USDC is being added to its third blockchain: Stellar. Announced Thursday during the Stellar Development Foundation’s quarterly review call, the addition of the dollar-backed stablecoin seeks to bolster Stellar’s standing as a cross-border payments network. “We are focused on creating equitable access to the financial system by building a global network that delivers services to users regardless of their geography,” Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon said in a statement, adding: “The addition of USDC to Stellar will allow us to continue to expand our global reach in pursuit of this mission while opening up new avenues for growth and innovation […]
Stablecoin
18 posts
Bitcoin has performed well in the face of a bleak news cycle while stablecoin assets in the crypto ecosystem continue to grow. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $10,515 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 0.44% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,362-$10,667 BTC above its 10-day moving average but below the 50-day, a sideways signal for market technicians. Bitcoin trading on Coinbase since September 30.Source: TradingView Bitcoin’s price stumbled in the early hours of Friday, falling to as low as $10,362 on spot exchanges such as Coinbase around 5:00 UTC (1 a.m. ET) before rising to $10,515 as […]
An unsurprising statement from a financial regulator is sending some welcome signals that point to a spurt of innovation ahead. The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a statement earlier this week saying that national banks can provide services to stablecoin issuers in the U.S. This is not a surprise, as banks have been doing so for some time. But they have been doing so under a cloud of regulatory uncertainty. The statement gives the first sign of official clarity on the idea that stablecoins are legitimate representations of value. Acceptance and support Why is this significant […]
Welcome to Opinionated, a new podcast featuring CoinDesk’s leading columnists and contributors. I’m your host, Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s opinion editor. On this week’s show, we’re joined by Nic Carter, cofounder of Coin Metrics and partner at Castle Island Ventures. Nic discusses this year’s $20 billion surge in USD-backed stablecoins (what he calls “crypto-dollars”) and the potentially enormous implications of an offshore dollarization system based on blockchain. Fiat-backed stablecoins are “not what Satoshi intended,” Carter says, but their “preposterous” growth this year is the “the most important phenomenon in the industry.” “It not only tells us about the maturation of the crypto […]
Fintech giant Plaid has quietly added support for two DeFi applications, the IRS wants to know about your crypto holdings and data shows the total value of stablecoins has surpassed the $20 billion milestone. Plaid <3 DeFiVisa-owned fintech company Plaid, which connects traditional bank accounts to thousands of digital platforms has quietly added support for Dharma’s DeFi wallet and Teller Finance, a DeFi startup bringing unsecured lending to the Ethereum blockchain. CoinDesk’s Ian Allison got the scoop that Plaid’s head of UK, Keith Grose, is a believer in decentralized and open applications, even if it’s a cynical attempt for fintech to manage its […]
DeFi Pulse fixed a bug that led to a substantial misreporting of total value in decentralized finance protocols, former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney joined the Chamber of Digital Commerce and there’s a new stablecoin that functions like a savings account. Top shelf Fresh capitalCrypto projects are raising funds as the industry continues to build out decentralized protocols. Ethereum data firm Dune Analytics, a Github-like platform which provides DeFi insights, has raised $2 million led by Dragonfly Capital and included Multicoin Capital, Coinbase Ventures, DCG and DeFi angels. Meanwhile, Skynet Labs, a startup formerly known as Nebulous, has raised a $3 million […]
Peer-to-peer commerce company Origin is announcing Origin Dollars, or OUSD, a stablecoin whose reserves leverage decentralized finance (DeFi) so that balances grow wherever it resides, no staking or account required. “One thing we’ve all seen in DeFi is a much smaller audience gets it. The barrier to entry is much higher,” Matthew Liu, Origin’s cofounder, told CoinDesk in a phone call. “We want to make DeFi much more accessible.” OUSD will be backed one-for-one by the three big stablecoins on Ethereum: Tether’s USDT, Circle and Coinbase’s USDC and MakerDAO’s DAI. Users can mint OUSD by depositing any of those three into […]
The OCC published guidance clarifying that federally-regulated banks can work with stablecoin issuers, the ECB thinks stablecoin is a “misleading” term and a group of banking veterans has spun up a new crypto fund. Top shelf Bitcoin fundsBanking veterans who have steered divisions at HSBC, Barclays, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch in the Asia-Pacific region are ditching traditional finance to invest in cryptocurrencies. Their new crypto fund, Liquibit Capital, will manage assets worth $50 million and will arbitrage a portfolio of bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, litecoin and eos, custodied with Fireblocks, with an eye to expand into derivatives trading. Elsewhere, tech legend and part-owner […]
