Finsight Breaking News - Page 7

The Celsius Network, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform and one of the largest crypto lenders, announced Sunday night that it was “pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts.” It has 1.7 million customers.

The company’s token, CEL, is trading at 23 cents as of this writing, according to CoinMarketCap. That’s a 92 percent decrease from April 8th, when CEL was worth $3. The token was worth nearly $7 a year ago.

There have been questions about Celsius Networks’ high yields, its connections to failed stablecoin Terra, and its reserves. The value of assets on its platform dropped by half to $12 billion in May, from $24 billion in December 2021. Between March and May, a billion dollars flowed out of the system, The Financial Times reported.

In a June 7th blog post entitled “Damn the torpedoes,” the company said, “Celsius has the reserves (and more than enough ETH) to meet obligations, as dictated by our comprehensive liquidity risk management framework.”

That was then. On June 12th, an email to all customers started off like this:

Due to extreme market conditions, today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts. We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations.

— MoneyGram, a global leader in the evolution of digital P2P payments, and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source public blockchain that allows money to be tokenized and transferred globally, today announced the initial roll-out of a first-of-its-kind global on/off-ramp service for digital wallets to increase the utility of digital assets by creating a bridge between cash and cryptocurrencies. The service, a result of the partnership between MoneyGram and SDF announced in October 2021, is now available in a number of key remittance markets, including Canada, Kenya, Philippines and the U.S. for the first wave of users, with global cash-out functionality expected to be available by the end of June 2022.

Powered by the Stellar blockchain and Stellar-enabled digital wallets, MoneyGram’s retail agent network, and Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), a fully-reserved dollar digital currency, the service provides cash users access to the world of cryptocurrency via any participating MoneyGram location. This service is a monumental step towards bridging the gap between physical and digital currencies in a way that has not been done before at scale. As it develops, this solution will pave the way for blockchain technology to further financial inclusion, creating fluidity between cash and crypto so more people can benefit from the digital economy.

To support adoption, MoneyGram will offer this as a zero-fee service for the first 12 months.

“We’re thrilled to work alongside the Stellar Development Foundation on this important initiative to bring more opportunities to consumers around the world by making the worlds of crypto and local fiat currency compatible,” said Alex Holmes, MoneyGram Chairman and CEO. “At MoneyGram, we’re on a mission to deliver innovative financial solutions that connect the world’s communities, and the initial launch of this service is another important milestone on our journey. It’s especially exciting to launch this service ahead of schedule due to the strong collaboration of our technology teams, and we look forward to further collaboration with SDF as we work on uncovering new ways to utilize blockchain to further streamline cross-border payments.”

The partnership focuses on delivering a service that revolutionizes the settlement process. For the first time, settlement with MoneyGram will occur in near-real-time using USDC, one of the world’s fastest growing dollar digital currencies. This enables an accelerated collection of funds, improving efficiencies and reducing risks.

“A much-needed solution to the cash-to-crypto on/off-ramp problem is here,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation. “Today, almost 2 billion people rely on cash for their livelihood, with no options to access the digital economy. At the same time, a persistent pain point for crypto-native users is off-ramping cryptocurrency quickly and reliably. The groundbreaking nature of this service is how it solves problems for a range of users with varying needs around the world 

With the launch of this service, digital wallet users can now move seamlessly from cash to cryptocurrency, to cash again — all without requiring a bank account or credit card. Consumers can now go into a MoneyGram location to either load their digital wallets to access the digital economy, or cash-out their digital currencies to increase the utility of their holdings.

Users of the Stellar-connected digital wallets Vibrant and LOBSTR, with more wallets expected to be added soon, can now access this service at MoneyGram’s participating international retail locations. This service also creates a developer platform that will allow more businesses within the Stellar ecosystem and beyond, including wallets and service providers, to expand the functionality and reach of MoneyGram’s integration with the Stellar network. For example, Elliptic, a global leader in crypto asset risk management, will provide MoneyGram with robust blockchain analytics solutions, and Wyre, a leading provider of blockchain payments APIs, will help other wallets, starting with Airtm, a digital dollar account, integrate with the MoneyGram service.

MoneyGram will expand access to the cash-in service into seven more countries by the end of June, at which point cash-out functionality will also be available globally, where permitted by law. Learn more about the service and how to access it at stellar.org/moneygram.

