DeFi News Official TheBitTimes.com

Despite the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies, few people are using the digital asset for its intended purpose — payments. Cryptocurrencies offer several advantages to traditional money, including lower costs, faster transfers, and decentralized systems that do not collapse at a single point of failure. Despite these benefits, many people don’t consider digital currencies practical for everyday use. Moreover, the currently available crypto debit card solutions often require tedious transfers and incur high fees, making the process unfeasible for everyday users. Leading crypto exchange Bybit wants to change that, promising to make using cryptocurrencies more convenient and rewarding for users. There are more and more companies accepting crypto currencies as a form of payment . While there has been some institutional interest, it hasn’t been enough for most businesses to start accepting digital currency transactions. As a result, it is difficult for a cryptocurrency user to make purch...

Dubbed "Synapse," the platform will accelerate trades placed by international investors for Mainland Chinese stocks. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), the operator of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Futures Exchange, and London Metal Exchange, is launch ing a novel equities settlement acceleration platform . Dubbed "Synapse," the platform will utilize smart contracts in the DAML programming language to streamline post-trade flows and enhance operational efficiencies, according to the October 4 announcement.  Synapse will be deployed on Stock Connect, an HKEX channel that enables international investors to access more than 1,000 Mainland Chinese stocks through routing in Hong Kong. "Average daily turnover of Northbound Stock Connect totalled RMB109.3 billion in the first half of 2023, up 5 per cent from a year earlier, and a 50 per cent increase from 2020 levels," developers wrote. HKEX will be linked to Hong Kong's Depos...

Meme coins reflect a higher beta to the entire crypto sector, but does their recent 25% price drop signal a deepening bear market for BTC, ETH and large caps? The recent crypto crash hit meme coins hard, culminating with a 9% drop in total market capitalization from Aug. 14 to Aug. 21. During the same period, Pepe (PEPE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and ApeCoin (APE) saw a 25% decline. The big question is whether this trend will affect the wider market, signaling a broader bear market or simply reflects lagging performance of meme coins. Total crypto cap (blue) vs. Pepe/USDT (green), Shiba/USDT (red), Apecoin/USDT (orange), August 2023. Source: TradingView Meme coins, like Dogecoin (DOGE), burst onto the scene driven by viral memes and community enthusiasm. However, their appeal faded due to a mix of factors. These coins rely on media hype and online communities for attention, yet they lack value beyond their meme origins. Their speculative nature leads to rapid price changes and volatility. F...

A Bitcoin ETF is on the cusp of receiving approval in the United States — and it may not be long before we see one in Hong Kong or elsewhere in Asia. But not everyone’s on board with the crypto ETF train. Critics argue that Bitcoin-linked ETFs could be even worse than centralized exchanges for the crypto market. Their main beef? There’s zero possibility of withdrawing the underlying instrument. This means the holders are never able to take advantage of the single most important feature of Bitcoin: the ability to control their funds without a need to trust anyone. And it’s not just talk. The potential of these investment vehicles is already being realized in markets like Canada. The Purpose Bitcoin ETF, for example, raked in over $400 million in assets under management within just two days of its launch. It’s no longer a question of whether crypto is an asset class. It’s like a starter pistol has been fired, and the institutional investors are off to the races, setting the stage for a ...

Claims can be converted into collateral to trade crypto futures on the exchange. OPNX, an exchange dedicated to the trading of bankruptcy claims against fallen crypto firms, has listed FTX and Celsius claims. According to the July 14 announcement, FTX claims specifically can be immediately onboarded and converted into collateral in the form of OPNX's native reborn OX (reOX) tokens or oUSD, its credit currency. Users can then trade crypto futures using reOX as collateral. The claims are tokenized in partnership with Heimdall, which also handles onboarding and user verification. Developers wrote: "Claims will initially be converted into reOX tokens at a 100% bonus of the market price, which will converge to 0% bonus over a period of 50 weeks. This means, during Week 1, users will receive double the market price for their FTX claim." In an illustrative example by OPNX, a $1 million FTX claim with a claim price of 30 cents on the dollar would receive $600,000 in equivalen...

The move provides PAX coin access to Mexico’s 3.1 million-plus cryptocurrency users. Blockchain fintech company Paxos and online marketplace MercadoLibre have entered a partner ship to bring the Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin to Mexico via the MercadoPago payment service on June 28.  According to a press release shared with Cointelegraph, USDP will be available to all MercadoPago customers throughout Mexico. While the company is based in the United States — with offices in New York, London and Singapore — more than 60% of its active wallets support customers throughout Latin America. Mexico currently boasts a 9.3% penetration rate for cryptocurrency use, with more than 12 million users, per a report from Statista. By 2027, analysts estimate more than 20 million people in Mexico will hold crypto, bring ing the total penetration to 14.6%. The introduction of USDP to the MercadoPago payment ecosystem adds stablecoin access to the service’s options in Mexico, a feature that could provide m...

