Facebook’s Crypto Shopping Spree Isn’t Over Yet. Here’s Who Else They Might Acquire.
Citing unnamed sources, the publication said Facebook has been eyeing several blockchain startups with a view of making acquisitions. Some of these firms include Algorand, Basis and Keybase.
Over 5.5 Billion USDC has Been Transferred оn-Chain
The Centre consortium was founded by crypto finance firm Circle and United States-based crypto exchange Coinbase. USDC s a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin released by Coinbase and Circle in October of last year.
While still a nascent class of digital assets, stablecoins have quickly developed into a meaningful competitor to traditional bank accounts at banks. Stablecoins are digital tokens that represent national currencies and are issued using a variety of bitcoin-based technologies, representing an $18 trillion market opportunity.
The potential of crypto credit markets and how to use them » Brave New Coin
"Infrastructure is fast growing for crypto credit markets. With the introduction of collateralized debt positions (CDPs) Maker's stablecoin DAI has been a game-changer and the driving force behind the nascent crypto lending markets by allowing users to lock up their ETH in CDPs and being issued with the USD stablecoin DAI. To get DAI, users most post collateral at least 1.5x the value of their debt."
What is Dai, and how does it work? – MyCrypto – Medium
"This is a brief overview of how MakerDAO and Dai works. There are many intricacies to the system, but I believe these are the main mechanisms in place if one wants a brief overview of how Maker gives Dai its stablecoin properties."
Satoshi Capital Research: Stablecoins Becoming the New Bank Account
According to a new Satoshi Capital research, stablecoins are dominating bitcoin, quickly developing into a major competitor to the traditional bank accounts. According to Satoshi Capital research, the functional differences between traditional bank accounts and stablecoins lie in speed, costs, and accessibility. Whereas traditional bank accounts – both business and individual accounts – can only be accessed by customers of each respective institution and transfers come with high costs and processing times, stablecoins can be used across the board considering that it has open system architecture.
Reading the fine print: Basis pre-sale burns non-USD investors - The Block
"Basis, the highly anticipated algorithmic stable coin project, shut down and announced it would return 90% of capital raised to its investors. It didn’t mention that it was actually contractually obligated to do so. Both USD and ETH/BTC investors received 90% of returned capital, USD investors at a notional value of 1:1, whereas Ether investors saw as much as an 85% discount to par. Some of these investors have reached out to The Block under anonymity to share how the marketing of the sale differed from the underlying fine print in the pre-sale SAFT agreement"
MakerDAO, also known as Maker, is a crypto-collateralized stablecoin that uses a two-token system comprised of Dai, which targets a value of $1 per unit, and Maker (MKR), which is used to pay fees on Dai loans and grants governance input via voting on Maker’s policies, like the collateral ratio required on loans and the amount of fees charged on loans. Maker has a fixed maximum supply and when it is used to repay Dai loan fees it is burned, thereby reducing the circulating supply. To keep the price of a unit of Dai at $1, Maker employs incentive mechanisms that will be detailed later in this piece.
Texas Says Stablecoins Are Money — Here Is Why They Are Right
The document states that “cryptocurrency is not money under the Money Services Act, […] However, when a cryptocurrency transaction does include sovereign currency, it may be money transmission depending on how the sovereign currency is handled. A licensing analysis will be based on the handling of the sovereign currency.”
Stablecoins Dominate Currency Pairings for Leading Crypto Assets
"According to Cryptocompare, USDT currently comprises the largest currency pairing by volume for three of the four largest crypto assets by capitalization. In the last 30 days, USDT pairings have comprised more than 67% of total BTC trade, nearly 46% of total ETH trade, and 48% of LTC trade. While BTC is the dominant pairing for XRP, with almost 49% of monthly volume, USDT is the second-most traded pairing with 22.60%."
JPMorgan JPM Stable Coin Poses Direct Threat to Ripple - Bloomberg
JPM Coin, a so-called stable coin JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans for its clients to use in cross-border payments, is a direct threat to one of the most visible blockchain companies, Ripple, and the digital currency used in its products, according to Tom Shaughnessy, principal at Delphi Digital, a crypto research boutique in New York. XRP, which can be used to facilitate faster, lower cost international payments, is the third most valuable cryptocurrency by market value.
J.P. Morgan Creates Digital Coin for Payments | J.P. Morgan
"J.P. Morgan this month became the first U.S. bank to create and successfully test a digital coin representing a fiat currency. The JPM Coin is based on blockchain-based technology enabling the instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional accounts. We sat down with Umar Farooq, head of Digital Treasury Services and Blockchain, to find out more about the announcement and what it means for the future of payments."
JPMorgan has a lot of clients (“Pretty much every big corporation is our client,” says Farooq), and they will try out JPMorgan’s walled-garden blockchain, and it will be good, and they will start sending money and doing transactions using the JPMorgan walled-garden blockchain rather than the creaky old wire-transfer-based system, and this blockchain will be so good that everyone else will want to join it too, which they will do more or less by becoming JPMorgan customers (or otherwise, somehow, getting permission to plug into the JPMorgan blockchain), and ultimately the JPMorgan blockchain will eat the world, yay.
Why JP Morgan's 'Bitcoin Killer' isn't Even a Real Cryptocurrency
"The author is too long in this game to mince words. If your token doesn’t have the above properties – immutable, cash-like, and resistant to the petty despots of the world – then it is not a cryptocurrency. Point-blank."