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would establish new rules for cryptocurrency, and hand the bulk of their oversight to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The bill, introduced by Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of Congress’ most vocal cryptocurrency advocates, and Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, marks one of the most ambitious efforts yet by lawmakers to place clear guard rails around rapidly growing and controversial cryptocurrency markets.
The measure would stipulate that the CFTC, not the Securities and Exchange Commission, play the primary role in regulating crypto products, most of which the senators said operate more like commodities than securities. The smaller CFTC is generally seen as a friendlier regulator for cryptocurrency, as the SEC has typically found that crypto products must adhere to a host of securities requirements.

The bill is not expected to become law in the current session of Congress, with the midterm elections just months away, but its framework could serve as a starting point for future debates about how best to oversee those markets.

“We expect this bill will be the starting point for debate next year regardless of which party controls the House or the Senate,” wrote Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Cowen Washington Research Group. “What does matter is that there is a bipartisan effort to bring crypto into the existing regulatory regime even if the details are likely to change.”

Yoshi Markets Limited, the ADGM regulated  Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) and Custodian for virtual assets announces today that it has started onboarding global clients on its Trading and Custody Platform. 

The announcement marks a significant milestone towards the final goal of launching a trading and custody services on the Yoshi Markets platform. The platform will facilitate customers from across the world to open a trading account directly with the regulated Virtual Assets MTF (Cryptocurrency Exchange) based in the UAE, rather than trading on unregulated platforms or through brokers. Yoshi Markets will provide a much safer environment for customers, along with multiple benefits and reduce trading costs.  

“We are proud to announce this major accomplishment as we have deployed best in class technology and processes to provide a superior trading experience to our customers,” said Arshad Khan, Yoshi Markets Founder and CEO. “To make this experience even more rewarding for our customers, we will be soon announcing very exciting sign-up packages.”

Yoshi Markets will commence the onboarding of clients before proceeding to launch the trading in different virtual asset pairs, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Additional virtual asset pairs will be added at a later stage.

The launch of Yoshi Markets in the MENA region sets forward the growing vision towards the future economy coming out of the UAE in recent months.  According to Chainalysis, the Middle East is one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency markets in the world, making up 7% of the global trading volume.

“We are excited to be part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the United Arab Emirates, which has been thriving thanks to the continuous support by the local government and supervision by the Abu Dhabi Global Market,” Mustafa Kheriba, Executive Chairman at Yoshi Market stated. “We believe this milestone will bring us closer to our goal, which is to offer regulated virtual assets trading and custody services to an enthusiastic retail and institutional base in the United Arab Emirates and beyond.”

Global clients can now register by visiting the Yoshi Markets website (www.yoshimarkets.io) or by scanning the QR code through their mobile phones. The registration process takes only a few minutes to complete. Yoshi Markets will engage with customers and other market participants to collaborate and offer innovative and much-needed products within the virtual assets space. 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pushed for regulation during an annual testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee, at a time where Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin UST struggles to retain its peg.

“New products and technology may present opportunities to promote innovation and increase efficiencies,” Yellen said. “However, digital assets may present risks to the financial system and increased and coordinated regulatory attention is necessary.”

In response to questions from Senator Pat Toomey and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Yellen said it would be “highly appropriate” for stablecoin regulation to occur by the end of 2022 because there are “many risks associated with cryptocurrencies.

“We really need a consistent federal framework,” Yellen commented. “I really look forward to working with [Toomey] and members of Congress to devise legislation that would accomplish that.”

Stablecoins by definition are supposed to be stable and hold their value through a 1:1 ratio that is fixed to an external peg like the U.S. dollar or it can be tied to other assets like UST, which is backed by dollars, but also cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Avalanche.

While every stablecoin in circulation is backed by $1 equivalent in a reserve, there have been concerns recently about the validity of some stablecoins. For example, the algorithmic-based stablecoin UST fell as much as 35% from its 1:1 dollar peg on May 9, when it should technically never be away from the $1 amount.

“A stablecoin known as TerraUSD experienced a run and declined in value,” Yellen said. “I think that this simply illustrates that this is a rapidly growing product and there are rapidly growing risks.”

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance committed $500 million, while venture capital firm Sequoia Capital committed $800 million to finance Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover of social media platform Twitter (TWTR).

Around $7.1 billion has been committed by 19 different parties with investment firm Fidelity putting aside $316 million for the takeover

Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk recently agreed to acquire the social media firm. Musk had said that he wants Twitter to be a proponent for free-speech. The billionaire is also a known supporter of cryptocurrencies, like memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) and bitcoin (BTC).

According to an updated Schedule 13D filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed on Wednesday, the world’s largest crypto exchange was among the equity investors for the deal. A Schedule 13D is a form that must be submitted to the SEC when an entity acquires more than 5% of a company’s equity.