Date: 08/30/2021
“Seven years ago today, Hal Finney left us. Rest in peace to the husband, father, and cypherpunk who contributed to #Bitcoin in ways we’ll all never forget.” — Documenting Bitcoin
Weekly News Report:
1. United Kingdom-based multinational banking firm Standard Chartered has launched a blockchain-powered trade finance platform through a joint venture with Chinese supply chain finance technology provider Linklogis. Dubbed Olea, the platform will aim to meet the needs of institutional investors that are “seeking opportunities in an alternative asset class with businesses requiring supply chain financing.”
2. Fantom (FTM), a layer one smart contract platform that utilizes a directed acyclic graph architecture as a means to solving the problems of slow transaction speeds and high transaction fees, gained 500% in the past six weeks and a newly launched 370 million FTM ($320 million) incentive program could see the rally extend further.
3. ATOM price booked triple-digit gains after the network built out its DeFi ecosystem and works on cross-chain bridges for ETH and BTC.
4. Phone-focused blockchain Celo is the latest to roll out a big-budget incentive program, announcing Monday the launch of the $100 million “DeFi for the People” fund, working in collaboration with Ethereum-native protocols such as Aave, Curve, Sushi, PoolTogether, 0x and UMA — as well as Ethereum infrastructure providers such as Chainlink, RabbitHole and The Graph.
5. Texas-based investment manager U.S. Global Investors, which reported $4.6 billion in assets under management as of Q1 2021, has bought exposure to Bitcoin through Grayscale funds.
6. As part of expanding its product offering, the online payment platform PayPal is reportedly exploring the idea of launching a stock trading platform. The platform’s possible launch might be later this year or 2022.
7. KuCoin registers record 2M new users in the second quarter. African crypto markets hit a “major” developmental point, with trading volumes climbing 20-fold, the exchange said.
8. Crypto exchange Bitso hires facebook veteran Vaughan Smith as first COO. The company, which also announced the hiring of a new public policy head, said Vaughan would focus on expanding Bitso’s business in Brazil.
9. Bitcoin fever reaches Honduras with the first cryptocurrency ATM. The machine, locally dubbed “la bitcoinera,” allows users to acquire bitcoin and ethereum using the local lempira currency.
10. Nigeria Central Bank issues CBDC guidelines to commercial banks. The CBN is planning to launch a pilot of its digital currency project, called Project Giant, in October.
11. China builds a global clearing network for mobile payments, using digital yuan. China also wants to use the digital yuan to improve the monitoring and early warning capabilities regarding cross-border flows of the yuan.
12. Dubai benefits from expanding the crypto market. The United Arab Emirates has been cementing its presence in the digital asset industry recently with multiple efforts to further adopt blockchain-based technologies.
13. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has shortlisted 15 “Global CBDC Challenge” participants to help build an in-house retail CBDC. The 15 finalists will be mentored by the MAS and “be given access to the APIX Digital Currency Sandbox for rapid prototyping of digital currency solutions.”
14. Investors add to altcoin funds as bitcoin outflows mount. Digital-asset funds focused on Cardano and other altcoins have attracted fresh capital.
