| PayPal launches USD stablecoin PYUSD; Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission: Some unlicensed virtual asset trading platforms engaged in improper business conduct (August 8th).
Headline
PayPal Launches Dollar Stablecoin PYUSD, Issued by Paxos and Open to U.S. Customers
PayPal announced the launch of PayPal USD (PYUSD), a stablecoin for transfers and payments. The stablecoin is issued by Paxos Trust Co. and backed by U.S. dollars, short-term Treasury bonds, and cash equivalents.
PYUSD will gradually be made available to PayPal customers in the United States. Starting today and over the next few weeks, eligible U.S. PayPal customers can transfer PYUSD between PayPal and compatible external wallets, make peer-to-peer payments with PYUSD, choose to use PYUSD at checkout, and convert any supported cryptocurrency by PayPal to PYUSD.
Starting in September 2023, Paxos will release monthly public reports outlining the specific composition of the reserves for PYUSD. Paxos will also provide third-party attestation of the value of PYUSD reserves. The attestation will be conducted by an independent third-party accounting firm in accordance with the auditing standards set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
PayPal stated that PayPal USD is the only stablecoin supported within the PayPal network. As an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain, PayPal USD will be available to the growing community of external developers, wallets, and Web3 applications, making it easily adoptable by exchanges and enhancing the experience within the PayPal ecosystem. While most stablecoins are used in Web3-specific environments, PayPal USD is compatible with this ecosystem from day one and will soon be available on Venmo.
Industry News
The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong issued a statement, observing that certain unlicensed virtual asset trading platforms are using improper business practices, including falsely claiming to have submitted applications to the Securities and Futures Commission, operating virtual asset trading platforms in Hong Kong that do not comply with the Securities and Futures Commission's regulations, and existing companies operating unlicensed virtual asset trading platforms.
The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong warns that certain unlicensed virtual asset trading platforms are misleading the public by falsely claiming to have submitted license applications to the Commission. Other unlicensed virtual asset trading platforms may have publicly announced their intention to apply for licenses from the Commission. Most of the virtual asset trading platforms currently accessible to the public are unregulated. The list of virtual asset trading platforms published on the Commission's website will be updated when the Commission approves a virtual asset trading platform to provide services to retail investors.
The Commission once again cautions investors to be aware of the risks of buying and selling virtual assets on unregulated virtual asset trading platforms. Investors may face the risk of losing all the investments held on such platforms if the platforms cease operation, close down, are hacked, or if there is any misappropriation of assets. If there are any doubts about the licensing status of any virtual asset trading platform, please refer to the Commission's list of virtual asset trading platforms.
Singapore MAS: To Invest SGD 150 Million in Web3 and Other FinTech Projects in the Next Three Years
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced that under the new Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme (FSTI 3.0), it is committing to invest up to SGD 150 million in emerging technology projects such as Web3 over the next three years.
FSTI 3.0 will include projects under the Innovation Acceleration track. MAS recognizes the importance of collaborating with the industry to support innovative fintech solutions arising from emerging technologies such as Web3. MAS will be making public calls for the use of innovative technology in industry use cases. Grant funding will be provided to support practical experimentation and commercialization.
Ravi Menon, Managing Director of MAS, said, "We look forward to working with the industry to advance targeted financial innovation."
In response to PayPal's announcement of the launch of the stablecoin PYUSD, Patrick McHenry, Chairman of the US House Financial Services Committee, issued a statement stating, "This announcement is a clear signal that stablecoins, if issued within a clear regulatory framework, have the potential to become the cornerstone of our 21st century payment system. Clear regulations and strong consumer protections are crucial for stablecoins to fully unleash their potential. That is why it is more important than ever for Congress to provide comprehensive regulation of digital assets, particularly stablecoins. The bipartisan Payments Stablecoin Transparency Act recognizes the important role that states play in regulating digital asset companies and builds upon successful state regimes such as New York. We are at a crossroads to maintain America's leadership in digital asset innovation, and Congress is making significant progress in legislation to ensure that the US leads the future financial system. We must complete this work."
Previously, the House Financial Services Committee passed the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act of 2023. This bill establishes regulatory pathways for approving and regulating stablecoin issuers, while ensuring strong consumer protections by creating uniform federal minimum standards for payment stablecoins.
