USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has released an accountant-verified report of its treasury reserve holdings backing more than $44.5 billion worth of tokens currently in circulation. Circle’s December 2022 reserve report, which was reviewed by GrantThornton accountancy group, breaks down the current make-up of the stablecoin issuer’s reserve vault. According to Circle, 44,553,543,212 USDC is currently backed by $44,693,963,701 U.S. dollars held in custody accounts. It is worth noting that a significant portion of the latter amount is invested in a variety of U.S. Treasury bonds. As per Circle’s VP of accounting Timothy Singh, the fair value of assets in …

The United States Federal Reserve Board announced Jan. 27 that it was issuing a policy statement on limitations on banks. The policy seeks to create a level playing field and limit regulatory arbitrage for state banks with deposit insurance, state banks without deposit insurance and national banks, which are overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), by allowing them the same scope of permissible activities. The new policy will limit the activities of state banks by not allowing them to engage in activities not permitted by national banks unless state legislation allows it. In the Federal …

Credit rating firm Moody's is allegedly developing a scoring system for stablecoins, with analysis for up to 20 digital assets, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 26 citing unnamed sources. The system, which appears to be in early stages of development, will evaluate and rate stablecoins' reserves quality attestations, although it will not be considered an official credit rating. A third-party would be meant to serve as an attestation that a company's claims are accurate. In this case, it validates that stablecoin assets reserve ratio is 1:1. A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to a fiat currency, …

Stablecoins in the cryptocurrency market help provide USD pegged tokens within the volatile industry. In bull markets, the market capitalization of stablecoins tends to decrease as investors flock to more volatile assets and in bear markets, investors seek shelter in low volatility stablecoins thus increasing their market caps. On Jan. 26, the total market capitalization for stablecoins like Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD) and Dai (DAI) is over $131 billion. Stablecoins are so crucial to the future of crypto, that Moody’s, a well-respected analytics agency, is planning to develop a scoring system. The scoring system may help …

The notorious failure of the Terra USD (UST) affected the crypto market in general, but it’s the algorithmic stablecoins alike that took the harshest punch. Since its peak in April 2022, the market share of algorithmic stablecoins shrank almost tenfold. According to a fresh report from CryptoCompare, the current market share of algorithmic stablecoins stands at 1.71%, while its all-time high record in April reached 12.4% of the whole crypto market. Prior to its crash, Terra USD accounted for 79.8% of all the algorithmic stablecoin’s market share. The stablecoin market in general also doesn’t feel too well with January becoming …

A spokesperson for USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has denied reports that it blames the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its failed $9 billion plan to go public in December. The stablecoin issuer representative was responding to a Jan. 25 Financial Times article which characterized Circle as having “blamed” the securities regulator for its “derailed” listing as a result of dragging its feet on the approval of a merger agreement. However, a Circle spokesperson clarified to Cointelegraph that was not the case and that it doesn’t hold any blame over the SEC for the termination of its …

The chief executive of credit card giant Visa remains confident that blockchain-powered solutions can be integrated into its services and offerings to power the next generation of payments. Speaking on a call at Visa’s annual stockholder meeting on Jan. 24, outgoing CEO Al Kelly — who will officially step down on Feb. 1 — briefly shared the firm’s plans for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and private stablecoins. According to a Jan. 24 report from San Francisco Business Times, Kelly said: “It’s very early days, but we continue to believe that stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies have the potential …

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied 11% between Jan. 20 and Jan. 21, reaching the $23,000 level and shattering bears' expectations for a pullback to $20,000. Even more notable is the move brought demand from Asia-based retail investors according to data from a key stablecoin premium indicator. Traders should note that the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index also gained 5.1% between Jan. 20 and Jan. 23, fueled by investors' hope in China reopening for business after temporary shutdowns caused by the CCP’s virus contagion measures and weaker than expected economic data in the U.S. and the Eurozone. Another bit of bullish information came on Jan. …

Japan’s new regulations allowing investors to trade using stablecoins like Tether (USDT) are expected to be adopted no later than in June 2023, according to a local financial authority. The Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan is working on lifting the ban on the domestic distribution of stablecoins, planning to allow certain stablecoins later this year. “This does not mean that all foreign products of so-called ‘stablecoins’ will be allowed without any restriction,” a spokesperson for Japan's FSA said in a statement to Cointelegraph. FSA will only allow stablecoins that successfully pass individual checks ensuring that such cryptocurrencies are safe …

A Hong Kong-based blockchain company has launched a digital payments system aimed at bridging the gap between stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Red Date Technology, the blockchain infrastructure firm which is also leading one of China’s blockchain efforts, launched the Universal Digital Payment Network (UDPN) on Jan. 19 during the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 meeting in Davos, Switzerland. According to its whitepaper, the UDPN is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform that would serve a similar purpose to what the SWIFT network does for banks, but for stablecoins and CBDCs. Tech engineering company GFT Technologies and the …

If the foreign exchange market starts using DeFi protocols instead of the current centralized systems, the cost of remittances could be reduced by “as much as 80%,” according to a Jan. 19 paper jointly published by researchers at Circle and Uniswap. On-chain foreign exchange (FX) is a new model of global value exchange that offers a faster, cheaper, and more efficient alternative for cross-border payments. Our recent research paper with @circle has it all https://t.co/NGniRo8yrp — Uniswap Labs (@Uniswap) January 19, 2023 The paper, titled “On-chain Foreign Exchange and Cross-border Payments,” was written by Uniswap Data Scientist Austin Adams, Circle …

National Australia Bank (NAB) is set to become the second “Big 4” Australian bank to launch an Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum network. Set to launch sometime in mid-2023, the AUDN stablecoin is aimed at streamlining cross-border remittances and carbon credit trading, according to a Jan. 18 report from the Australian Financial Review (AFR). NAB’s chief innovation officer Howard Silby said the decision to mint the AUDN stablecoin on Ethereum — which is backed 1:1 by the Australian dollar (AUD) — was based on their belief that blockchain infrastructure will play a key role in the next evolution of …