Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer at Tether, believes that the growing developments around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) globally wouldn’t really impact the role of private stablecoins. Ardoino shared his two cents in a Twitter thread on the growing discussion around CBDCs and what could be their role in the current payment system. He said CBDCs would only replace the old-age centralized payment networks as SWIFT and use private blockchains to fulfill most transactions. He went on to explain that CBDCs are not about digitizing the fiat currency as it has already been done, given most modern-day transactions are …

A war rages on Europe’s eastern rim, having already left thousands of people dead and injured and millions more displaced. Digital assets have become so woven into the global financial system that a major political and economic crisis like the one unfolding right now has crypto inevitably involved on all levels: individual, institutional and national. From Russian nationals turning their burning passports into nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to refugees using crypto as a last financial resort, millions of dollars worth of crypto donations flowing to Ukraine, and both digital asset platforms and the United States government weighing crypto sanctions against Russia, …

Bitcoin (BTC) price struggled to overcome $40,000 resistance over the weekend and currently trading just above $38,000. At a time when BTC is hovering at a 40% discount from all-time highs, whales have started accumulating more stablecoins. According to data from Sentiment, stablecoin whales with wallet holdings of 10,000 to 10 million Tether (USDT) have accumulated over $1 billion in buying power in the past month. The data indicates the buying power of these whales increased by over 7% in just one month. Buying power is defined as the capacity of stablecoins to buy Bitcoin and thereby driving its price …

Switzerland’s southern city of Lugano plans for many local businesses to accept some cryptocurrencies as ‘de facto’ legal tender as part of a partnership with Tether. Speaking at the city’s Plan B event on Thursday, Tether chief technical officer Paolo Ardoino said the firm had set up a 3 million-Swiss franc fund in collaboration with Lugano officials to encourage adoption of Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) and the LVGA token for shops and businesses across the city. Ardoino said the project was aimed at attracting talent from the space to Lugano and making the city a major blockchain hub in Europe. …

The city of Lugano, the economic capital of Italian-speaking southern Switzerland, is adopting cryptocurrencies for tax payments as part of a new collaboration with the provider of Tether (USDT) stablecoin. Tether Operations Limited, the blockchain-based platform that powers USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization, has signed a partnership with the administration of Lugano, according to a joint announcement on Thursday. Tether and the city administration have established a center of excellence for blockchain adoption with a goal to become a major European blockchain hub. The collaboration intends to demonstrate the real-world use cases of blockchain by applying it …

The “real” daily Bitcoin (BTC) volume spiked to levels not seen for three months amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to the latest weekly update report from blockchain analytics firm Arcane Research, real daily BTC trading volume surged above the $10 billion last Thursday (Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion), marking the highest daily volume recorded since Dec. 4. The firm cited “new crypto narratives” that have risen to the forefront amongst the ongoing crisis, such as crypto fundraising in Ukraine, along with demand increasing in relation to the western block and Russia introducing “the strictest capital …

Bitcoin (BTC) entered an upward channel in early January and despite the sideways trading near $40,000, order book analysts cited "significant buying pressure" and noted that the overall negative sentiment might be heading towards exhaustion. Independent analyst Johal Miles noted that BTC's price formed a bullish hammer candlestick on its daily chart on Jan. 24 and Feb. 24, hinting that the longer-term downtrend is close to an end. However, the rally above $41,000 on Feb. 28 was unable to create strong demand from Asia-based traders, as depicted by the lack of a China-based peer-to-peer Tether (USDT) premium versus the the …

Whenever Bitcoin (BTC) fails to break through important resistance levels, traders gain confidence and add to their altcoin positions. The logic is that, unless BTC drops significatively, these movements historically provide decent rewards for those shifting their portfolios toward higher risk. In the past seven days, the aggregate market capitalization performance of the cryptocurrency market showed a modest 3% increase to $1.78 trillion. This number is roughly in line with the performance seen from Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), and Binance Coin (BNB). However, comparing the winners and losers among the top-80 coins provides skewed results. For instance, while the gainers captured …

U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT) witnessed a spike of over 30% in five days against the Russian ruble — highlighting the negative and immediate impact of the ongoing war on the traditional financial system. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and crypto exchange Binance show that the ruble (RUB) is undergoing inflation as the USDT/RUB trading pair — for the first time in history — crossed 105 RUB. Prior to the spike, the USDT/RUB pair maintained a comparatively steady market price below 80 rubles. However, with the commencement of the Russia-Ukraine war, the ruble’s market price against USDT surged on Feb. …

Stablecoins used to be a sort of taboo subject in the crypto community after it became common practice to criticize Tether’s reserve backing. Are you really a seasoned crypto investor if you haven’t gone down the USDT rabbit hole? Some of those concerns were finally quelled in May 2021 when Tether passed an assurance test by disclosing its reserves for the first time. For some onlookers, the reserve breakdown created more questions than answers due to the stablecoin issuer’s oversized exposure to commercial paper. The stablecoin market has grown leaps and bounds over the past four years. While Tether remains …

Move aside Bitcoin (BTC), stablecoins are holding the spotlight. Crypto research outlets Arcane Research and CryptoRank confirm that stablecoin supply hit the milestone amount of $180 billion. The growth in stablecoins continues to outpace the rest of the market, up 6% in the past 30 days. In times of market volatility, stablecoins can offer price stability, backed by specific assets or algorithms. Over the month of February, three stablecoins entered the top 10 coins by market cap, as Binance USD (BUSD) briefly entered. According to Arcane Research, the three largest stablecoins, Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Binance USD (BUSD) …

USDT stablecoin issuer Tether cut its reserves allocation to commercial paper by more than one fifth between September and December last year, dropping from around $30.5 billion to $24.16 billion. Tether is legally required to disclose its reserves every quarter as part of an $18.5 million court settlement with the Office of the New York Attorney General from February 2021. The firm was alleged to have misrepresented the specific amount of fiat backing USDT in 2017 and 2018. The latest attestation was conducted by Cayman Islands-based Accountants MHA Cayman and provides a breakdown of Tether’s reserves as of 31 December …