Terra (LUNA) has plunged significantly after witnessing a FUD attack on its native stablecoin TerraUSD (UST). The LUNA/USD pair dropped 20% between May 7 and May 8, hitting $61, its worst level in three months, after a whale mass-dumped $285 million worth of UST. As a result of this sell-off, UST briefly lost its United States dollar peg, falling to as low as $0.98. Excessive LUNA supply LUNA serves as a collateral asset to maintain UST’s dollar peg, according to Terra’s elastic monetary policy. Therefore, when the value of UST is above $1.00, the Terra protocol incentivizes users to burn …

The United States continues to be a global leader in embracing the cryptocurrency industry thanks to the work of Sen. Patrick Toomey, with the White House being at the forefront of crypto regulation. Last year, President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — and it included some new legislation that would impact the crypto sector. And more recently, the U.S. president announced a “whole-of-government” approach to regulating cryptocurrency in an across-the-board executive order directing multiple government agencies to answer specific questions on cryptocurrencies. The U.S. for the last year has clearly been seeking to help make the …

The Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis told Cointelegraph that the region has a regulatory regime in place that will enable crypto businesses to operate within its jurisdiction. During an interview at SALT’s Crypto Bahamas conference, Davis shared that The Bahamas recently published a white paper framework that will allow crypto businesses to “grow and prosper,” while letting companies understand the region’s expectations. He added: “The policy also takes into account the balance between concerns people have about cryptocurrency and the risks that come along with it. [The] policy is to protect consumers, [the] integrity of the space and at [the] …

Development within the Polkadot (DOT) ecosystem has been slowly unfolding over the past year and a half, and the work put in by developers is finally starting to bear fruit as parachain auctions finish and the first chains launch on the mainnet. The next phase of interoperability within the ecosystem is set to kick off now that cross-chain functionality is about to go live. This next step will allow Polkadot-based parachains to communicate with each other and transfer assets between chains. After passing community vote, v0.9.19 has been enacted on Polkadot. This upgrade included a batch call upgrading Polkadot’s runtime …

Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), a Singapore-based nonprofit tied to the Terra Luna ecosystem, has raised another $1.5 billion to further expand its already hefty Bitcoin (BTC) reserves. The raise allowed LFG to acquire 37,863 BTC via over-the-counter swaps with broker Genesis Trading and an additional purchase from Three Arrows Capital, a leading crypto venture capital firm. The specific breakdown of the deal included a $1 billion over-the-counter swap with Genesis for $1 billion in UST and a $500 million BTC purchase from Three Arrows Capital, the company disclosed Thursday. LFG now holds roughly $3.5 billion worth of BTC, which puts …

Terra (LUNA) price lost 31% over the past four weeks, erasing all of the gains accrued year-to-date. Even though the token continues to outperform the broader cryptocurrency market by 20%, Terra is struggling to hold above the $85 support. Previously, a few bullish catalysts were Terra’s USD (UST) stablecoin flipping Binance USD (BUSD) to become the third-largest stablecoin on April 18, as well as the April 26 announcement that Fireblocks, a digital asset custody platform, had seen institutional clients invest over $250 million into the Terra DeFi ecosystem. This positive newsflow was not enough to instill confidence in Terra investors, …

Large-cap cryptocurrency continue to slump as investors await comments from the Federal Open Markets Committee regarding the exact size of the next interest rate hike. There are, however, a few bright spots in the market and select altcoins managed to post double-digit gains in trading on May 3, thanks to a big-time partnership announcement and cross-protocol collaborations that led to a spike in demand. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that three of the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Algorand (ALGO), Frax Share (FXS) and Helium (HNT). Algorand The pure proof-of-stake blockchain network had, perhaps, one …

The crypto community and Wall Street converged last week in Nassau, Bahamas, to discuss the future of digital assets during SALT’s Crypto Bahamas conference. The SkyBridge Alternatives Conference (SALT) was also co-hosted this year by FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange. Anthony Scaramucci, founder of the hedge fund SkyBridge Capital, kicked off Crypto Bahamas with a press conference explaining that the goal behind the event was to merge the traditional financial world with the crypto community: “Crypto Bahamas combines the crypto native FTX audience with the SkyBridge asset management firm audience. We are bringing these two worlds together to create a …

For years, cryptocurrency advocates have touted the world-changing capability of digital currency and blockchain technology. Yet with the passing of each market cycle, new projects come and go, and the promised utility of these “real-world use case” projects fails to satisfy. While a majority of tokens promise to solve real-world problems, only a few achieve this, and the others are mere speculative investments. Here’s a look at the three things cryptocurrency investors can actually “do” with their coins. Lending Perhaps the simplest use case offered to cryptocurrency holders is also one of the oldest monetary applications in finance: lending. Ever …

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Washington, D.C., introduced an updated bill on Thursday to regulate cryptocurrency developers, dealers, exchanges and stablecoin providers, bringing them under the regulatory control of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The Digital Commodity Exchange Act of 2022 (DCEA) was re-introduced to Congress by Republican Representatives Glenn Thompson and Tom Emmer with support from Democrat co-sponsors Darren Soto and Ro Khanna. The updated version includes a section covering stablecoin providers, who can register as a “fixed-value digital commodity operator.” These operators would be obligated to share how the stablecoin operates, retaining records for …

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has warned that stablecoins could undermine the Hong Kong dollar in a recently released discussion paper about its retail central bank digital currency, e-HKD. The HKMA today issued a discussion paper, outlining the policy and design issues involved in the introduction of e-HKD, and encourages the public and industry to participate in the consultation and share their views. Find out more: https://t.co/GndjuZ2Pay pic.twitter.com/hRz2noD0Ps — HKMA 香港金融管理局 (@hkmagovhk) April 27, 2022 Many in the crypto industry believe that interest in developing central bank digital currencies (CBDC) has been in response to the rise of private-sector …

Michael Hsu, the acting head at the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said stablecoins need standards comparable to the early internet. In a written statement following his appearance at the Artificial Intelligence and the Economy event in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, Hsu said stablecoins lacked “shared standards,” were “interoperable,” and needed standards similar to those set by the Internet Engineering Task Force and World Wide Web Consortium. According to the OCC head, representatives from the crypto industry as well as within the U.S. government — including the OCC and National Institute of Standards and Technology — …