• USDT selling sets off alarm bells as Curve, Uniswap pools flooded with tethers
Speculation is mounting that Tether’s USDT, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization at around $83.4 billion, may be under pressure.
There is currently no indication of a USDT depeg and USDT is trading at almost exactly one dollar. However, a stablecoin, which is nominally pegged to a stable asset (in the case of USDT, the US dollar) can lose parity with that asset.
Specific liquidity pools on the Uniswap and Curve protocols — the deepest pools in the DeFi ecosystem — currently seem to be flooded with USDT sellers.
When sellers flood the market it can cause a rapid depeg, a situation noted during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, when the well-regarded USDC stablecoin (issued by Circle and Coinbase) lost its peg and fell as low as $0.93 before regaining its dollar parity within a couple of days.
• Fed holds off on rate hike, but says two more are coming later this year
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday decided against what would have been an 11th consecutive interest rate increase as it measures what the impacts have been from the previous 10.
But the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to hold off on a hike at this two-day meeting came with a projection that another two quarter percentage point moves are on the a way before the end of the year.
“We have raised our policy interest rate by five percentage points, and we’ve continued to reduce our security holdings at a brisk pace. We’ve covered a lot of ground and the full effects of our tightening have yet to be felt,” said Fed Chair Jerome Powell at a news conference following the central bank decision.
The possibility of further rate increases put pressure on stocks immediately after the news broke, but encouraging talk on the fight against inflation allowed the market to rebound briefly.
• Binance launches Bitcoin mining cloud services amid SEC crackdown in the US
Crypto exchange Binance announced the launch of new subscription-based could mining products dedicated to Bitcoin mining.
Starting June 15, users that are interested in Bitcoin mining but lack the equipment can subscribe to Binance’s cloud mining services and purchase hashrates for the same. Hashrate is the computing power required for confirming and legitimizing Bitcoin transactions over the blockchain.
Binance is currently selling 1 Terahash per second (Th/s) at $10.7280, which is split between the hashrate and electricity costs at $1.17 and $9.558 respectively. A higher number of hashrate increases the probability of a higher income in terms of the Bitcoin earned through mining.
• U.S. Judge Rebuffs SEC Request for Binance.US Asset Freeze for Now
The federal judge overseeing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Binance and Binance.US declined to order a temporary restraining order freezing the U.S. trading platform’s assets.
That would allow the U.S. arm of the company to continue doing business while hashing out restrictions with the regulator.
If the two sides can agree on limits, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, of the D.C. District Court, said “there’s absolutely no need” for a restraining order. In the meantime, the judge ordered Binance.US to provide a list of its business expenses to the court, and ordered the parties to continue negotiating
• Treasury Secretary Says to Expect a Slow Decline in US Dollar as Reserve Currency
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that there should be an expectation of a slow decline in the US dollar as a reserve currency. Moreover, the statements arrive amidst international de-dollarization efforts employed by a host of countries, including the BRICS economic bloc.
Yellen had previously stated her expectation that the US dollar would remain unchallenged as the global reserve currency. However, it appears as though recent developments have shifted her stance on the matter.
• Proudly un-American: Polygon 2.0 will be ‘developed and deployed outside US’ too
Polygon, the platform builder for Ethereum scaling, recently unveiled their upcoming project known as Polygon 2.0. Polygon Labs and its ecosystem partners have been hinting at this development on Twitter for several days, often emphasizing the number 2.
Initial details are scant, but Polygon is laying claim to the “value layer” of the internet — a concept that nearly all blockchains aspire to achieve, including Ethereum itself.
“Over the coming weeks, we will detail each component of Polygon 2.0, addressing topics like the future of the Polygon PoS chain, the utility and evolution of the Polygon token, and the transition to greater community governance of the protocol and treasury,” Polygon said in a blog post on their official website.
Concluding Notes:
- USDT depegged
- FED holds off rate hike for now
- Binance launches BTC mining cloud services
- Judge rebuuffs SEC’s request
- Treasury Secretary expects a slow decline in USD as reserve currency
- Polygon 2.0 will be developed outside of the U.S.
