ALSO: USDC expands onto five chains, EU widens Russian crypto sanctions and more |
The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Meta Opens NFT Sharing on Instagram and Facebook to All US Users: Users in the U.S. can now connect their crypto wallets to Instagram as part of the app's new digital collectible feature, which the tech giant has been testing since May. Coinbase, Dapper Labs, MetaMask, Rainbow and Trust wallets are all initially supported. EU Set to Ban Russian Crypto Payments After 'Sham' Referenda: The European Union will further tighten restrictions on Russians' crypto investments within the bloc as part of a wider sanctions package update after "sham" independence votes held in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. - A previous cap of crypto holdings of 10,000 euros ($9,600) will be scrapped, potentially meaning Russians won't be able to hold any assets in EU wallets. The new sanctions are a work in progress, and still subject to agreement by EU member states.
Circle Expands USDC Stablecoin to Five New Chains, Unveils Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol: Circle Internet Financial will expand USD coin (USDC) to Arbitrum One, Near, Optimism and Polkadot chains by the end of this year in an attempt to strengthen its market position against rival Tether. USDC will also enter the Cosmos ecosystem sometime in early 2023. - Native USDC on Cosmos aims to fill the vacuum left by Terra's UST stablecoin. Circle also unveiled a tool called Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to enhance USDC transactions between different blockchains.
SWIFT Partners With Crypto Data Provider Chainlink on Cross-Chain Protocol in TradFi Play: SWIFT, the interbank messaging system that allows for cross-border payments, is working with Chainlink, a provider of price feeds and other data to blockchains, on a proof-of-concept for a cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP). - Meanwhile, crypto exchange Bittrex, custodian BitGo and six other firms have joined the Crypto Market Integrity Coalition (CMIC), a self-regulatory organization aiming to combat crypto market manipulation.
– Xinyi Luo |
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CBDCs: Innovation or In-Fighting? The central banks of Israel, Norway and Sweden have teamed up with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to explore how central bank digital currencies (CBDC) can be used for international retail and remittance payments. This is the latest cross-border experiment with these digital fiat currencies, as nearly every country with a central bank continues to study CBDCs.
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There are a lot of reasons why governments are targeting CBDCs, including improving their control over fiscal flows, making taxation more transparent and efficient and making it easier (or conceivable) to run certain social benefit programs.
But CBDCs also cause a lot of anxiety. For everyday citizens, the idea of complete government surveillance of their spending is anathema. For banks, they're worried CBDCs could compete with their financial services. Though, it seems more likely that banks would benefit from CDBC implementations; just today the European Central Bank (ECB) said that peer-to-peer systems are likely off the table for a digital euro.
Although there is technically a CBDC that's operational – the Bahamian "sand dollar" – the world is still in wait-and-see mode about what these modern fiat currencies will look like (not dollars and coins, that's for sure!). Earlier this week, BIS also announced the success of a project involving multiple Asian CBDCs that facilitated over $22 million in foreign-exchange transactions. Doesn't that seem too minute to matter?
That hasn't stopped CBDCs from becoming a center of political infighting. This week, European lawmakers are embroiled in a debate over Amazon building an app for a theoretical digital euro. On one side are those fighting for consumer concerns like data privacy. The other pro-business side doesn't want to shut Europe out from American tech, and is raising concerns over protectionism.
– D.K.
This study examines why no existing decentralized storage is suitable for storing personal data, from a legal and ethical point of view, and what negative consequences the development of blockchain technologies may have for society without taking this crucial factor into account. We take a closer look at various aspects of this problem: - social
- legislative
- technical and technological.
Followed by an in-depth comparison of existing decentralized storage projects. We list technical requirements for new solutions that will replace the current ones. |
Putting the news into perspective |
Breaking Down the SEC and CFTC's Autumn Wave of Enforcement Actions Fall is here, and U.S. financial regulators are well on their way to making this the worst season for criminal enforcement yet. Every year at this time, due to budgetary considerations and perhaps quotas to fill, agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) ramp up their enforcement against crypto's alleged bad actors. In September 2019, you may remember, the SEC and CFTC sued and settled with the perpetrators of EOS, the largest ($4 billion) initial coin offering of all time. In December 2020, the SEC announced it was building a case against Ripple Labs. and that two of its executives had supposedly held illegal token sales totaling over $1 billion. And every year, a slew of cases are brought against lower-profile crypto projects – for any number of reasons. |
(Timothy Eberly/Unsplash) "The SEC & CFTC end their fiscal year on September 30, so this is their last chance to score big wins they can highlight in their budget requests to Congress," Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at the Blockchain Association, tweeted. (He's made the point before.) This year is no different. Just this week at least three lawsuits were filed against crypto projects. One company was accused of market manipulation, a crypto influencer was charged with failing to report income and there's even a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) thrown into the mix. The SEC is often accused of regulating through enforcement rather than issuing clear guidance. While the accused projects mentioned are comparatively small, each enforcement has a legal wrinkle that analysts think could set a dangerous precedent. It seems as though in the mad dash to file cases before the end of the fiscal year, mistakes can be made. Read the full story here. – D.K. |
Overheard on CoinDesk TV... |
"It is a groundbreaking innovation, because you have a digital instrument that can move at the speed of light and settle at virtually no cost." – Strike CEO Jack Mallers, discussing the Lighting network, on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover" | |
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Stablecoin Markets Shift as Binance Begins USDC Conversions (Decrypt) SEC Turns the Screws Again With Crypto Market Manipulation Case (The Defiant) Is Ethereum Censorship a Concern Post-Merge? (Blockworks) Told you so: Crypto-loving Bukele rips BoE over struggling pound (Protos)
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