Stablecoins and their use in decentralized finance (DeFi) have played a key role in the 2021 cryptocurrency bull market because allow investors to participate in the ever-growing number of protocols that offer high yield staking pools and they ease the process of transacting without needing to use a centralized exchange. One project that has seen a significant amount of adoption thanks to its focus on creating a truly decentralized ecosystem and asset-backed stablecoin is the Abracadabra.money DeFi protocol and its native SPELL token. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.0114 on Oct. …

In remarks given at the American Fintech Council’s 2021 Policy Summit, acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J Hsu called for greater regulation of universal crypto firms. “Large, universal crypto firms—especially issuers of highly-circulated stablecoins—should embrace comprehensive, consolidated supervision. At the same time, federal and state bank regulators should prioritize the development of policies, staff, and supervisory approaches to bring such firms safely into the bank regulatory perimeter. This would clearly differentiate safe and sound crypto firms from those that are regulated only partially and have a history of control lapses, such as Binance and Tether.” The Office of the …

The stablecoin market has been growing exponentially — from only $21.5 billion in mid-October of last year to $130 billion at the start of November; a six-fold increase — so it was only reasonable to expect that the United States government would have to come to grips with these digital assets that are designed to maintain a stable value relative to a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar (USD) or a commodity like gold. The Treasury Department revealed its latest thinking on the subject this week with the much-anticipated President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ (PWG’s) report on Stablecoins. That …

Ethereum-based (ETH) decentralized finance, or DeFi, risk management marketplace Risk Harbor will soon take over control of Terra's Ozone Protocol, according to a press release published on Thursday. Ozone is a decentralized insurance mechanism that provides coverage in the event of technical failures on the Terra DeFi ecosystem. The latter is a dual-token platform that features its governance token LUNA and stablecoin Terra USD (UST), which has an exchange rate of 1:1 with the U.S. dollar. UST has no underlying USD reserves backing it. Instead, it's collateralized via an algorithm by LUNA, and users can earn rewards by using LUNA …

Bitcoin's (BTC) 90% year-to-date gain was largely fueled by the SEC’s recent exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval and in the first 48-hours of listing, ProShares’ Bitcoin Strategy ETF ($BITO) was able to amass $1.1 billion in assets under management. On Nov. 1 the U.S. Treasury released its stablecoins report, which basically urged Congress to regulate the industry. In short, the working group expects government agencies to require stablecoin issuers to meet the same standards as insured depository institutions. Although the consequences of a potential stablecoin regulation for cryptocurrency markets remain unknown, stablecoins are vital for exchanges, market makers and retail investors …

On Nov. 1, the United States President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) released its long-anticipated report and policy recommendations on stablecoins. The document’s main focus is on prudential risks that “payment stablecoins” — or those meant to maintain a stable value against a reference fiat currency — could pose to users and financial stability. The PWG’s key message is that while stablecoin use is currently largely limited to facilitating digital asset transactions, under certain conditions the asset class could achieve much wider retail adoption, necessitating a comprehensive federal prudential framework to be enacted by Congress soon. Here is a …

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, or PWG, has released a report suggesting that stablecoin issuers in the United States should be subject to “appropriate federal oversight” akin to that of banks. A Nov. 1 U.S. Treasury report from the group with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said Congress should “act promptly to ensure that payment stablecoins are subject to appropriate federal prudential oversight on a consistent and comprehensive basis.” The government agencies said stablecoin issuers should be held to the same standards as insured depository institutions including state and federally …

The Securities and Exchange Commission could be emerging victorious in the race to secure the leading role in regulating stablecoins. Additional clarity on the demarcation of regulatory mandates between the SEC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Treasury Department could come from the President’s Working Group for Financial Markets’ (PWG) report that was expected by the end of October but failed to arrive before the end of last week. The mandate to regulate cryptocurrency in the United States remains dispersed across a host of actors, and a single PWG report will not remedy this once and for all. Still, having …

Since the release of the Bitcoin white paper exactly 13 years ago, blockchain technology has revolutionized several industries with multiple use cases, including facilitating money transfers, automated legal contracts, and providing traceability to the supply chain. And a blockchain project advised by the co-inventor of blockchain technology, Dr. Scott Stornetta, has decided to launch their mainnet on this very day. Jax.Network positions itself as an extension of the Bitcoin (BTC) network, fixing the scalability problem of the latter. Through many years of research, the Jax.Network team believes they have found a solution to the Blockchain Scalability Trilemma. Jax.Network brings this …

Annual percentage yields, or APY, on crypto borrowing and lending platform Aave have surged to record levels after capital withdrawals sent the decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocol into a liquidity crunch. At the time of writing, variable APY on borrowing stablecoin Dai via Aave has surged to 24.88%, compared to approximately 6.50% the day prior. According to cryptocurrency researcher Igor Igamberdiev, blockchain personality Justin Sun was responsible for at least billions of dollars in withdrawals in the past few hours. Aave's total value locked, or TVL, fell to $14.7 billion from $17.89 billion the day prior, based on data from …

Ardana, a stablecoin ecosystem built on the Cardano (ADA) blockchain, received $10 million in seed capital from a group of investors led by Three Arrows Capital and Ascensive Assets. Ryan Matovu, CEO and co-founder of Ardana, issued the following statement regarding the deal: “As the first all-in-one stablecoin ecosystem built on Cardano, our platform provides users with convenient access to liquidity, an ever-present concern in the hyper-competitive defi world. We are also able to leverage Cardano’s speed, scalability and security to offer a decentralized financial solution that works for everyone, and soon we’ll even be facilitating foreign exchange on-chain." Users …

This week cryptocurrency traders turned their focus to the pack of dog-themed meme tokens as altcoins like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin (DOGE) saw a surge in volume which resulted in SHIB hitting a new all-time high and the remaining Dogecoin clones booking some juicy gains. Traders are now debating whether the launch of the first Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) kicked off the next leg of the bull market or if meme-tokens rallying is a top signal. While SHIB, DOGE and Samoyedcoin are the hot flavor of the week, there are other tokens which are equally bullish and posses stronger …