Weekly News 10/05/2021: Société Générale launches historic $20 million DAI loan

Banks and Institutions

Societe Generale offers historic $20m DAI loan

France’s third largest bank, Société Générale, has come to decentralised finance pioneer MakerDAO to propose a DAI loan creation. OFH security tokens, backed by home loans, would be used as collateral for the planned loan. This would be the first collaboration between a traditional bank and a DeFi protocol.

Bank of America believes crypto market has a bright future

A research report published by the Bank of America Corporation (BoA) offers a very optimistic long-term outlook on the crypto market. According to the financial institution, its $2.15 billion market capitalisation is "too large to ignore". The bank points out that NFTs and decentralised finance are the main innovations to be found today.

Biden administration considers applying banking regulations to stablecoins

The regulatory framework for stablecoins sinks in the US: Biden’s administration has raised the possibility of including stablecoin issuers in the same category as banks, with no permission for existing assets to continue operating.

Tehran Stock Exchange CEO resigns after mining machines found

Cryptocurrency mining machines were discovered in the basement of the Tehran Stock Exchange during a general inspection. As Iran suffers from repeated power outages recently, mining centres have been singled out. CEO Ali Sahraee was forced to resign.

El Salvador uses volcanic geothermal energy to mine bitcoins

According to President Bukele, El Salvador has already started mining bitcoins using the energy produced by its volcanoes. The results are so far modest: 0.0059 BTC – or $260. El Salvador is one of the largest producers of geothermal energy, a completely carbon-free method of production.

US regulator orders Kraken to pay $1.25 million in damages

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US stock exchange regulatory agency, has fined Kraken trading platform. The company allowed its American users to make leveraged trades, which is strictly regulated by US law. In addition to the 1.25 million dollar fine, the platform was ordered to stop marketing these products.

Cryptoactive ecosystem

Axie Infinity launches a trading and staking platform

The most popular blockchain-based gaming platform is launching its own decentralised exchange, making trading of its native token easier and more convenient. In addition, the company is implementing AXS staking, allowing users to earn new AXS as well as participate in the platform’s governance. Axie Infinity has over one million active users as of August 2021.

TikTok announces NFT collection

The social network TikTok is launching its first NFT collection together with its top video creators. Profits from sales will be entirely distributed to content creators and charities. TikTok Top Moments will be generated from six videos used as sources and reworked by NFT artists, including Elon Musk’s wife Grimes.

Technologies

Compound sends almost $50 million by mistake to its users

The latest DeFi Compound protocol backup, "Proposal 62", whose purpose was to change liquidity mining rewards and fix bugs, has gone wrong. An estimated $50 million of COMP tokens were wrongly distributed to Compound users, leaving $30 million to be claimed. The company looks to be relying on the investors’ honesty to return the funds.

Some figures

• dYdX token rises 80% in one week to $26,50
• Lightning Network capacity reaches a record high, close to 3000 bitcoins.
• Polygon’s active address count briefly overtakes Ethereum with a 330% increase in the last three months.
• Value locked in DeFi rises 936% in one year.
• Crypto transactions in Asia rise 706%, alongside growing institutional adoption.
• Ethereum miners now hold two million ethers, worth $6,1 billion following EIP-1559 update.