Decentralized Finance has taken crypto by storm providing holders with a wide range of options to earn high-yield returns on their crypto and stablecoin holdings. DeFi has not only led to huge rallies in the prices of governance and reward tokens like YFI and LEND but it has also given way to a new-found interest in cryptocurrencies. The release of liquidity protocols like Uniswap and Curve gave way to an explosion in DeFi, with even institutional clients gaining interest in acquiring yield on their crypto holdings. Now, the subsequent explosion of yield-farming products like Yearn.Finance and Pickle.Finance has allowed for …

The European Central Bank has warned the global community about the risks of so-called “stablecoin runs.” Analogous to the term “bank runs” in the traditional financial system, stablecoin runs could occur if end users lose confidence in the issuer or its network, the ECB writes in a report released Tuesday. In traditional finance, a bank run occurs when a large number of customers withdraw their deposits simultaneously over concerns of the bank’s solvency. As more people withdraw their funds, the probability of default increases, triggering more withdrawals. The ECB goes on to say that, during such a run, some parts …

Dapper Labs is continuing to expand partnerships with third-parties for its Flow blockchain, with Animoca Labs set to launch two crypto-powered games on Flow. On September 22, blockchain gaming firm Animoca Brands announced that its MotoGP and Star Girl games will launch on the Flow blockchain early next year. Animoca is an investor in Dapper Labs. The Star Girl series consists of multiple free-to-play mobile games owned by Animoca and claims a monthly user base of one million players. Dapper Labs’ chief business officer, Mik Naayem, welcomed Animoca’s titles onto Flow, stating: "We share a mutual vision and approach to …

Ether has dropped around 30% from its 2020 high of $482 on Sept. 1 to $340 in five days. The drop in the price of Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) was largely due to the rising dollar, which has stopped Bitcoin’s bull run in its tracks. Ether is still sitting at around $340, failing to recover its price ranges of August. As the price of Ether dropped significantly from the start of the month, several fundamental factors on the Ethereum network itself have changed. These include the movements and positions of key figures in the ecosystem, such as traders, whales, …

The Facebook-initiated Libra blockchain project continues to grow as its governing body adds a new major industry partner. Blockchain Capital, one of the largest venture capital firms in the blockchain industry, has joined the Libra Association, according to an official announcement Friday. Alongside the other 26 association participants, Blockchain Capital will now be working to create a “more equitable payment system” with Libra. Bart Stephens, co-founder and managing partner at Blockchain Capital, said, “Leveraging blockchain technology to improve financial access and promote innovation has been at the core of Blockchain Capital’s portfolio strategy.” The Libra Association was formed in June …

The U.S. dollar stablecoin of top crypto exchange Binance, BUSD, has become the latest stable token to announce it will launch on Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain. The news comes just days after the platform added the rival USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin. Dapper Labs, the team behind pioneering non-fungible token (NFT)-powered games CryptoKitties and NBA TopShot, began working on Flow to address the scaling issues with Ethereum (ETH) that CryptoKitties starkly exposed after launching in late 2017. The new partnership will allow developers building on Flow to permissionlessly integrate BUSD into their decentralized applications (DApps), with the firms asserting that BUSD …

The surging DeFi sector has resulted in a mass minting of Tether in 2020 — including $3B last month alone — which has pushed its market capitalization over $15 billion. At the beginning of the year there was just over $4 billion USDT in circulation, and today that figure is over $15 billion. DeFi has been the driving force behind the Tether mining machine as more and more liquidity pools are based on stablecoins. It was reported that Tether’s average daily transfer value had exceeded that of PayPal late last month as demand for the stablecoin continues to surge. Tether …

New data from CryptoQuant, an on-chain analytics firm, shows $113 million worth of Binance USD (BUSD) has flowed into Binance exchange over the past week. This means BUSD stablecoin now has the highest potential buying power over all other USD-based stablecoins except for Tether (USDT). BUSD inflow to Binance. Source: CryptoQuant Binance’s new USD-backed stablecoin is ERC-20-based and was launched in 2019 in partnership with Paxos. Since then, BUSD has steadily been gaining traction as its volume increased and recently surpassed that of USD Coin (USDC) on Sept. 4. Main USD-backed stablecoin contenders - 24h volume (USD). Source: Skew Binance …

Anti-establishment and counter-government sentiments fuelled the early days of crypto. More than a decade later, crypto is slowly moving away from its wild-west early days and into a more organized system that traditional financial institutions are reluctantly adopting. Crypto has also managed to attract the no less reluctant attention of various regulators. With reactions ranging from a complete ban on crypto transactions to making authorities question the overall role of regulation, cryptocurrencies have wreaked havoc on policymaking everywhere. So far, regulators have mostly focused their attention on positioning digital assets within existing financial regulations. However, experts in other areas of …

The governor of the Bank of France has warned that Europe cannot afford to lose momentum in tackling the challenges posed by private sector global digital assets. His warning came as five EU governments — Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands — all backed the European Commission’s intent to draft regulation for asset-backed crypto assets, notably stablecoins. In their draft joint statement, the five governments reportedly pledged to prevent global stablecoins from operating in the EU before all legal, regulatory and oversight matters have been addressed. The Commission is expected to put forth its proposals for regulating crypto assets …

Popular decentralized finance platform Yearn Finance has announced a new lending protocol dubbed StableCredit. StableCredit combines tokenized debt stablecoins, lending and single-sided automated market makers to offer what it describes as “a completely decentralized lending protocol” reminiscent of MakerDAO (MKR). Introducing StableCredit, a new protocol for decentralized lending, stablecoins, and AMMs. https://t.co/Cuoo2OMi5H — yearn.finance (@iearnfinance) September 10, 2020 Users can deposit USD Coin (USDC) to mint StableCredit USD at a ratio of up to 75%, which can then be then exchanged for other crypto assets. To release the locked USDC, users must deposit the borrowed StableCredit USD back into the …

The supply of the Coinbase-backed stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) has grown by 250% since the start of 2020, including an 80% expansion in just the past two months. After starting the year with a nearly $520 million market cap, USDC now ranks as the 16th-largest crypto asset with a $1.86 billion capitalization — beating out all other major stablecoins except for the $14.5 billion Tether (USDT) by at least four times. Meanwhile, other stablecoins (most of which are pegged to the value of $1 US) have also seen significant growth this year, with DAI and Binance USD expanding by 970% …