MercadoPago, the fintech arm of e-commerce giant MercadoLibre, has enabled its Brazilian customers to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and the Paxos-issued U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin Pax Dollar (USDP). In a statement issued Thursday by U.S.-based Paxos, the blockchain infrastructure platform used by PayPal and Facebook, the partnership between MercadoPago and Paxos will allow users to pay for all products sold on the platform using cryptocurrency. Today marks another huge milestone in #crypto. @mercadopago, the largest payments provider in #LatAm, will offer Brazilian customers the ability to buy/sell/hold $BTC $ETH and the Paxos dollar #stablecoin $USDP #PoweredByPaxos https://t.co/Pfo3ZcAwwk …

Speaking publicly for the last time as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Randal Quarles urged regulators to exercise restraint on stablecoins. In a prepared statement for his speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Dec. 2, Quarles expressed concern that regulations could hamper innovation in the digital asset space, particularly when it comes to stablecoins. According to the Fed governor, some of the approaches on stablecoin regulation from the President's Working Group on Financial Markets’ November report are unnecessary, including “limiting wallet providers' affiliation with commercial entities.” “It is one thing to say …

Bitcoin (BTC) price is down this week, and naturally, bears will always find some reversal signal whenever the price shows strength, such as the 8% gain on Nov. 28. Of course, technical analysis is not an exact science, so there is a margin for interpretation and most traders look at multiple timeframes to find a narrative that suits their bias. Currently, BTC price is in a descending channel that started on Oct. 31, and if this pattern plays out, Bitcoin could drop to $50,000 in the short term. Cryptocurrency markets crashed on Nov. 26 after concern over a new COVID-19 …

David Marcus, the head of Meta’s cryptocurrency and fintech unit Novi, will step down from his role by the end of 2021. Taking over from Marcus will be Stephane Kasriel, the former CEO of Upwork who has been at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, since August 2020. Marcus announced the decision via a Dec. 1 tweet, noting that he had made the “difficult decision” to leave the firm by the end of this year. The exec didn’t go into detail about what his next move would be, but hinted that it may be something “new and exciting” that he builds …

South Korea’s Shinhan Bank and Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) have completed a proof of concept that is designed to conduct international remittances using stablecoins on the Hedera Network. The new proof of concept by South Korea's Shinhan Bank for remittances can send money internationally within seconds for a fraction of a cent on the Hedera Network. Hedera claims that the average fee per transaction on its network is $0.0001, and the average transaction time is 3-5 seconds, both vast improvements from what is currently available from traditional remittances. In a Nov. 29 announcement, Hedera stated that it aims to determine whether …

Deribit exchange is the absolute leader in the Bitcoin (BTC) options markets and on Nov. 24 the 25% delta skew indicator signaled that sentiment among pro traders was becoming “more bearish overall.” We've seen 25-Delta put skew moved from around 0% to almost 10-15% pending time to expiry since beginning of Nov implying a more bearish overall sentiment. Premiums for downward protection are getting more expensive. In the short term, this expiry has a Max pain of $58k. https://t.co/jhpT1riX3g — Deribit (@DeribitExchange) November 24, 2021 Bitcoin price appears to following a descending channel since Nov. 9, so a “bearish” signal …

There is no denying the fact that the crypto market has grown from strength to strength over the course of 2021, as is best highlighted by the total capitalization of the industry recently hitting the $3-trillion mark, albeit for a relatively brief period of time. That said, stablecoins, a class of cryptos that have their value pegged to a fiat currency, have seen their usage increase dramatically in recent months thanks, in large part, to their ability to help investors get their feet wet with digital currencies while eliminating many of the core issues — such as daily price volatility …

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has expressed concerns over El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender after President Nayib Bukele announced the launch of Bitcoin City. Bailey argued that El Salvador’s decision to adopt Bitcoin as a currency was alarming because consumers are likely to suffer from the cryptocurrency’s extreme volatility. Trading around $43,000 on the first day of El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption as legal tender, Bitcoin surged to a new historical high above $68,000 on Nov. 9. BTC price has significantly tumbled since then, with Bitcoin trading at $54,626 at the time of writing. “It concerns …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price action hasn’t been bullish despite the $69,000 all-time high on Nov. 10. Some argue that that descending channel formed 40 days ago is the dominant trend, and $56,000 marks its current resistance. Such bearishness follows scrutiny from United States regulators, after a Nov. 1 report from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets suggested that stablecoin issuers in the U.S. should be subject to “appropriate federal oversight,” similar to banks and savings associations. On Nov. 12, the Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF) request was rejected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. To justify the denial, the regulator …

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) do not pose any significant risk to the financial system at their current level of adoption, according to Bank of Canada’s Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry. Beaudry spoke about the risks to the stability of the Canadian financial system at the Ontario Securities Commission Dialogue 2021 on Nov. 23. When asked whether cryptocurrencies are a risk, the deputy governor responded that the Bank of Canada doesn’t think that crypto is “developing in a way that creates a systemic type of risk for a financial system” up to now. This is because cryptocurrencies are “quite removed from a …

Sherrod Brown, the chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has called on several crypto firms to release information related to consumer and investor protection on stablecoins. According to a Nov. 23 announcement, Brown sent notices to Coinbase, Gemini, Paxos, TrustToken, Binance.US, Circle, Centre, and Tether requesting information on stablecoins by Dec. 3, suggesting that he and other lawmakers may be preparing to hold a later hearing on the subject. The senator said investors “may not appreciate the complexity and distinct features and terms of each stablecoin,” with crypto platforms not always providing users with the …

The World Economic Forum, or WEF, has published a resource suite aimed at informing lawmakers and individuals in the private sector about digital assets including central bank digital currencies and stablecoins. On Nov. 19, the WEF announced its Digital Currency Governance Consortium White Paper Series, a resource suite created by 85 organizations from 40 countries around the world. The publication contains 8 separate white papers exploring topics including the impact of lawmakers regulating stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, as well as informing them about the risks, benefits, and alternatives. In addition, the suite addresses regulatory gaps for …