO “emission admin” on the three blockchain networks will have access to a wallet that’s controlled by Lido.

Aave, which offers a smart contracts-enabled non-custodial liquidity protocol, recently deployed its v3 on Ethereum. The DeFi platform had already launched the Aave v3 protocol on layer-2 blockchains Arbitrum and Optimism.

In 2022, Lido DAO announced it would offer stETH rewards to liquidity providers on both Arbitrum and Optimism as part of the effort to spur further adoption of the staking protocol. 

Lido users can stake any amount of ETH and earn daily rewards, with LDO then allowing users to participate across the DeFi ecosystem even as their staked ETH remains locked. Notably, Ethereum will allow the withdrawal of staked ETH after its upcoming network upgrade dubbed “Shanghai.” The hard fork is expected in early March this year.

Between 30 Januaryand 6 February, 2023, the amount of ETH staked on Lido surpassed 5.05 million, with over 1.95 million LDO rewards already live in February. According to the Lido team, this follows a spike in new lending pools on Ethereum.

The post Lido to distribute LDO rewards via Aave v3 liquidity pools appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Uniswap DAO has approved the deployment of Uniswap v3 on Boba Network.
• The approval follows a favourable community vote.
• The deployment will increase the total value locked and transaction volume on Uniswap.

Version 3 (v3) of Uniswap will be deployed on Boba Network (BOBA/USD) in the coming weeks following the recent approval by the Uniswap DAO. The DAO community conducted a vote on the proposal, which was backed by ConsenSys and FranklinDAO, and a majority voted for the deployment.

Following the deployment, Uniswap will have the opportunity to expand its community by including users from the Boba Network ecosystem which will significantly increase the decentralized exchange’s total value locked and transaction volume. As of press time, Boba Network had a total value locked (TVL) of $4,589,305.

The deployment will also bolster Uniswap’s presence in key Asian markets where Boba enjoys strong adoption.

The news comes roughly two weeks after the Uniswap community voted for Uniswap to be deployed on BNB Chain.

Uniswap ecosystem expansion

The deployment is an interesting development since Boba Network is built on Ethereum and it allows users to enjoy cheaper and faster transactions and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap use smart contracts rather than third parties to provide their customers with financial services like borrowing and lending.

According to the proposal:

“The Boba Foundation is granted an additional use grant to use the Uniswap V3 Core software code. As part of this additional use grant, the Boba Foundation receives a license to use the Uniswap Code to fully deploy the Uniswap Protocol v3 onto the Boba Network L2 on the Ethereum blockchain.”

Boba Network also told a popular media outlet that it had committed about $1 million worth of BOBA tokens to boost the adoption of Uniswap v3 on Boba. The tokens will be forwarded to a multi-sig wallet co-owned by Boba Foundation and Uniswap Grant Program. They will then be distributed to promising Boba-based projects.

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• Binance is reportedly set to suspend all US dollar (USD) deposits and withdrawals.
• According to a crypto news report on the matter, the suspension starts on 8 February 2023.
• Binance will reportedly continue to support all other payment methods, including bank transfers in another currently supported fiat currency.

Binance will temporarily pause US dollar deposits and withdrawals on its exchange platform, with the planned move expected to begin 8 February, 2023.

This is according to the latest cryptocurrency news  by CNBC.

Binance set to suspend USD deposits and withdrawals

On Monday afternoon, CNBC published a news story that said the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance was looking to briefly halt USD deposits and withdrawals beginning Wednesday this week. 

According to the details shared with CNBC by a Binance spokesperson, the upcoming USD-related pause will last a few weeks as Binance tries to secure a new banking partner. However, the issue will only affect a tiny number of the exchange’s monthly active users, said to be about 0.01%. Binance will reportedly notify all affected customers directly.

While the source offered no other information regarding the USD withdrawals being unavailable from the given date, they did confirm that customers can still buy and sell cryptocurrencies via all other supported payment methods. The exchange will also continue to support bank transfers via another fiat currency that’s currently supported, the person familiar with the issue said.

Binance is the largest crypto exchange by trading volume and has a US-based subsidiary Binance.US. The US-based unit, which is Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) regulated, has noted that the suspension will not impact its operations. 

In a tweet following the news, Binance.US said this would be the case unless there’s an official notice from them. In this case, the USD pause is likely to only impact customers using the global platform.

The price of Binance‘s native coin BNB was largely muted at the time of writing, changing hands around $328 at 15:05 pm ET.

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