Data Changes
Data: Total number of Bitcoin transactions exceeds 875 million
Tokenview data shows that the current total number of Bitcoin transactions exceeds 875 million, and the number of holding addresses exceeds 53.0498 million. During the same period, the total number of Ethereum transactions exceeded 2.054 billion, and the number of Ethereum holding addresses exceeded 66.7124 million.
In addition, there are approximately 263 days left until the Bitcoin halving.
Over 200 million DAI deposited into Maker DSR pool in the past 24 hours
Makerburn.com data shows that with the increase of the Maker DAI Savings Rate (DSR) to 8%, the number of DAI deposited into the Maker DSR pool in the past 24 hours has increased by 216 million. The amount added in the past week has reached 255 million, with a total of 556 million.
A certain whale address transferred 13,400 ETH to Coinbase
According to The Data Nerd's monitoring, a whale address starting with 0x8f64 transferred 13,400 ETH to Coinbase today (approximately $25 million).
Most of the ETH held by this address was transferred between 2016 and 2017. The address currently holds approximately 7,000 ETH.
Project News
Unibot Wallet adds ERC-20 token transfer function
According to official sources, Unibot Wallet has added the ERC-20 token transfer function. Users can restart the robot and use the /menu command to see the new "Transfer Tokens" button.
L2 BEAT data shows that Base TVL has exceeded $100 million and is currently $114 million, with a 7-day growth rate of 91.93%.
According to the MakerDAO governance page, at 00:47 on August 5th (Beijing time), the MakerDAO community voted in favor of the execution proposals for "Enhancing DSA Activation, Increasing Spark Protocol Debt Ceiling, Updating RWA Treasury, AVC Member Compensation for Q2 2023, Monetails Clydesdale DAO Resolution, Project Funding Initiation, and Execution of Spark Proxy Spell." The proposal was executed at 00:49 on August 7th (Beijing time).
It is reported that in addition to raising the DAI deposit interest rate to 8%, the other main changes in the agreement include:
-The maximum debt ceiling of the Spark Protocol's direct deposit module has been increased from 20 million DAI to 200 million DAI;
-The debt ceiling of RWA 004-A has been reduced from 7 million DAI to 0 DAI, and the RWA 002-A protocol has been updated;
-134.1 MKR tokens allocated to AVC members;
-MakerDAO approved the DAO resolution with the IPFS hash value of QmaGTVioBsCPfNoz9rbW7LU6YuzfgqHDZd92Hny5ACfL3p;
-200 million DAI transferred to 0x3C5142F28567E6a0F172fd0BaaF1f2847f49D02F for the launch of the Endgame project;
-Spark Protocol updated the DAI interest rate strategy and reduced the DAI market loan-to-value ratio (LTV) from 74% to 0.01%, the DAI liquidation threshold from 76% to 0.01%, the WETH market reserve ratio from 15% to 5%, and the variableRateSlope of WETH from 3.8% to 3%.
The Aave community has passed and implemented the proposal to set the CRV LTV to zero on Aave v2.
Gauntlet's proposal "Setting CRV LTV on Aave v2 to zero" initiated in the Aave community has been passed and implemented. The proposal states that Gauntlet has been studying the risk profile of wallet addresses starting with 0x7a16. As of August 1st, 2023, the account has borrowed approximately $54 million USDT with $158 million worth of CRV as collateral. Due to the recent decrease in CRV liquidity, it is recommended to set the CRV LTV on Aave V2 on Ethereum to 0 to prevent additional borrowing against existing CRV collateral.
Bitget Market: YGG surges, GameFi projects rally
Bitget market shows that on August 6th, YGG broke through $0.66 and is currently trading at $0.54, leading the GameFi sector. MC, ILV, GALA, and other projects in the gaming sector have seen maximum increases of 50%, 25%, and 15%, respectively.
Lido TVL reaches $15 billion in July, hitting a new high since May 2022
Lido released its July data report, stating that the total TVL surpassed $150 billion in July, reaching the highest level since May 2022.
Lido team also pointed out that despite launching the function of extracting pledged ETH earlier this year, the protocol has consistently seen a large net inflow of ETH deposits every month. "Due to this continued growth, the amount of ETH staked in the protocol is expected to exceed 8 million next month."
