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Regulatory clarity will boost stablecoin adoption, says Paxos CEO
The stablecoin sector is one of the fastest rising in the cryptocurrency space, but more regulation is needed in the coming months and years. Charles Cascarilla, Paxos president and CEO, talked about the stablecoin ecosystem during an interview on CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Street.’ During his interview, Cascarilla stated that regulatory clarity is required to help boost stablecoin adoption. The Paxos CEO talked about the President Working Group’s Stablecoin report, which guides a path to stablecoin regulation. He pointed out that it is very important that private companies innovate on solutions that allow stablecoins to expand into more mainstream use cases. According to Cascarilla, whether the solution is an insured depository or a regulated trust company are details that can be worked out. P...
Polkadot hits a new all-time high above $54. Here is why
Numerous cryptocurrencies have reached new all-time highs in recent weeks, and Polkadot has just set a new one above $54. Polkadot reached a new all-time high at $54.86 earlier today. The cryptocurrency’s price has surged by more than 6% over the past 24 hours to reach the new all-time high. At the time of writing, DOT is trading at $53.51, 2.8% down from the all-time high it reached earlier today. Polkadot’s rally to a new all-time high is a result of the expected upgrade on the blockchain that will allow a parachain auction. A parachain is an individual blockchain hosted on the Polkadot network. Its auctions would allow DOT developers to register their projects on the parachain and generate funds for their projects once the governing Polkadot Council gives an idea its green light. The Pa...
Will Facebook’s Name Change Help Its Reputation?
Facebook officially rebranded its company name as Meta last week, reflecting its new focus on building out the metaverse. “We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet, and it’s the next chapter for our company too,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a letter following the announcement, praising the company’s move forward while indirectly acknowledging recent setbacks, including major transparency concerns brought forward by former Facebook employees. “The last five years have been humbling for me and our company in many ways,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We have built things that have brought people together in new ways. We’ve learned from struggling with difficult social issues and living under closed platforms. Now it is time to take everything we’ve learned and help build the ne...
SoftBank Leads $93 Million USD Investment in The Sandbox’s Metaverse
The Sandbox has just successfully raised $93 million USD in funding for its virtual Metaverse. The round of funding was led by SoftBank, as well as Animoca Brands, True Global Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Kingsway Capital, Blue Pool Capital, LG Technology Ventures, Alpaca VC, Graticule Asset Management Asia, Com2uS, Sun Hung Kai & Co, Polygon Studios, Samsung Next, StakeFish, SterlingVC, and HodlCo, to name a few. Softbank’s funds came from its $30 billion USD Vision Fund 2 fund where the money raised will go towards the development in the NFT sphere, and things like virtual concerts, art initiatives, the acquisition of talent, and ventures outside of tech like fashion. Following this week’s metaverse hype, @TheSandboxGame has raised another round of cash ...
Crypto’s current price rise is driven by increasing adoption, says FTX CEO
Memecoins capitalise on investors’ need for novelty and variety, the CEO stated Cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried explained that while increasing mainstream regulatory attention on cryptocurrencies was helping popularise digital assets, it is the steadily increasing institutional and retail adoption that is driving crypto’s current price rise. The comments by Bankman-Fried come amid increasing regulatory scrutiny on cryptocurrency trading and mining in many parts of the world. In an interview with Bloomberg Markets, Bankman-Fried stated that how much crypto companies will spend on regulatory upkeep will all depend on the details of these upcoming regulators and revealed that FTX expects to spend at least $1 billion on build-outs related to regu...
Congressmen Emmer & Soto to SEC Chair Gensler: We want BTC Spot ETFs
Congressmen Todd Emmer and Darren Soto sent a bipartisan letter to Securities & Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Wednesday, strongly questioning why the agency has denied approval for the creation of a Bitcoin spot ETF while allowing Bitcoin Futures ETFs to begin trading. In a spot ETF, the fund holds the actual commodity (in this case bitcoin) whereas in a futures ETF fund holds contracts to buy and sell the commodity at a future date at a specified price. In a press release announcing the letter, Minnesota Republican Emmer said: “The SEC’s approach to cryptocurrency regulation has been unacceptable. […] If the SEC cannot outline the perceived material difference in risk profiles, then they should allow ETFs based on spot Bitcoin to be traded.” Soto, a Democrat fr...
