Bitcoin Price: US$ 30,076.31 (-11.64%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,228.55 (-11.56%)
Algo Stablecoins Shake, Rainbow Bridge, & Lens Protocol’s Tokenized Social Graph
- Crypto markets tumbled over the weekend and continue to drop this Monday. Some algorithmic stablecoins have also struggled to maintain stability (USN not pictured above due to lack of data).
- The dip saw peg defenders emerge, most prominently the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), which passed a vote to 1) Loan $750M worth of BTC to OTC trading firms to help protect the UST peg and 2) Loan 750M UST to accumulate BTC as market conditions normalize.
- UST total supply has contracted for the first time in a month on Sunday and has since shrunk by ~85.6m according to Terra analytics website Smart Stake.
- The exception to the price action is Tron’s USDD, which was launched just 4 days ago. It has a smaller market capitalization of ~$169m. USDD’s pegging mechanism is similar to Terra’s UST, with an arbitrage-driven mint-burn mechanism backed by the Tron Blockchain’s native token TRX.
- UST has been receiving most of the attention relating to de-pegging, but the same fate has befallen its counterparts such as FRAX, FEI, and USDN. It remains to be seen whether each project will be robust enough to maintain its peg during these volatile times.
Difficult Choices for Tribe DAO and USDD Tries for a Gauge
- Alchemix expands to Fantom, announcing collateral types and protocol parameters.
- Fuji DAO drops hints about their token in their latest update to their Fuji Climbing expedition.
- Metastreet DAO announces the third level of their Tradeweaver program.
- QiDAO repays bad debt from this mornings price action.
- FlipsideCrypto discovers issues with Sushi’s Merkle distributor. Thankfully, they returned the excess SUSHI to the DAO’s treasury
- Treasure DAO announces an AMA on Twitter to allow the community to ask questions about the new partnership with Strider.
- Ameen tells crypto-twitter that Reflexer Labs will dissolve in favor of Reflexer DAO.
- Aurigami began its liquidity mining program and released a handy tutorial to help users navigate their platform.
- Bribe Protocol announces a Qi DAO integration on their platform.
- Daopedia asks a thought-provoking question on DAOs being more extensive than just the future of work.
- ENS launches their physical DAO constitution book.
- Gearbox publishes their March – April 2022 update and hints at the launch of Gearbox v2.
- LandWorks, by Enter DAO, announces the latest update to their protocol.
- Poolsuite announces Manor DAO – a hospitality collective financing the purchase of a manor through selling premium NFTs.
- Poisedon DAO tweets a thread on how they conceptualize relationships between creators and NFTs.
- Saber consolidates and publishes its collection of tools as public goods for the Solana ecosystem.
- Superfluid introduces its Superfluid Reactor Project.
- Tokemak publishes an article on their 2022 milestones.
Three new crypto ETFs to begin trading in Australia this week
- Australians will soon have more options for spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) after a previous hold-up was given the green light this week and new funds entered the ETF market.
- The latest update came late on May 9 as Cboe Australia issued a round of market notices that three funds previously delayed are expected to begin trading on Thursday, May 12. They include a Bitcoin ETF from Cosmos Asset Management, plus Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) spot ETFs from 21Shares.
- Cboe Australia and Cosmos did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson from 21Shares confirmed to Cointelegraph:
- “We’re listing on May 12, this Thursday. The downstream issues are resolved.”
42.5K BTC reportedly moved from Luna Foundation Guard wallet as UST peg crumbles
- Roughly $1.4 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) was reportedly moved from a wallet tied to Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) on Monday, raising questions about its ultimate destination on a day that has seen Bitcoin’s price tumble more than 11%.
- Data from blockchain explorer Blockchair revealed Monday that 42,530.82827771 BTC was spent from the LFG wallet, though its destination was unknown. It has been speculated that the funds were split into two batches — roughly 12,500 BTC and 30,000 BTC, respectively — with a portion reportedly sent to cryptocurrency exchange OKEX.
