• Stablecoin dominance slides as market cap falls to near 2-year lows: CCData
The market capitalization of stablecoins has hit the lowest level since August 2021 following 16 consecutive months of decline, a new report says.
Cryptocurrency analytics platform CCData released a report on July 20 saying the stablecoin market cap fell 0.82% from the start of the month until July 17, taking the sector’s market cap to $127 billion.
Stablecoin market dominance took a slight fall and is currently at 10.3%, dropping from 10.5% in June.
• FTX sues Sam Bankman-Fried and other former execs to claw back $1B
FTX has sued former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and other former key executives from the now-bankrupt crypto exchange to recover more than $1 billion in allegedly misappropriated funds.
A July 20 complaint filed in a United States Bankruptcy Court named former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang, former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh and Bankman-Fried as defendants.
In the lawsuit, FTX claimed the former executives breached their fiduciary duties by allegedly misappropriating customer funds on a “continuous basis to finance luxury condominiums, political and ‘charitable’ contributions, speculative investments and other pet projects.”
• Bitcoin options tantalizing bears to push BTC price below $30K before Friday’s expiry
This week’s Bitcoin options expiry on Friday, July 21, could solidify the $30,000 resistance level and give the bears the upper hand for the first time since the 21% rally between June 14 and June 21.
A review of Bitcoin’s recent price action shows that three out of the last four BTC options expiries triggered significant price movements, making it crucial for traders to pay close attention to these events.
Notably, Bitcoin’s price has consistently shown strong reactions following the weekly 8:00 am UTC options expiry. While causation cannot be established, the magnitude of these price swings warrants extreme caution leading up to the weekly expiry on July 21.
• Indonesia launches its crypto exchange and clearing house
The national cryptocurrency exchange, announced by the Indonesian government a week ago, has begun to function, according to a statement from the country’s Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CFTRA). The platform will be the only space in the country where the legal exchange of digital assets is allowed.
CFTRA confirmed the opening of the exchange on July 20. In addition, the CFTRA decree establishes a Futures Clearing House along with the exchange. A clearing house is essentially a mediator between a buyer and seller, ensuring the transaction goes smoothly.
• Solana records 1 outage in first half of 2023, 100% uptime in Q2
Layer-1 blockchain network Solana has shown an improvement in reliability and uptime so far this year only having one outage in 2023, according to a report from the Solana Foundation.
On July 20, the Solana Foundation released its latest performance report stating it has improved the network through the first half of 2023, as measured by uptime and the ratio of non-voting-to-voting transactions.
In previous years, Solana has been plagued with reliability and uptime issues. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has called them a “curse” but said the network’s low-cost transactions were the cause of the outages.
The latest report noted Solana has experienced 100% uptime since Feb. 25, marking a whole quarter without an outage. The single February outage saw the network knocked offline for almost 19 hours.
• Coinbase to Wind Down Lending Program Over Coming Months
Coinbase Borrow, a program that allowed customers to receive fiat loans of up to $1 million against as much as 30% of their bitcoin (BTC) holdings, will be shutting down over the coming months as the company focuses its resources on products that “customers care about most,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk Thursday.
Customers who hold loans through the program will have until November 20, 2023 to pay back any outstanding loan balances.
Concluding Notes:
- Stablecoin dominance declines
- FTX sues Sam Bankman-Fried
- Bears pushing Bitcoin under $30K
- Indonesia launches its crypto exchange and clearing house
- Solana network is showing improvement signs in reliability
- Coinbase is shutting down it’s lending program