The total value locked in DeFi protocols fell below $50 billion after nearly a month of bullish price action. Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is on the lookout for DeFi hackers and exploiters who have stolen millions of dollars worth of assets. The DOJ’s top crypto cop said it was a significant issue in the wake of North Korean state-sponsored hackers . The decentralized autonomous organization Bancor DAO was hit with a class-action lawsuit over its impermanent loss protection promises. As Ethereum un-staking opened on the Beacon Chain, bankrupt crypto lender Celsius moved $781 million worth of staked Ether (stETH) from staking service provider Lido as Ether (ETH) withdrawals opened. Coinbase Cloud has tapped into the Chainlink Oracle network to improve its smart contract reliability. ...

Panelists at a discussion on “Fighting the Anti-crypto Army” sought to dismiss the idea that working with lawmakers to regulate crypto should be framed as a fight. A trio of speakers in attendance at Industry Day, May 18, during the Bitcoin 2023 event in Miami held a discussion on government regulation and how the cryptocurrency industry should fight back against the “anti-crypto army.” Moderated by David Zell, cofounder of the Bitcoin Policy Institute, the panel featured Perianne Boring, Founder and CEO at Chamber of Digital Commerce, Mina Khattak, Senior director of crypto and web3 at Worldpay, and Dana Syracuse, a partner at law firm Perkins Coie. The discussion opened with Chamber of Digital Commerce’s Boring describing the current regulatory situation as “dire,” after placing part of the blame for the contentious nature of some of the discourse surrounding cryptocurrency regulation on the recent scandals in the space. “With a lot of negative headlines,” explained Boring, “there...

Texas lawmakers vote to add digital currency to the state's Bill of Rights, granting individuals the right to use digital currencies like Bitcoin for trading. Texas legislators have voted by a large margin to amend the state 's Bill of Rights and add a provision recognizing the right of individuals to possess, retain and utilize digital currencies. The decision was made on Wednesday, May 10. Bill HJR 146, introduced by State Representative Giovani Capriglione, declares that individuals have the right to use a medium of exchange that is mutually agreed upon, which includes digital currencies, cash, coin, bullion, or scrip, for trading and contracting goods and services, and that this right cannot be violated. The document received up to 139 votes in favor and only two against, and it includes a statement that "no government shall prohibit or hinder the ownership or holding of any form or quantity of money or other currency." The Texas Bill of Rights safeguards essent...

Most altcoins posted a below-par performance in March, but XRP, XLM, CFX, XDC and MASK defied the trend by posting double-digit gains. Bitcoin’s dominance over the crypto market, which represents its share of market capitalization relative to the total cryptocurrency market capitalization, rose steeply from around 44% to highs of 48% in March.  While Bitcoin’s price increased by 22.7% during the month, most altcoins yielded subpar or negative returns. However, there were some outliers which showed a second month of positive momentum. Take for example, XRP, which saw steady positive momentum as investors expect a positive outcome in its U.S. court case against the SEC. Tokens with highest 30-day returns in the top 100 by market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap Conflux Network Conflux Network continued its positive run from February, nearly doubling its price in March. The project’s team continued to strengthen its partnerships in China by adding XCMD, the world’s third-largest con...

ETH’s correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics all suggest that the path to $2,000 is programmed. Ether's price (ETH) reached $1,400 on March 10, which proved to be a bargain as the cryptocurrency rallied 27.1% until March 21, at the time of writing. However, the three reasons that supported the price gain, including correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics, all suggest that the path to $2,000 is set in stone.  There are numerous explanations for Ether's 19.4% decline over the past six months. The Shanghai hard fork upgrade was delayed from March to early April and after Shanghai, Ethereum's roadmap includes the "Surge," "Verge," "Purge," and "Splurge" updates. In reality, the longer these intermediate steps to achieve scalability take, the greater the likelihood that competing networks will demonstrate efficacy an...

