Circle, a Goldman Sachs-backed fintech company focused on stablecoin development, has officially announced Thursday its plans to go public. Under the terms of the agreement, a new Irish holding company will acquire both Concord and Circle and become a publicly-traded company that is expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker “CRCL.” Upon completion of the transaction, existing Circle shareholders will hold around 86% ownership of the public entity. The company said it would go public through a merger with blank-check company Concord Acquisition Corp in a deal valued at $4.5 billion. Investors have …

The Chinese central bank is “quite worried” about the global financial risks associated with digital currencies, particularly stablecoins, according to a senior official. Fan Yifei, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), expressed concerns over the reportedly serious threat stablecoins, such as Tether (USDT), pose to global financial and settlement systems, CNBC reported on Thursday. The official emphasized that the speed of development in private payments systems is “very alarming,” and the PBoC is working against monopolies and the “disorderly expansion of capital,” adding: “Some commercial organizations’ so-called stablecoins, especially global stablecoins, may bring risks and challenges …

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand says a central bank digital currency might be a “solution” to the ongoing reduction in the use of cash and that it will look more closely at the use of cryptocurrencies. The bank will open up public consultations regarding a CBDC and the emergence of new digital forms of money including stablecoins. We'll be consulting extensively over the remainder of 2021 on issues key to the future of how New Zealanders pay and save, driven by our new stewardship mandate for cash and a broader currency system https://t.co/vniv2aULCZ #rbnz pic.twitter.com/OHdsuIhpGd — Reserve Bank of …

Altcoins continue to move higher while the price of Bitcoin (BTC) remains trapped in the $31,000 to $36,000 price range. The predictable range appears to be helping Terra (LUNA), a blockchain protocol that specializes in fiat-pegged stablecoins like TerraUSD (UST) to power a price-stable global payment system. A quick scroll through the project’s Twitter feed indicates that the team behind LUNA has been busy as the month of June was full of protocol upgrades as well as new partnerships and integrations. Some of the major developments for the Terra ecosystem include the launch of Mirror V2, the addition of Terra …

Terra, an algorithmic stablecoin platform for savings, investments and payments, is joining forces with the Harmony blockchain to pursue new DeFi initiatives focused on programmable money and other so-called financial primitives. Under the new partnership, which is described as a “deep integration” initiative, Terra will integrate Harmony on its Shuttle Bridge platform, a web front-end that allows users to send Terra’s UST stablecoin across supported blockchains. “This paves the way for UST to migrate to Harmony and to be used on applications in the Harmony Ecosystem,” Peter Abilla, Harmony’s VP of marketing, said in a Tuesday announcement. TerraUSD is currently …

Marshall Wace, a London-based hedge fund giant managing about $55 billion in assets, is reportedly planning a major move into cryptocurrency and blockchain investment. The hedge fund firm is preparing to launch a dedicated portfolio, targeting investments in the digital asset industry, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Citing anonymous people familiar with the matter, the report notes that the new initiative will focus on investing in privatelyowned digital finance companies working in areas like blockchain technology and payments systems for digital currencies and stablecoins. It is believed that Marshall Wace’s new digital finance portfolio will be headed by Amit …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has emerged as one of the most promising real-world applications of blockchain technology, capable of reshaping the face of the global financial markets and transforming the way the average person manages their money. One DeFi focused project that has been gaining attention over the past week as the mainstream world slowly opens itself to the possibilities of DeFi is Enzyme Finance (MLN), a protocol focused on on-chain asset management that allows users to “build and scale vaults based on the investment strategies of their choice,” according to the projects website. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView …

The growth of stablecoins that are not fully backed by safe assets could trigger a destabilization in short-term credit markets, rating agency Fitch has warned. In a commentary note, the agency explained that coins that are fully backed by safe assets pose a lesser risk for the financial markets. The agency gives USD Coin (USDC), which is backed by United States dollars on a one-to-one basis held in custody accounts, as an example for fully backed stablecoins but warned that the authorities “may still be concerned if the footprint is potentially global or systemic.” On the other hand, Tether held …

The crypto-friendly state of Wyoming has approved the first legally recognized decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) in the United States. BLOCKS was the first DAO Limited Liability Company (LLC) approved by Wyoming's blockchain legislation following an initial filing on June 17. BLOCKS aims to onboard businesses and industry onto the blockchain so that they can benefit from a DAO structured environment. It also has its own governance token of the same name. The American CryptoFed DAO also received notice from the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office on Tuesday recognizing it as a legal entity after it filed on July 1, according …

Europe knows it will have to embrace a digital euro soon. To become a global digital leader and avoid dependence on American and Asian technological infrastructures, European policymakers and regulators have to make progressive decisions. A critical stumbling block for Europe’s digital economic thinking is so-called stablecoins. Stablecoins can be privately issued and have the potential to become globally accepted and systemically relevant, disrupting long-established financial systems. Consequently, today’s political discussions surrounding stablecoins are dominated by concerns over financial stability and orderly monetary policy. Related: Stablecoins present new dilemmas for regulators as mass adoption looms Current regulatory plans undercut innovation …

The stablecoin market has been growing exponentially, and last week, Eric Rosengren — president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston — appeared to raise a cautionary flag. “There are many reasons to think that stablecoins — at least, many of the stablecoins — are not actually particularly stable,” he said in remarks before the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, voicing concerns that “a future [financial] crisis could easily be triggered as these become a more important sector of the financial market, unless we start regulating them.” Moreover, in an accompanying slide presentation, the bank CEO referenced Tether (USDT), …

Choppy markets after a major pullback offer ample time to take a survey of the cryptocurrency landscape and find solid projects with improving fundamentals that have caught the attention of analysts and tokenholders. One project that has piqued the interest of many, including researchers at Delphi Digital, is Curve Finance, a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that focuses on providing on-chain liquidity using advanced bonding curves. Three reasons why Curve DAO Token (CRV) is attracting the attention of analysts include attractive yields offered to tokenholders who participate in staking, competition for CRV deposits on multiple decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and healthy …