News Recap 2023 #Week42

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News Recap 2023 #Week42

News Recap

RedRedactor
October 13, 2023

• Caroline Ellison & SBF Conspired to Keep Bitcoin Under $20k

Former Alameda Research CEO and the ex-girlfriend of SBF Caroline Ellison testified Wednesday that Sam Bankman-Fried conspired to sell Bitcoin to artificially suppress prices below $20,000.

Appearing in FTX’s criminal fraud trial on Wednesday, Ellison said SBF directed Alameda to dump BTC acquired from FTX customer funds to stabilize prices.

Ellison admitted to improperly using FTX customer deposits to cover Alameda debts, also at SBF’s behest, totaling around $10 billion. When customers rushed to withdraw funds in November 2022, neither FTX nor Alameda had sufficient reserves, precipitating FTX’s collapse.

Ellison further testified that SBF ordered Alameda to aggressively buy and sell the native FTX token, FTT, to defend its peg when prices dropped.

• Trezor Launches New Hardware Wallets, Metal Seed Backup for Crypto Beginners

Hardware wallet provider Trezor has just unveiled a trio of new products aimed at assisting enthusiasts self custody their cryptocurrencies.

The new product lineup features the Trezor Safe 3 hardware wallet, the Trezor Keep Metal recovery seed backup, and a limited-edition Trezor Safe 3 Bitcoin-only wallet.

“Despite the obvious wisdom of ‘not your keys, not your crypto,’ just 2% of the 420 million global cryptocurrency users practice self-custody, while most use centralized exchanges and hot wallets,” Trezor CEO Matěj Žák told Decrypt. “Clearly, there is a need to educate users on how to safely store their digital assets and provide them with user-friendly products that have a straightforward onboarding process.”

• Mastercard announces successful wrapped CBDC trial results

Mastercard has completed a trial involving wrapping central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on different blockchains, similar to wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) and wrapped Ether (wETH).

According to the Oct. 12 announcement, the trial was conducted with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the country’s Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre CBDC, along with participation from Cuscal and Mintable. In a live environment, Mastercard said the solution allowed a CBDC owner to purchase a nonfungible token (NFT) listed on Ethereum in a live environment. “The process ‘locked’ the required amount of a pilot CBDC on the RBA’s pilot CBDC platform and minted an equivalent amount of wrapped pilot CBDC tokens on Ethereum,” the payment processor wrote.

• Crypto lending invalidated by Chinese court in second landmark ruling

A second Chinese court has ruled that crypto lending is an activity outside the protection of the country’s legal system.

According to an Oct. 10 press release by the Nanchang People’s Court, in April 2021, an individual known as Mr. Ming lent a total of 80,000 Tether to an individual known as Mr. Gang for stablecoin trading. The loan was to be repaid within six months. However, Mr. Gang defaulted on the loan, leading Mr. Ming to sue his counterparty in court.

In its landmark decision this week, the Nanchang People’s Court stated Mr. Ming was required to prove that Tether is a legally issued fiat currency to bring a necessary cause of action for judicial relief, citing a series of legislation forming China’s crypto ban. Since Mr. Ming could not do so, the court ruled that the lawsuit did not fall within the appropriate scope of civil litigation. Mr. Ming subsequently appealed the decision, which was also dismissed.

• Uniswap launches Android wallet beta for Google Play

Uniswap is the world’s largest decentralized crypto exchange by cumulative volume, having processed over $1.7 trillion worth of trades since its inception, according to data from DefiLlama. Most of its trades have been done via a web-based application. However, the team launched a mobile app for iOS on April 13. Prior to this date, the team had complained that Apple was holding up the app’s launch in the App Store. Even after getting the green light from the App Store, Uniswap still did not have a dedicated app for Android devices.

According to the Oct. 12 announcement, the new Android beta app allows users to select coins on different chains without switching networks. It automatically detects which network a coin is on and switches to that network without the user prompting it to. It can be used on Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and BNB Chain currently, with more chain compatibility slated for the future.

• USDC issuer partners with Philippines exchange to promote stablecoin

Circle, the issuer of the United States dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC is increasing its presence in the Philippines with a new local partnership.

On Oct. 10, Circle announced a strategic partnership with Coins.ph, a major cryptocurrency exchange and digital wallet provider in the Philippines.

As part of the partnership, Coins.ph and Circle will work jointly to drive awareness of USDC payments and help Filipino people pay less for cross-border money transfers and make faster transactions, the companies said.

The average cost of sending a $200 payment to Asia was 5.7% in 2022, they added, citing World Bank data. In the Philippines, the situation with remittances is even more complicated for the unbanked, which accounted for 44% of the adult population in 2021, according to the Philippines Central Bank.

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