Month: March 2023

Retail Merchants Linked to Etsy and SVB Facing Delayed Payments

Etsy and its peers like Shopify have had to kickstart their restrategizing agenda. Retail merchants selling on several online marketplaces including American e-commerce marketplace Etsy Inc (NASDAQ: ETSY) are reportedly seeing delays in their payments owing to their dependence on distraught Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). As a marketplace that operates round the clock, proceeds of sales from Etsy and other firms including Shopify Inc (NYSE: SHOP) have been delayed significantly. The aftermath of the impact of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is just becoming more glaring and many retail…

Apollo among Investors Eyeing $73.6 Billion of Loans Held by SVB

In other SVB-related news, the Financial Group, which was the holding company of SVB, is exploring ways to sell off its other units. Private equity company Apollo Global Management is reportedly interested in the book of loans held by the now-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The bank has made several headlines over the past week due to its debacle that affected the entire US banking sector. Regulators have taken over SVB, and investors, including Apollo, have started eyeing the company. Apollo among Suitors Seeking to Buy Pieces of SVB According…

First Republic (FRC) Shares Rebound 40% Following Monday Selloff

First Republic recently saw its shares jump 20% as the market still recovers from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.  The shares of First Republic Bank (NYSE: FRC) spiked 40% on Tuesday. FRC’s ascension also came amid an ongoing rebound among other regional banks from yesterday’s sell-off. On Monday, the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) declined by 12.3% to record its most significant one-day loss in three years. First Republic’s executive chairman Jim Herbert recently said in a media session that the bank was operating as usual. Furthermore, Herbert added…

Tassat blockchain to join FedNow service with B2B onramp as pilot prepares for launch

Blockchain operator Tassat announced March 14 that it will provide access to the United States Federal Reserve’s FedNow payment system. FedNow, which will launch as a pilot project later this year, will provide real-time, round-the-clock payment service. Tassat will serve as a business-to-business onramp for FedNow through a client-facing application programming interface (API), CEO Kevin Greene told Cointelegraph. Both the company’s interbank and intrabank services will provide FedNow access. The FedNow pilot is expected to begin in June or July with a small number of banks. The system will offer…

How to create and sell Bitcoin NFTs

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Bitcoin nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have captured the crypto world’s attention fast, opening new opportunities for the oldest blockchain and digital art enthusiasts. Since their explosion in 2020, NFTs have been typically minted and traded on Ethereum-based platforms, besides other blockchains, such as Cardano and Solana.  However, a new protocol known as Ordinals was launched in January 2023 by former Bitcoin Core contributor Casey Rodarmor, who exploited the 2021 Bitcoin Taproot upgrade to expand the cryptocurrency capability and enable on-chain Bitcoin-native NFTs. Taproot offered a way to expand the base layer’s…

SVB and Silvergate are out, but major banks are still backing crypto firms

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Over the last week, the collapse of three of the largest banks backing the crypto scene — Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank — has many industry pundits wondering how United States-based crypto companies will fare after such losses. While it has been said that there is “nobody left to bank crypto companies,” some in the crypto space have already highlighted the remaining options. One Twitter user called out another after they said there is “basically no one left to bank crypto companies in the U.S.” by…

Former Age of Empires producer talks blockchain game adoption and GameFi

The crypto ecosystem has spent over a decade proving it can disrupt the status quo as crypto and blockchain technologies like cryptocurrencies, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain-based games go head-to-head against their mainstream counterparts. While Bitcoin (BTC) has managed to shoulder its way closer to mainstream adoption, the same cannot be said for other crypto subsectors. In the gaming world, blockchain games were afforded hype and passion similar to their mainstream competitors over the years. However, challenging the status quo of an established industry is no easy feat. As a…

DOJ and FBI Investigating Terraform Labs in Connection to Algorithmic Stablecoin Collapse – Bitcoin News

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are reportedly investigating the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin terra usd (UST) and the firm Terraform Labs. Unnamed sources say that former staff members from Terraform Labs, the company behind the Terra blockchain project, have been questioned by U.S. law enforcement. Unusual Relationship: Report Claims Terraform Labs and South Korean Payment Firm Chai Under U.S. Investigation After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, accusing them of…

Absorb for adoption — How infamous 30% Apple cut affects iOS NFT apps

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Apple’s continued enforcement of in-app purchases to sell services remains a trade-off for NFT applications looking to tap into the convenience of streamlined in-app purchases for iPhone users and a massive user base around the world. As previously reported, Apple maintains strict rules for nonfungible token (NFT) apps, enforcing a 30% commission on the sale of NFTs through in-app purchases. The enforcement of this 30% commission has been a sore point, with Coinbase Wallet seeing an update to its application blocked by Apple in December 2022. This was due to…