Bank of America validates the Bitcoin strategy of El Salvador

Banks and Institutions

Towards tighter regulation of stablecoins in the US?

US Congressmen are currently debating a proposed law, the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act. The legislation proposes to treat crypto assets as "monetary instruments", which would effectively bring them under the purview of anti-money laundering and transaction monitoring laws. Stablecoins would be heavily regulated and would require approval from the Secretary of the Treasury to be created. In addition, new regulations are being put in place to ensure better tracking of transactions in order to prevent tax evasion. The White House expects to recover $28 billion in unpaid taxes.

Crypto players forced to close their doors in South Korea

Following new rules put in place by regulators in South Korea, at least 11 cryptocurrencies exchange sites will have to close their doors. Major exchanges are little impacted but it is mostly smaller firms that are struggling to meet the new demands of regulators.

Bank of America validates El Salvador’s Bitcoin strategy

Analysts at Bank of America say in a report that El Salvador’s decision to recognise BTC as a legal tender could streamline remittances, promote financial digitalisation, provide greater choice for consumers and open up the country to US companies and digital currency miners. With over 70% of El Salvador’s adult population unbanked, the potential for development is real.

Cryptoactive ecosystem

Stoner Cats, the animated series that is taking Ethereum by storm

A new animated series, Stoner Cats, is being created in Hollowood with prestigious actors lending their voices, such as Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, but also Vitalik Buterin, and broadcast only on the Internet. A special feature is that you will need to own one of the 13,000 NFTs of one of the characters in the series to be able to watch it. The sale of the tokens took place on July 27, and ended in 35 minutes, causing the number of transactions on Ethereum to explore, as well as the price of commissions.

Binance continues to face the wrath of regulators

Malaysia has just ordered the company to cease all activity in the country. Ka bank HSBC is cutting off credit card payments to the platform. In response to these attacks, Binance has just announced that it will no longer offer crypto-based derivatives to its customers in the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany and that this decision will soon be extended to all of Europe.

Carbon credits make their way into Bitcoin mining

Skybridge Capital is offering a solution to the crypto asset market’s perceived inordinate power consumption: carbon credits. The company is now partnering to allow Bitcoin miners to buy carbon credits to offset their power consumption and potentially their bad press.

FTX launches its NFT platform

The FTX platform is preparing to launch an NFT service dedicated to sports, media, video games, and the film and television industry. Partnerships with major companies in these fields are reportedly being signed.

Synthetix launches a binary options service

Derivatives platform Synthetix is launching Thales, a binary options-based betting service, designed to bet on the evolution of cryptoassets, stocks, commodities or indexes, but also to make sports bets on the results of the Olympics. In addition, Synthetix now also operates in layer2, based on Optimism technology.

Technology

New hack for Thorchain: 8 million stolen

After suffering an attack that resulted in a loss of $5 million, $8 million has now been stolen by a hacker from the Thorchain (RUNE) platform. Not content with looting the vaults, the hacker took the liberty of lecturing the developers on the flaws in their code, and claiming that he could have taken much more.

Bitcoin mining is on the rise again

Mining power on the Bitcoin network is up 21% since it fell in June following a crackdown by the Chinese government. Miners seem to have found new countries to move to, including Canada, Kazakhstan, and the US. Even so, China’s mining power still accounts for 46% of the total.

Avalanche launches a new bridge

It is a network layer to interface with the Ethereum blockchain. The Avalanche Bridge is expected to be five times cheaper to use than the previous version, and give access to all DeFi services on the Ethereum blockchain from the Avalanche network.

Some figures

• The weekly trading volume on NFTs exceeds USD 300 million for the first time.
• For the third month in a row, Ethereum miners’ revenue is higher than Bitcoin miners’ revenue, at $1.03 billion.
• An NFT representing a rare cryptopunk is for sale for $90 million.
• The daily volume on OpenSea now exceeds its 2020 total.