Friday’s $540M Ethereum options expiry favors traders with targets at $5K
Ether (ETH) bulls are probably very pleased with the 368% gains accrued so far in 2021 and it seems like not a day passes where the altcoin doesn’t hit a new all-time high. Even with Ether on the path to $5,000, there are still plenty of concerns about the network’s capability to absorb the strong demand coming from the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) sector. Another potential setback laying ahead is the United States Treasury report on stablecoin regulation released on Nov 1. The report stressed the necessity of Congress to “ensure appropriate federal prudential oversight on a consistent and comprehensive basis.” In addition to this, competing networks offering interoperability with major DeFi projects have been gaining adoption, both in t...
Everyone’s in The Sandbox: Artists, brands and creators pile into the Metaverse
The blockchain gaming ecosystem has seen explosive growth over the course of 2021 as nonfungible tokens (NFT) and the play-to-earn gaming model helped create new income opportunities for people around the world while also ushering in a new cohort of users to the cryptocurrency sector. One project involved in gaming and the building of the Metaverse is The Sandbox (SAND), a blockchain-based virtual world where users to create, build, buy and sell digital assets in the form of a game. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.70 on Oct. 27, the price of SAND has stormed 393% higher to reach a new all-time high at $3.45 on Nov. 3 as its 24-hour trading volume surged to $9 billion. SAND/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Three reasons fo...
Survey finds lower paid workers are quitting jobs thanks to crypto profits
Data suggests that some low-paid members of the workforce are quitting their jobs after making life-changing crypto gains. Analytics firm Civic Science posted survey results (weighted according to U.S. census data) on Nov. 1, which shows that 4% of 6741 respondents aged 18 and over had quit their jobs in the past year due to “financial freedom” earned by investing in crypto assets. Civic then cross-referenced the 4% figure with data from 1,201 respondents based on their annual income who had quit their jobs due to crypto gains. Almost two thirds of those who had quit their jobs due to ‘mad gainz’ earned under $50,000 per year — comprised of 27% of those earning less than $25,000, while 37% had a total income of between $25,000 and $50,000. 15% of those tossing in jobs thanks to...
Parabolic gains for OriginTrail, Maker and XYO Network rouse ‘altseason’ hopes
Calls for the arrival of an altseason are growing louder on Nov. 3 after the price action for altcoins is on the rise and Bitcoin (BTC) price lingers at the $62,000 support level. At the moment, gaming tokens, supply chain-related projects and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols are scorching hot and as shown below, many altcoins posted double and triple-digit gains on Nov. 3. Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24 hours were OriginTrail (TRAC), XYO Network (XYO) and Maker (MKR). TRAC gets a boost from the “Coinbase effect” OriginTrail is a protocol that refers to itself as “the world’s first decentralized knowledge graph” and is designe...
Hong Kong regulator re-evaluates retail crypto ETFs laws
The Securities and Futures Commission, or SFC, in Hong Kong is reviewing regulations surrounding virtual currency transactions, including whether individuals can invest in exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. According to a report by South China Morning News on Wednesday, the 2018 regulations limited transactions of cryptocurrencies via funds or trading platforms to professional investors with at least HK$8 million ($1,028,624.00) to invest. SFC’s deputy chief executive Julia Leung Fung-yee stated that the re-evaluation will be made “to see if it is still fit for purpose and whether modifications are required.” Fung-yee, speaking at the 2021 Hong Kong Financial Technology Week conference, said that “virtual assets are edging toward traditional finance,” hence, the ne...
US senator submits resolution to allow crypto payments in Capitol Complex
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas submitted a resolution on the Senate floor Monday that would require the acceptance of cryptocurrency payments at all gift shops, restaurants and vending machines located within the Capitol Complex. The resolution, titled Adopting Cryptocurrency in Congress as an Exchange of Payment for Transactions, or ACCEPT, also prohibits the Architect of the Capitol — a presidential appointee who oversees the administration of the Capitol Complex — from entering into contracts that preclude the use of cryptocurrency as a form of payment provided that they “are cost-effective and value-centered for patrons.” Cruz said in an interview with Breitbart news “As consumers better understand and embrace cryptocurrency, merchants are increasingly accepting crypto as a paymen...
