Month: March 2023

Collapse of Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank represent a challenge for crypto

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The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Silvergate Capital, some of the most crypto-friendly banks in the industry, has forced many crypto firms to hold their breath. The loss of a significant banking partner for many companies means it will be even harder for them to comply with regulations and offer their services in a way that is consistent with the expectations of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. In the aftermath of the banks’ collapse, the second-most liquid U.S.-dollar pegged stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), temporarily lost its…

Playboy Lost $4.9M on Ethereum It Accepted as NFT Payments

“The market price of one Ethereum in our principal market ranged from $964 – $3,813 during the year ended December 31, 2022, but the carrying value of each Ethereum we held at the end of the reporting period reflects the lowest price of one Ethereum quoted on the active exchange at any time since its receipt,” according to the filing. “Therefore, negative swings in the market price of Ethereum could have a material impact on the company’s earnings and carrying value, while only time a rise in prices will impact…

US lawmaker suggests Signature’s collapse was tied to instability of crypto

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Michael Bennet, a United States senator representing the state of Colorado, has suggested that banks associated with crypto firms did not make “prudentially sound” decisions. Speaking at a March 16 hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Bennet brought up the recent closure of the crypto-friendly Signature Bank with lawmakers and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a discussion of U.S. President Joe Biden’s FY 2024 budget. The Colorado senator drew a comparison between the relationship of banks and crypto companies to that of institutions and marijuana dispensaries — a legal service…

Republican Congressman Tom Emmer Queries FDIC on Alleged Efforts to Purge Crypto Activity from US – Bitcoin News

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On Wednesday, Tom Emmer, the U.S. Republican congressman from Minnesota, revealed he sent a letter to Martin Gruenberg, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), regarding reports that the FDIC is “weaponizing recent instability” in the U.S. banking industry to “purge legal crypto activity” from the United States. Specifically, Emmer asked Gruenberg if the FDIC instructed banks not to provide banking services to cryptocurrency firms. GOP Majority Whip Emmer Questions FDIC’s Involvement in Purging Legal Crypto Activity Tom Emmer, a Republican politician from Minnesota, sent a letter to…

MakerDAO passes proposal for $750M increase in US Treasury investments

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Lending protocol and stablecoin issuer MakerDAO passed a proposal on March 16 to increase its portfolio holdings of United States Treasury bonds by 150%, from $500 million to $1.25 billion. The proposal aims to increase the protocol’s exposure to real-world assets and “high-quality bonds,” following its Dai (DAI) stablecoin losing its $1 peg during market volatility on March 11. The $750 million debt ceiling hike was approved by 77% of Maker’s delegates. A representative of MakerDAO told Cointelegraph: “Under this new deployment, MakerDAO would use $750 million of USDC in…

Swiss Bankers Association proposes deposit tokens to develop digital economy

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The Swiss Bankers Association released a white paper on how Swiss banks can support the development of the country’s digital economy. A Swiss franc “joint” deposit token is the solution the group settled on.  Stablecoins have limited penetration in the Swiss financial system, even as end-to-end digitization is becoming more common in business models, and no Swiss stablecoins are accessible by the general public, the paper says. The authors of the paper suggest a variety of stablecoins — that is, a deposit token “issued by regulated and adequately supervised intermediaries”…

U.S. Banking Collapse Doesn’t Necessarily Make Crypto Trustworthy

But, of course, that is not a deus ex machina of crypto, which would seem to be in philosophical tension with the decentralization goals of many in the blockchain and crypto industries. Ultimately, although crypto and traditional banking may be ostensibly competing in financial services, they are living in fundamentally different realities. In the wake of the Terra and FTX collapses, there was no Superman to swoop in and undo the calamitous ramifications. Source

Social Media and YouTube Influencers Accused of Promoting FTX without Proper Disclosure

Defendant Ben Armstrong denied the allegations and stated that he had never been in contact with anyone at FTX. A group of social media influencers has been named in a new lawsuit alleging they promoted collapsed crypto exchange FTX to their millions of followers without proper disclosure. According to the suit, filed on Wednesday, the influencers failed to disclose the nature of any, rewards, payments, or compensation realized from promoting the crypto exchange. The influencers named in the lawsuit include Erika Kullberg, Ben “BitBoy” Armstrong and Kevin Paffrath, known as…