- Ether Accounts for Almost Half of $520M Liquidations Amid Weak On-Chain Data
Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) lost pivotal support levels in the past 24 hours amid weakening sentiment for the broader crypto market – a move that caused over $520 million in liquidations, data shows.
Ether-tracked futures lost upwards of $236 million, nearly double those of $125 million on bitcoin futures. The losses were unusual for ether, which mostly sees lower liquidations than bitcoin on average trading days.
Futures of Stepn’s GMT tokens racked up $23 million in losses amid headwinds from Chinese authorities, who banned gameplay of the popular ‘step-to-earn’ protocol in the country. Futures on Solana (SOL) lost $11 million, while metaverse-focused Sandbox (SAND) saw $9 million in losses.
- Chamber of Representatives in Paraguay Advances Crypto Bill
Laurentino Cortizo, the president of Panama, has announced his opinion regarding the Latam countries are taking cryptocurrencies in a more serious light, and are now working to approve cryptocurrency legal frameworks. This is the case of Paraguay, a country that has been traditionally seen as a mining haven by cryptocurrency mining companies due to the cheap electricity costs the country features. Now, a crypto bill project that seeks to bring more clarity to these companies has been approved in the Chamber of Representatives of Paraguay.
The bill, which was approved in December last year by the Senate, was approved with a voting record of 41 votes in favor and 11 votes against. Carlitos Rejala, one of the biggest supporters of the bill, celebrated this development on social media, stating:
A big leap for bitcoin in Paraguay. The second chamber of Congress just approved the bill proposal for creating a legal framework for bitcoin mining. 100% Hydroelectric renewable power.
https://news.bitcoin.com/chamber-of-representatives-in-paraguay-advances-crypto-bill/
- Terra Community Votes Unanimously to Destroy 1.3B UST Tokens
The governance vote on Terra’s proposal 1747 to burn 1.388 billion UST stablecoinsstablecoins has passed.
This will reduce UST’s supply by roughly 11% of its total supply of 11.28 billion tokens, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
More than 99% of all 154 million votes supported the burn proposal. Less than 1% abstained, and roughly 10,000 voted against the proposal.
The primary objective behind the proposal is to reduce the bad debt within the Terra economy and help restore the stablecoin’s dollar peg by burning UST tokens from the community pool.
https://decrypt.co/101498/terra-community-votes-unanimously-destroy-1-3b-ust-tokens
- Tether Enters Latin America with Mexican Peso-Pegged Stablecoin
Tether on Thursday added to its roster of stablecoins, launching its MXNT token pegged to Mexico’s peso.
The token will initially be supported in the Ethereum, Tron and Polyong blockchains, the company said. MXNT is Tether’s first foray into Latin America and joins the company’s other pegged coins — USDT (U.S. dollar), EURT (euro), and CNHT (China’s yuan).
Mexico is “a prime location for the next Latin American crypto hub,” said Tether, noting a report from Triple A stating that 40% of Mexican companies are interested in adopting blockchain and crypto in some way.
“We have seen a rise in cryptocurrency usage in Latin America over the last year that has made it apparent that we need to expand our offerings,” said Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino. The company bills this effort as a “testing ground” in Latin America that it expects will “pave the way” for more fiat-pegged tokens in the region.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7120138
- Draft bill to ban China’s digital yuan from US app stores
Lawmakers in the United States are moving to protect the country from the potential undesirable impacts of the global adoption of China’s national digital currency.
Three Republican senators, Tom Cotton, Mike Braun and Marco Rubio, introduced a bill on May 25, aiming to limit the use of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States.
The bill is referred to as “Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act” and proposes to prohibit the use of China’s digital currency payment system, e-CNY, for U.S. app stores and other purposes.
The term “app store” covers all publicly accessible websites, software apps or other electronic services distributing apps from third-party developers to users of computers, mobile devices or any other “general-purpose computing device,” the senators noted.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/draft-bill-to-ban-china-s-digital-yuan-from-us-app-stores
- The Curious Case of Coinbase’s India Communications Strategy
Coinbase’s “unrelenting” and “audacious” communications strategy regarding India continues to surprise, according to multiple people across the crypto industry and inside the government.
Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong has been outspoken compared with other industry leaders, for instance taking to Twitter to ask if the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has violated a landmark Supreme Court order with the currently in-place “shadow ban” on crypto exchanges. Armstrong later took note of “informal pressure” from the RBI as the reason for Coinbase’s trading pause in India within days of its trading launch.
“What Coinbase is doing is unrelenting and audacious, one after the other, and to most it appears to be a mistake but it could be very bold,” an industry source told CoinDesk.
- Binance to Advise Kazakhstan on Crypto Regulations
Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange by trading volume, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry. The major crypto platform and the department will collaborate in the crypto space.
The memorandum was signed during a visit of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to the Central Asian nation, the crypto news outlet Forklog revealed, quoting the company. In Kazakhstan, Zhao met with high-ranking government officials, including the head of the digital development ministry Bagdat Musin and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
According to the report, Binance will advise the country on the regulation of cryptocurrencies. The Ministry of Digital Transformation and the exchange will also seek a solution allowing the integration of Kazakhstan’s banking infrastructure with the crypto market, the document details.
https://news.bitcoin.com/binance-to-advise-kazakhstan-on-crypto-regulations/
- Ethereum Liquidations Top $157M After Merge Upgrade Test Hits Snag
In a seed-funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, blockchain gaming startup Azra Games As bears circle crypto and traditional markets, Ethereum has faced the brunt of it.
Ethereum is currently trading hands at $1,770, down roughly 3.4% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. The bearish trend is the latest in what has been a rather red week for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Over the past seven days, Ethereum shed more than 16% of its value, tumbling from $2,077 on Monday to as low as $1,731 in the early hours on Friday. It has since recovered some, however, and currently stands at around $1,770, down 3.5% on the day.
https://decrypt.co/101495/ethereum-liquidations-top-157m-merge-upgrade-test-hits-snag
- eBay Launches its First NFT Collection
This week, eBay announced that it is launching the first-ever collection of NFTs. This Non Fungible Token will be launched in partnership with the web3 platform, OneOf.
OneOf, is a Non-Fungible Token platform that brings in new innovation to the world of sport and music. For launching an NFT collection, it named it “Genesis” on its platform.
This new “Genesis” NFT collection will be featuring 3D and animated versions of many iconic athletes who have been featured on Sports Illustrated covers in the past, over the last couple of years.
The reason why eBay chose to bring this to the forefront has been directly attributed to the increase in collectibles market, which brought out Ebay’s first collaboration in the Non Fungible Token space.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7120290
- Hacker tastes own medicine as community gets back stolen NFTs
The dev partner of the Solana-based NFT game raised the royalty to 98% from the usual 5%, resulting in the scammer listing the 25 stolen NFTs for sale, which were then bought back and returned.
The tales of traders getting scammed out of their nonfungible tokens (NFTs) were quite common at the peak of the NFT boom. However, in an interesting turn of events, the Solana community came together to “scam” a scammer in order to get back some stolen NFTs.
It all started with the Discord channel hack of cross-chain gaming development studio Uncharted NFT, where scammers managed to drain out 109 user wallets. The scammers got away with 150+ SOL tokens and 25 World of Solana (WOS) NFTs, including three rare and highly valuable digital collectibles.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/hacker-tastes-own-medicine-as-community-gets-back-stolen-nfts