According to insiders, 50% of uninsured deposits will be paid out by next week. According to a post on Mar. 11 by Bob Elliot, chief investment officer of unlimited funds, relief efforts may already be underway less than 72 hours after the collapse of prominent American tech bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Elliot claimed, among many items, that "big banks actively working on buying svb business," the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is planning to cover 95% of uninsured depositors to the acquirer, and that "50pct of uninsured paid out next wk." Cointelegraph reported earlier today that Circle, the issuer of the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, had over $3.3 billion in reserves stuck in the troubled bank out of a total of over $40 billion. In addition, SVB reportedly custodied an estimated $5 billion in funds for prominent Blockchain venture capital firms such as a16z, Pantera Capital, and Paradigm. Earlier today, USDC depegged from its one-to-one U.S. d...

Breaking down barriers and promoting equality in finance — a female CEO in finance shares her insights. As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, it is important to highlight the achievements and contributions of women in various industries, including finance. In this interview, Jessica Beckstead, managing director, North America, and CEO, US, shares her experiences and insights on gender equality in the sector. Her advice for women starting out in finance and her efforts to promote more equality and acceptance across the financial sector are particularly relevant on this day as the world celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women while also recognizing the work that still needs to be done toward gender equality. Q: What made you want to enter the finance industry? It all started when I was in college studying international politics and economics. I began day trading. I found it really exciting, so I made the decision to go into finance and ...

The lack of regulatory clarity is the biggest hurdle to the adoption of crypto-enabled payments, according to a new survey co-hosted by Ripple. The global payment s industry is bullish on the potential of crypto currencies and blockchain to enable faster and cheaper transactions, according to a new survey co-hosted by Ripple. Blockchain-based digital payment network Ripple and the Faster Payments Council (FPC) payment organization on March 2 issued a report devoted to the opportunities of crypto-enabled payments. Titled “Transforming the Way Money Moves,” the report provides insights on global crypto payment trends based on a survey sent to over 950 FPC subscribers, such as analysts and CEOs across 45 countries. The survey included a total of 281 respondents addressing 25 questions on topics of blockchain payments use cases and benefits, digital asset ownership and usage barriers. Fieldwork for the survey was conducted during the first half of 2022. According to survey results, nearl...

The increasing popularity of Bitcoin NFTs, or Ordinals, will impact posively the security of the Bitcoin network and attract developers to the ecosystem, according to Ordinals proponent Udi Wertheimer. Bitcoin (BTC) NFTs will have a positive impact on Bitcoin ecosystem by improving its security and incentivizing developers to build on the network, according to independent developer Udi Wertheimer.  The number of newly created Ordinals, also referred to as "inscriptions", have been spiking in recent weeks, causing a surge in transaction Fees and average block size on the Bitcoin block chain.  According to Wertheimer, Bitcoin NFTs are going to be beneficial for Bitcoin's security budget: by driving up transaction fees, the creation of Ordinals will incentivize miners to secure the network while the revenue from mining reward will be decreasing with each Bitcoin halving. “Because the block space is scarce and because there's demand for stuff like inscriptions, there...

The Binance CEO claimed that algorithmic USD stablecoins may become more popular as well, although they “have risks.” The crypto industry will “probably” start using euro, yen, or Singapore dollar based stablecoins in the future, reducing its reliance on US dollar based stablecoins, according to a Feb. 14 statement on Twitter Spaces by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as “CZ.” CZ gave the statement in answer to a question about the crypto industry using gold as a standard of value instead of the US Dollar. CZ agreed that it “makes sense” to use gold. However, “most people’s costs are still in fiat currencies.” For this reason, most people calculate their investment returns in dollars, which is why US Dollar backed stablecoins are “still important.” However, CZ argued that the US government’s recent actions against US dollar stablecoins will probably lead the global crypto industry to rely on other currencies such as the Euro, Yen, and Singapore Dollar to back stablecoins, as he ...

Bad news continues to dominate crypto media headlines but Bitcoin and the wider market appear to not care. Despite the recent negative crypto and macroeconomic newsflow, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization broke above $1 trillion on Jan. 21. An encouraging sign is that derivatives metrics are not showing increased demand from bearish traders at the moment.  Total crypto market cap in USD, 1-day. Source: TradingView Bitcoin (BTC) price gained 8% on the week, stabilizing near the $23,100 level at 18:00 UTC on Jan. 27 as the markets weighed the potential impact of Genesis Capital's bankruptcy on Jan. 19. One area of concern is Genesis Capital's largest debtor is Digital Currency Group (DCG), which happens to be its parent company. Consequently, Grayscale funds management could be at risk, so investors are unsure if the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) assets could face liquidation. The investment vehicle currently holds over $14 billion worth of Bitcoin positions for it...