Curve, the robot decentralized exchange for stablecoins, is kicking off a new dividend program for holders of its governance token, CRV. “We’ll start moving towards a cashflow-based protocol because the numbers are too sweet to not do it,” Curve founder Michael Egorov told CoinDesk in an email. In order to participate in governance, users need to stake their CRV to the voting contract, exchanging CRV for veCRV (voting escrow CRV). Those escrow tokens will begin receiving half of all the staking fees on Curve starting today. Each trade on the platform incurs a 0.04% trading fee, which is left in the […]
You’re going to have to wait a little longer for the liquidity mining–powered savings account from Korean stablecoin maker Terra. The savings account’s returns will be based on various proof-of-stake currencies, plus additional yield over the first five years in the form of its growth token. The system is called Anchor and was originally expected to go live in October; the latest update from the company has pushed that back to late November. That said, the project is riding forward on a wave of momentum. The firm’s Chai payments app, in which the Terra stablecoin is prominently featured, now has over […]
The folks building the next generation of digital money in Switzerland understand the need to collaborate. Stablecoins, digital tokens pegged one-to-one to the Swiss franc (CHF) in this case, are a prime example. SEBA Bank and Sygnum Bank, the two B2B players that hold banking licenses from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and that specialize in digital assets, are both involved in stablecoin explorations, as is the country’s respected crypto conglomerate, Bitcoin Suisse. “Within the Crypto Valley and here in Switzerland, there’s a very good collaboration going on, where everyone’s working together to try to design a Swiss franc stablecoin […]
Institutional demand for stablecoins may cool because yield on “carry trades” has been cut in half since Monday. The annualized rolling one-month futures basis shot as high as 28% at the start of the week on the Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, the biggest in terms of open interest. That was the highest premium since February, according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew. That premium, however, dropped to 14% in under 48 hours. In other words, the carry strategy, if initiated now and held until next Friday, will yield an annualized return of 14%, down from 28% on […]
The program applies to customers residing in the U.S., U.K., The Netherlands, Spain, France and Australia. Source link
Coinbase is said to be preparing to go public, CENTRE blasklisted a decentralized address and U.S. sanctions on China could trickle down to crypto brokerages. Here’s the story: You’re reading Blockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here. Top shelf Coinbase Listing?Coinbase is reportedly preparing to list on the U.S. stock market sometime in early 2021, according to a Reuters report. Sources said the exchange has already begun the process for a listing. Rather than an initial public offering, it’s said the firm […]
A Libra executive has confirmed the project has still not lost sight of its original ambition to launch a multi-currency stablecoin. Disclosure The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. Source link
Economists at the Federal Reserve said an earlier version of Libra, the Facebook-linked stablecoin frequently targeted by lawmakers and central bankers as an economic wrecking ball, was unlikely to have lived up to its sovereign currency-killer hype. Calling “fears of a so-called global stablecoin” “overstated” in a new report published Monday, economists Garth Baughman and Jean Flemming say policymakers may have focused perhaps too acutely on the likely downside of the previous Libra iteration’s multiple currencies backing a new stablecoin. The pair modeled a so-called basket-backed stablecoin in a hypothetical scenario, evaluating the likely impact that stablecoin would have on the […]
The crypto loan startup Ledn, which primarily serves users in Latin America, is now offering USDC stablecoin savings accounts through a partnership with the lending and trading conglomerate Genesis. (Disclosure: Genesis is owned by CoinDesk’s parent company, Digital Currency Group.) Genesis VP of Originations Matt Ballensweig said in a statement his company believes this will “be a successful collaboration” that boosts liquidity for institutional investors in North America as well. Stablecoins have become increasingly popular across Latin America. For example, MakerDAO Head of Business Development Greg Diprisco said Wednesday at Consensus: Distributed that Argentina is the leading market for Maker’s dollar-pegged […]
The value of assets for all stablecoins surpassed $10 billion Tuesday, having surged by over 70% in just two months, according to Coin Metrics. Stablecoin supply growth comes as more cryptocurrency traders choose to trade alternative cryptocurrencies (or altcoins) using dollar-backed digital tokens instead of bitcoin. Most of the stablecoin growth comes from tether, which represents almost 90% of the total stablecoin supply. The largest tether markets measured by traded volume are supported by two Asia-based exchanges, Binance and Huobi, according to CoinGecko. Both exchanges support nearly 200 different cryptocurrencies, which makes them attractive platforms for altcoin traders. Almost every exchange […]