Weekly Newsletter – 28 Apr 2023

Bitcoin Back above $29k after Mt Gox False Alert

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Weekly Summary

  • Bitcoin Slumped and Rebounded in Hours amid False Alarm on US Government Dump
  • Circle Launches Cross-Chain USDC Transfer Protocol for Ethereum, Avalanche
  • Binance.US Calls off $1.3bn Deal for Voyager’s Assets, Citing a “Hostile Environment”
  • Arbitrum Blockchain Airdrops $120m-worth ARB Tokens to Projects in its Ecosystem
  • Visa Shares Plans for ‘Ambitious’ Crypto Product Regarding Stablecoin Payments

Industry Stories

Bitcoin Slumped and Rebounded in Hours amid False Alarm on US Government Dump: 

After briefly surpassing $30,000, Bitcoin’s price fell by approximately 7% in just one hour on April 26. The exact reason for the decline is unclear, but rumors circulated that the U.S. government and Mt. Gox wallets were involved in transactions. Market intelligence platform Arkham tweeted a response to the rumors with a saluting emoji, which it later deleted, citing an error in an alert bug fix. Liquidations of long and short positions neared $200 million in the four-hour period, according to Coinglass. 

Circle Launches Cross-Chain USDC Transfer Protocol for Ethereum, Avalanche: Circle, the issuer of USDC, has launched a cross-chain transfer protocol (CCTP) that enables users to transfer USDC between Ethereum and Avalanche without using third-party bridges. The new protocol burns coins on the sending chain and issues new tokens on the receiving network. Unlike traditional bridges, it doesn’t lock tokens sent to its contract. The team expects CCTP to solve the problem of “fragmentation” in the Web3 ecosystem, where there are multiple unofficial versions of USDC floating around on various networks. Many of the largest cross-chain protocols have already pledged to use CCTP, including MetaMask and Wormhole.

Binance.US Calls off $1.3b Deal for Voyager’s Assets: Binance.US has cancelled its $1bn bid to purchase cryptocurrency assets that were frozen as part of Voyager Digital’s bankruptcy, as Voyager tweeted. The bankrupt crypto lender had already entered into a similar agreement with FTX US, which offered to reimburse a significant proportion of the frozen assets in exchange for new customers. Binance blamed a “hostile and uncertain regulatory climate in the United States” for its decision, which follows a series of actions taken by US regulatory bodies against cryptocurrency companies. The SEC had previously opposed Binance’s transaction with Voyager, citing concerns about the safety of assets and compliance with securities laws.

Arbitrum Blockchain Airdrops $120m-worth ARB Tokens to Projects Within its Ecosystem: 

Arbitrum, an Ethereum Layer-2 scaling blockchain, has distributed nearly $120 million worth of its arb tokens to over 100 projects built on its network. The airdrop provided a multimillion-dollar stimulus to some projects, such as Vesta Finance, which received 2.7 million arb tokens worth just under $6 million. The DAOs will have independence in choosing how to distribute their share of the ARB airdrop. This will help boost liquidity and usage across Arbitrum DeFi projects, according to Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang.

Visa Shares Plans for ‘Ambitious’ Crypto Product Regarding Stablecoin Payments: Visa is building a cryptocurrency product focused on stablecoin payments to drive mainstream adoption of public blockchain networks, according to a job posting announced by the company’s head of crypto. Visa’s crypto division is seeking software engineers with expertise in programming, backend systems, and Web3 technologies, and experience in writing smart contracts using Solidity. The company is looking to develop the “next generation of products” to facilitate everyday digital commerce. Visa made a foray into the crypto industry in 2020 with a partnership with Circle, and has been gradually expanding its crypto offering.

Service Highlight

A Matrixport opinion piece about real world asset tokenisation of T-Bills has recently been published by Nasdaq. 

John Ge, co-founder and CEO of Matrixport, discusses the search for high-risk-free yields in the crypto market, which he believes lies in real-world asset tokenization. Tokenization of assets such as real estate and insurance policies can enhance finance economics while widening the pool of collateralization. Tokenized T-bills can be used as prime collateral for DeFi lending protocols, allowing investors to access the DeFi ecosystem while generating additional returns beyond T-bill yields. While it is too early to predict how long it will take for asset tokenization to go mainstream, it has the potential to capture a yield chest of up to $5.5 billion.

>> Discover Matrixport Opinion on Nasdaq

Matrixport News

Matrixport‘s Christopher Liu, Chief Compliance Officer, joined the recent ACAMS APAC Conference and discussed the crypto and compliance challenges in the panel. According to the sharing, crypto has evolved and morphed into an asset class that is “too big to ignore”. Serious crypto players & VASPs must not merely adhere to the letter of the regulatory requirements but also do the right thing for both our clients and the eco-system.

Gain invaluable insights on bridging CeFi and DeFi with Matrixport’s Benjamin Stani, Director of Business Development, on the CIAN AMA. Explore the growing trend of collaboration and innovation, and unlock the potential for higher returns through the DeFi ecosystem.

Catch up on highlights here.

Matrixport now supports Render Token ($RNDR) , the Render Network’s native utility token used to pay for the network’s animation, motion graphics, and VFX rendering. The Render Network is a peer-to-peer GPU compute network built on the Ethereum blockchain and OctaneRender, the world’s first and currently fastest GPU-accelerated renderer by industry-leading OTOY Inc. Matrixport users can now deposit, withdraw and transfer RNDR on our APP.

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