Banks and Institutions
El Salvador’s president wants to make Bitcoin a legal tender
The president of El Salvador has announced plans to submit a law to parliament to grant Bitcoin legal tender status in his country. Among the various reasons, Nayib Bukele wants to de-dollarize his economy, attract capital and investors, help unbanked citizens and reduce the costs of international transfers.
Source : The Block Crypto
China takes on crypto influencers
After going after miners and cryptocurrency exchanges, China is now hunting pro-crypto influencers. On Weibo, the main Chinese social network, many accounts specialized on the crypto ecosystem have been closed. China would like to avoid the emergence of a "Chinese Elon Musk".
Source : Journal du Coin
Ransomware is a concern in the United States
One of the most publicized ransomware cases sees a positive outcome: Colonial Pipeline had its energy transmission operations nearly crippled and had to pay 75 bitcoins. U.S. authorities are announcing new measures to combat these attacks, which have been described as a threat to American national security. Meanwhile, the FBI has managed to recover most of the stolen funds, and said it has access to the attacker’s cryptocurrency wallet.
Source : The Block Crypto
Cryptoactive ecosystem
Exposure to Bitcoin declines among institutions
A report from Coinshares shows that institutional players appear to be sharply reducing their exposure to Bitcoin: $141 million has been exited since the last widespread market price drop. BTC trading volume in June fell 62% from the weekly average in May. BTC miners, meanwhile, sold over 5,000 BTC. All this news is rather bearish. On the other hand, institutional investors are strengthening their position in Ethereum.
Source : Coin Telegraph
Binance selects 100 artists for the launch of its NFT platform
Binance, which will launch its dedicated NFT marketplace on June 24, has selected 100 artists who will be able to sell their NFTs at that time. Only these artists will be able to sell NFTs during the first week of the platform’s launch. Any user with a Binance account will be able to access the marketplace to buy and resell NFTs.
Source : The Block Crypto
Ethereum-backed loans soon available to investors
Anchorage, a digital bank, will offer Ethereum-backed loans to institutional players. Indeed, institutional investors will then be able to borrow dollars without liquidating their ETH. Anchorage has formed a partnership with the American bank BankProv. Anchorage will then keep the ETH as collateral if a client is unable to repay his loan in dollars.
Source : Coin Telegraph
A Bitcoin will literally go to the moon
While the phrase "to the moon" commonly means in the crypto ecosystem a very rapid positive movement in the price of an asset, that phrase will now come to life in a literal sense. Indeed, Astrobotic Technology will launch a space mission that will carry a private key containing a bitcoin in a hardware wallet, which anyone can retrieve as long as they go get it.
Source : The Block Crypto
GTS enters decentralized finance via Solana
GTS, one of the largest trading firms on the New York Stock Exchange announced it is entering the decentralized finance ecosystem, joining a Solana-based project. GTS will collaborate with Pyth Network, a data management project led by Jump Trading. The Solana ecosystem is growing at a high rate with the launch of numerous projects, and could raise between $300 million and $450 million, in hopes of seriously competing with Ethereum.
Source : The Block Crypto
Polkadot announces the beginning of the auction of its parachains
After having done it on Kusama, the team of Polkadot announces to prepare the beginning of the auction of its parachains. The auctions should start on June 15th. As a reminder, Polkadot’s project aims to enable and facilitate the transfer of any type of data between any type of blockchain.
Source : The Block Crypto
Technology
A copy of the 0x protocol is created
After SushiSwap, Curve, mStable, and other DeFi players, it’s the 0x project’s turn to create a copy of its protocol on the Polygon solution, to cope with the high operating costs of the Ethereum blockchain and open up to new markets. 0x mainly offers liquidity aggregation solutions for users of its platform.
Source : Journal du Coin
Vitalik Buterin surprised by the development time of Ethereum 2.0
Vitalik Buterin says he is surprised at how long it takes to develop Ethereum 2.0. The idea is still to achieve a union of the Ethereum 1 and 2 chains by the end of 2021. There have been changes in priorities. In particular, facing the threat of Layer 2 protocols and the bad publicity around the power consumption, the priority has been put on the implementation of the proof of stake. The sharding, allowing to separate the blockchain in several pieces in order to massively scale it, is now planned for the end of 2022.
Source : Coin Telegraph
Figures of the week
1%
One percent of all bitcoins in circulation are now on the Ethereum blockchain in the form of derivative tokens.
$350 million
Decentralized finance protocols generated $350 million in revenue in May.
90%
NFT sales are down 90% from their peak.
$22 billion
Aave now has $22 billion in funds under management.
$400 million
Microstrategy doesn’t have enough bitcoins yet: the company will issue $400 million in bonds to buy more.