A report released by data analysis company Messari shows that Cardano blockchain has seen growth in TVL and transaction metrics in the second quarter due to technical upgrades and increased developer interest. TVL (measured in USD) increased by 9.7% quarterly, and by 198.6% year-to-date. By 2023, Cardano is projected to rise from the 34th to the 21st position in TVL among all chains.
HashKey Exchange to open BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT trading pairs on August 10th
According to an official announcement, HashKey Exchange will launch BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT trading pairs and open trading on August 10th, 2023, at 16:00 (UTC+8) for professional investors only.
Dune's data shows that the total amount of staked Ethereum in the Beacon Chain has reached 25,166,803 ETH, accounting for 21.15% of the total Ethereum supply; among which, Lido's staked share is 31.72%. In addition, there has been a net inflow of 5,738,012 ETH since the Shanghai upgrade.
People's Voices
Cathie Wood: SEC may approve multiple Bitcoin ETFs at the same time
Cathie Wood, the founder of ARK Invest and known as "Wood Sister," predicted in an interview with Bloomberg that she does not expect the US SEC to make a decision on their physical Bitcoin ETF by the deadline (August 13). However, she believes that if the SEC approves Bitcoin ETFs, "it will approve multiple ETFs at once. Most of them are essentially the same."
Andrew Kang: Curve may launch a foreign exchange trading market
Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital, posted a conversation with Michael Egorove, the founder of Curve, on social media. The content shows that Egorove has conducted simulations with some interbank data and formulated plans to launch a foreign exchange trading market on Curve. Egorove believes that the market can leverage Curve's low fees for on-chain arbitrage in foreign exchange trading.
Analyst: Bitcoin's actual volatility has reached a historical low
Analyst Checkɱate from Glassnode tweeted that Bitcoin's actual volatility has reached a historical low, proving that the current period is the calmest in the market since March 2020.
Furthermore, historically, such low volatility is consistent with the phase of re-accumulation after a bear market.
Paradigm researcher Samczsun and others establish Web3 Emergency Security Response System
Paradigm researcher Samczsun wrote in the ETHSecurity community that in order to prevent users from inadvertently notifying malicious actors when seeking security help, he has collaborated with a small group of trusted white hat hackers, auditors, and others to develop a prototype Web3 911 system.
If users have emergencies and need help or want to contact security personnel, they can send a message to @seal_911_bot on Telegram.
Tether CTO: PayPal launching stablecoin will not affect USDT in any way
Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino stated that the launch of the stablecoin PYUSD by payment giant PayPal earlier today will not affect USDT in any way.
He explained that this is because PayPal stablecoin PYUSD is being launched in the United States, while Tether (USDT) does not offer services in the United States. However, when asked if PYSDC will be launched in the international market, Ardoino stated that this is positive for the entire cryptocurrency industry.
Ardoino said, "This is interesting. Another stablecoin has emerged in the United States. It might lead to a decrease in payment revenues mainly supported by Mastercard and Visa. At the same time, it will further help develop the industry and promote rational regulatory policies."
Furthermore, Ardoino believes that the launch of PYUSD can help USDT in another way, which is that it may reduce the competition faced by Tether. Ardoino said, "This may mean that our main competition, Circle's stablecoin USDC, is further reduced." He may be implying that Tether focuses on emerging markets and developing countries."
David Wells, CEO of Enclave Markets, stated that it is currently unclear how the launch of PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD will directly impact USDC. It is worth noting that David Wells worked for Paxos from 2017 to 2020, serving as the product manager for USDP and BUSD.
Wells believes that PYUSD and USDC may compete for similar customer groups who prefer to use regulated stablecoins within the United States rather than offshore stablecoins. However, in order for PYUSD to compete fully with USDC, it needs to be listed on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Wells stated, "It is currently unclear when/if PYUSD will be listed on major exchanges, so it may focus on cross-platform payment use cases. In the long term, PYUSD may also compete with USDC for market share in the cryptocurrency trading market and in the DeFi market."
Anders Helseth, Vice President of Crypto Research Company K33, agrees with this and says, "I think an important factor in the short term is whether any exchanges will adopt PayPal's stablecoin."
Stephen Chow Announces Entry into Web3+AI, Interacting with OKX
Famous director Stephen Chow posted on INS expressing gratitude for finding like-minded partners in the Web3 space and researching Web3+AI projects, hoping to have an AI representing him. The post mentions @OKX at the end, and the image also shows an online meeting with OKX, indicating that the two parties will engage in deep cooperation.
