Week 6 | 2/6/23 - 2/11/23
By Matthew BrienenNews Flash
Payments giant Visa reportedly seeks to meet customer requests to convert digital assets into fiat payments, similar to how it converts foreign currencies. “We’ve been testing how to actually accept settlement payments from issuers in USDC starting on Ethereum and paying out in USDC on Ethereum,” Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, said during the StarkWare Sessions 2023 event in Tel Aviv. “So, these are large value settlement payments.” “The same way that we can convert between dollars in euros on a cross-border transaction, we should be able to convert between digital tokenized dollars and traditional dollars,” he said.
Roofstock, a property technology company focused on selling single-family rental homes, has completed its second on-chain property sale through Roofstock onChain (ROC), its Web3 subsidiary. The property sold for $180,000 on an NFT marketplace built by Origin Protocol. It will be the first home to have been purchased on any NFT marketplace with on-chain leverage from DeFi lender Teller protocol.
WeTransfer has taken its first step into the NFT business by partnering with Minima, a Swiss blockchain firm. Minima was founded in 2018 in Zug, Switzerland, a town known for its crypto start-up ecosystem. WeTransfer is one of the largest file transfer companies in the world, posting a revenue of $77 million in 2021. The partnership will see the two companies deploy NFTs on Minima’s network, which is set to go live in March in 180 countries, giving creators rights management for their digital property. Consumers will have the ability to generate NFTs from their phones or any other device, according to the companies.
Technology giant Dell will join the likes of Google, FIS and Abrdn on the governing council of the enterprise network Hedera, a distributed ledger technology that uses a hashgraph consensus mechanism. “Now you're seeing a whole industry start to grow, lots of investment,” said David Frattura, senior director of technology strategy at Dell. “And for us, it becomes more and more serious for us to pay attention and focus on this.” As a part of the governing council, Dell will run a consensus node, which is used to determine transaction ordering. Members of the governing council also manage the software related to the network.
Aave Companies, the firm behind the eponymously-named lending and borrowing protocol, are launching its native stablecoin GHO on the Ethereum Goerli testnet. Pronounced “GO,” the stablecoin is fully decentralized and over-collateralized. Its design ensures the GHO oracle price is always fixed one-to-one with the U.S. dollar, as minting will be through assets supplied as collateral in the Aave Protocol. Aave is a decentralized lending and borrowing platform that uses over-collateralization as a mechanism for ensuring the safety of deposited funds.
Payments giant Paypal held over half a billion dollars worth of the two largest cryptocurrencies as of December 31, 2021, according to its year-end report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). That included $291 million in Bitcoin (BTC), and another $250 million in Ethereum (ETH).
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has approved the construction of its National Blockchain Technology Innovation Centre. The research hub’s key objectives revolve around researching the technology for industrial applications as well as how it could be applied in the national economy, per state media reported by the South China Morning Post. The new center will also collaborate with domestic universities in China, as well as research institutes and businesses.
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has reached an agreement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to stop offering staking services or programs to U.S. clients. In a Feb. 9 announcement, the SEC said it had charged Kraken with “failing to register the offer and sale of their crypto asset staking-as-a-service program,” which the commission claims qualified as securities under its purview. The crypto firm has agreed to cease operations of its staking program for U.S. customers as well as pay $30 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties.
CryptoCharged Live Show Recaps
Monday: Brian Decker talks about an NFT aggregator he's been using and the benefits it could offer you. Matthew Brienen describes Revolut's decision to offer crypto staking, FTX's "confidential letters" to politicians requesting that they return donations, and an interesting commentary on the US dollar. Dan Habib outlines the BLS Jobs report adjustments, the first money supply decline on record, and an intriguing future projection for Bitcoin. Matthew and Brian talk about RNDR and its recent surge, as well as a technical market analysis.
Tuesday: The team reveals Dell joining Hedera's governing council, WeTransfer's partnership with Minima, and the Bank of England's launch of the digital pound CBDC project. Matthew provides a technical analysis of the markets and explains why you should not invest large sums of money in these altcoins that are rising in value.
Wednesday: Matt mentions Argentina's National Securities Commission establishing requirements for crypto companies, Saudi Arabia's collaboration with The Sandbox for future metaverse plans, and Dubai's ban on privacy coins. Matthew also provides a technical analysis of the markets, as well as a detailed analysis of Bitcoin and XRP using Fibonaccis.
Thursday: Dan Habib discusses how CEOs are preparing for a recession, increased investment opportunities, a Bitcoin forecast, and CPI expectations. Matthew Brienen explains Kraken's settlement with the SEC over its crypto staking program, Tether's $700 million profit for Q4 2022, and also don't endanger your online security. Dan and Matthew provide a technical analysis of the markets, including whether Bitcoin will continue to fall from here.
Friday: Matt discusses PayPal holding over $500 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum last quarter, the launch of a debit card with crypto cashback by Bit2Me and Mastercard, and 'deposit tokens' that could trade on DeFi like stablecoins. Matthew also looks at the technicals and how many assets are trading in a range.
