Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
Undoubtedly, the talk of Cryptoville this week was PayPal’s announcement that it would be releasing an Ethereum-based dollar-pegged stablecoin called PayPal USD (PYUSD) as a native payment method integrated into the platform.
The fact that an American payments giant like PayPal is openly embracing a technology that is still unregulated was taken as a bullish sign among crypto fans–the market response was cautiously optimistic, breaking six weeks of inertia.
Crypto Twitter was ablaze with reactions to the news. TRON founder Justin Sun expressed some interest in hosting the coin on his blockchain.
Chinese blockchain journalist Colin Wu disseminated news that the Seychelles-based Huobi exchange is an early supporter of the project.
There was some concern over the smart contract functions of the new token, but Carl Vogel, a partner at crypto VC firm 6MV, helped to allay any fears by explaining just how routine PayPal’s new offering is.
The news put stablecoins firmly in the spotlight. Perhaps it even moved the hand of the Federal Reserve, which later in the week issued a statement announcing incoming guidance for chartered banks dealing with dollar-pegged stablecoins. Meanwhile, a clip of Joe Rogan and Post Malone discussing centrally-issued stablecoins made the rounds.
In other news, on Monday an analyst at crypto metrics platform Glassnode announced that Bitcoin has hit an all-time high of sorts. A staggering three quarters of the circulating supply is currently being HODLed!
Scimitar Capital analyst Alex, who tweets under the handle @thiccythot_, wrote an interesting and succinct thread on the risks of DeFi loans to third-world enterprises.
On Wednesday, a crypto law news account presented the facts regarding the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) ongoing lawsuit against XRP progenitor Ripple.
The following day, FOX journalist Eleanor Terrett broke the news that the SEC is appealing Judge Torres’s landmark ruling that XRP was not a security by definition, but could be presented as one depending on how it’s sold. Her verdict put the SEC on the backfoot by contradicting its claim that XRP offerings to retail customers via exchanges constitute securities offerings.
Crypto exchange Gemini came out in full support of XRP that day and announced that it is relisting the token.
Solana on Wednesday announced that it is lowering the price of its crypto-integrated smartphone, the Saga. The Saga has the functionality of a smartphone, but it also enables users to seamlessly interact with the Solana blockchain through dApps—applications that utilize blockchain technology. This is a decent idea for onboarding the less crypto-savvy.
Crypto investor Ryan Adams that day noted how much of an Ethereum gas burner OpenAI founder Sam Altman’s new blockchain-based identity protocol Worldcoin is.
Bloomberg ETF experts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffert say the road to Ethereum Futures ETFs appears to be clearer than ever before after the latest round of applications. Last week, Seyffert counted thirteen applications in the space of a few days.
Balchunas also this week noted the high performance of crypto-related equity ETFs this year.
Crypto-friendly U.S. bank Custodia announced its launch on Friday. Custodia touts itself as “a compliant bridge between digital assets and the U.S. dollar payments system, and a custodian of digital assets that can meet the strictest level of institutional custody standards.”
Finally, here’s footage of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried nervously walking into the courthouse where he was later sent to jail for witness tampering. We’ve already covered reactions to it in a whole other Crypto Twitter roundup!
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