- The move came less than a day after LFG announced that it was taking decisive steps to “proactively defend the stability of the UST peg [and] broader Terra economy,” referring to its popular algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, which fell below its United States dollar peg. Measures included loaning $750 million worth of BTC to over-the-counter trading firms to help protect the peg of UST and to loan $750 million worth of UST to accumulate more Bitcoin as market conditions begin to stabilize.
- Retirement plans still largely remain at the periphery of both crypto adoption and the regulatory discussion. But last week, a major development emerged in this department. United States Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota became concerned about Fidelity’s recent announcement of adding Bitcoin (BTC) to its clients’ 401(k) retirement investment menu. In a letter to the company’s CEO Abigail Johnson, the lawmakers expressed their uneasiness over a “conflict of interests” and the “significant risks of fraud, theft and loss,” requesting from Fidelity a detailed outline of risk mitigation actions.
- Crypto 401(k) plans are still relatively rare, but they have already drawn suspicious attention from the U.S. Department of Labor. Crypto retirement investment does have its allies in high places, though. In response to Warren and Smith’s letter, Senator Tommy Tuberville from Alabama has unveiled a new bill titled the Financial Freedom Act to allow Americans to add cryptocurrency to their 401(k) retirement savings plan unencumbered by regulatory guidance.
- Meanwhile, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis’ hotly-anticipated crypto bill remains in the works. This week, Lummis once again teased it during a livestream, mentioning her intention to allow — perhaps, to legitimize, as it isn’t really prohibited — the integration of crypto assets into Americans’ 401(k) retirement savings packages.
Head of Bitstamp’s European arm becomes latest CEO of global crypto exchange
- Bitstamp, one of the oldest crypto exchanges in the world, has announced the appointment of Jean-Baptiste (JB) Graftieaux as its new global CEO following the departure of Julian Sawyer.
- In a Monday announcement, Bitstamp said Sawyer, who first became CEO of the crypto exchange in October 2020, “has decided to pursue other opportunities.” Graftieaux took over the position on May 7, having been the Bitstamp Europe CEO since May 2021. According to the exchange, Graftieaux has 20 years of experience in “crypto, payments, and financial sectors,” having first joined Bitstamp in November 2014 as the firm’s chief compliance officer following five years at PayPal.
- “JB was with Bitstamp in its early days, and has admirably led our European business over the past year,” said Bitstamp’s board of directors chair Nicolas Huss. “We’re pleased to welcome a CEO with such an impressive track record, and very much look forward to the contribution and perspective he will bring to the company in his new role.”
Staking via hardware crypto wallet: Ledger exec explains how it works
- Ledger, a major hardware cryptocurrency wallet supplier, has been actively working on its crypto staking features since debuting staking in 2019.
- On Monday, Ledger introduced staking for Solana (SOL), allowing investors to earn SOL by committing the cryptocurrency to support the Solana network.
- The new staking feature is enabled on the Ledger Live application in cooperation with the blockchain service Figment, which provides nodes for staking using the Ledger validator. The latest staking addition joins six coins already available for staking on Ledger Live, including Ether (ETH), Tezos (XTZ), Polkadot (DOT), Cosmos (ATOM), Algorand (ALGO) and others.
- “The main difference between staking on a software wallet versus staking with a hardware wallet is security,” Zinder said, noting that hardware wallets remain the “safest way for users to maintain full control of their digital assets.”
Deribit and OKX attract significant traffic from China despite a blanket ban: Report
- Data from website traffic metric provider Similarweb shows that Deribit and OKX continue to attract significant traffic sources from China despite a blanket ban on crypto transactions and foreign exchanges last year.
- China has banned the use of cryptocurrencies more than a dozen times in the last decade. However, the one imposed in September last year was considered the harshest one.
- Several crypto exchanges including Huobi and Binance had shut doors for the Chinese traders in fear of regulatory action. The strict regulatory reforms ensured that Chinese traders mainly shifted their focus to decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and protocols.