'Already Live': Signature Bank Is Moving Millions on a JPMorgan-Like Private, Dollar-Backed Cryptocurrency - CoinDesk
While crypto-land is abuzz about JPMorgan’s plan to move U.S. dollars around via blockchain, a smaller New York bank has already been doing this for nearly two months. Since launching at the start of the year, Signature Bank’s blockchain-based Signet system has on-boarded more than 100 clients who are using it to send each other millions of dollars a day, 24/7, bank executives said.
JPM Coin’s encrypted digital ledger – one that substitutes hashes for trust – eliminates vast numbers of layers and time. Time and trust equal counterparty risk. Automating this with blockchain drops the costs to a small fraction while increasing certainty.
"Ending Ripple’s dreams of world domination, and those of other digital coin issuers, might therefore be exactly what J.P. Morgan has in mind. It will be interesting to see how this little stand-off develops."
Another Megabank Moves Forward With its Stablecoin, Alipay Joins Race
"The Mizuho Financial Group, operator of Japan’s second largest (and one of the top 20 largest banks in the world) bank – Mizuho Bank – says it has developed a smartphone app that will allow customers to pay at a wide range of Japanese stores using its forthcoming J Coin token. The stablecoin is slated to be unveiled next month. Alipay, for its part, is said to be keen to increase the overseas reach of its services, and will soon allow customers to pay for goods in Japan via QR code-powered J Coin transactions."
PwC CN: Emergence of stable value coins and a trust framework for fiat-backed versions | PwC China
"This PWC study is focused on the current state of stablecoins, their uses and usefulness, and their potential impact on the cryptocurrency and adjacent industries in a regulatory context. "
New report says stablecoins may become ‘the new money’ » Brave New Coin
"A new report by cryptocurrency and blockchain advisor, George Samman, titled ‘The State of Stablecoins 2019,’ details the history of money and makes an argument for why stablecoins represent the natural evolution of where money will head next."
Japanese Banking Giant Mizuho to Launch Its Yen-Pegged Stablecoin in March
Japan’s banking giant Mizuho Financial Group will launch its bespoke stablecoin for payments and remittance services on March 1, local financial newspaper Nikkei Asian Review reports on Feb. 21. In a partnership with around 60 counterpart financial institutions — which together reportedly host 56 million user accounts — Mizuho’s new “J-Coin” digital currency platform will reportedly directly link existing bank accounts with digital wallets.
JP Morgan launch new digital asset - but is it a cryptocurrency? » Brave New Coin
As a private blockchain aimed at facilitating corporate transfers, JPM coin is less similar to bitcoin, and more similar to other blockchains designed specifically for international settlements; such as Ripple Labs' XRP token, Goldman Sachs' SETLcoin, and Citibank's Citicoin that aim to use partnerships to help banks cut out the intermediary fees of SWIFT, which has a monopoly on cross bank transactions.
Facebook and Telegram Are Hoping to Succeed Where Bitcoin Failed
The internet outfits, including Facebook, Telegram and Signal, are planning to roll out new stablecoins over the next year that are meant to allow users to send money to contacts on their messaging systems, like a Venmo or PayPal that can move across international borders.
JP Morgan Is Quietly Testing Cutting-Edge Ethereum Privacy Tech - CoinDesk
Now, the global bank is testing out another zero-knowledge privacy solution called AZTEC. Developed by a London startup of the same name, this protocol aims to allow encryption of blockchain data at a lower cost and more efficiently than previous versions of the technology
Will Fiat-Backed Stablecoins Pass Legal Muster With the SEC and CFTC? - CoinDesk
"Given how these stablecoins are redeemed, the SEC might characterize them as “demand notes,” which are traditionally defined as two-party negotiable instruments obligating a debtor to pay the noteholder at any time upon request. According to the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Reves v. Ernst & Young, demand notes are presumed to be securities under Exchange Act Section 3(a)(10) unless an exception or exclusion applies."
DAI — a decentralized opposition to the ‘banking cartel’ of stablecoins accumulates 1.7
"Today it seems that the only stable coin that is securely emitted in a decentralized manner is MakerDAO’s DAI. It is also one of the most popular #DeFi apps in Ethereum ecosystem. What is it that makes DAI so unique generating an explosive amount of community trust? Here we will touch upon the core mechanics of MakerDAO emission system, and shed some light on how you as a Ethereum user can benefit from that today."
Facebook Got Data Privacy Wrong, but Could it Get Blockhain and Fintech Right? - Fintech Hong Kong
Several financial institutions have already integrated with Messenger including American Express, Mastercard, MoneyGram, and PayPal. Brazil’s Banco Bradesco for instance is leveraging the Facebook platform to allow customers to conduct day-to-day banking from Facebook, relying on the social network’s customer data analytics to target users.
The Rise of Stablecoins: An Analysis of Market Adoption | TradeBlock
"Our findings indicate that stable coins still have significant room to make inroads on traditional payment processors as a payment option. The accessibility and user experience on traditional payment applications remains significantly further developed than applications and platforms that are used to transfer stablecoins. While stablecoins have shown promise as a way for users to transfer monetary stable value quickly and cheaply, such transactions have not seen explosive adoption, as evidenced by the relatively low number of on-chain transactions. Further, while stable coins initially saw traction as a digital currency trading pair on exchanges, this appears to have lost some momentum as trading volumes fall and as the US dollar maintains its dominance as the top trading pair in bitcoin and altcoin transactions."
New Partnership Allows TrueUSD Traders to Audit The Coin’s Backing Assets
The dashboard developed by Armanino purportedly enables traders to monitor TrueUSD token balances and collateralized funds. “Armanino connects directly to third-party escrow accounts holding the U.S. dollars that collateralize TrueUSD tokens, and runs their own ETH nodes to ensure accurate TUSD token supply,” the post details.
