This Week in Crypto #17
Originally posted here.
By: Az
Overview
The past week has been full of many challenges for crypto and Web3 as a whole. Amidst much negative sentiment, there have been some big events take place, that are not helping whatsoever. However, the builders keep on building, and the Web3 players that will potentially be around for years to come are hiring like […]
The Post
The past week has been full of many challenges for crypto and Web3 as a whole. Amidst much negative sentiment, there have been some big events take place, that are not helping whatsoever. However, the builders keep on building, and the Web3 players that will potentially be around for years to come are hiring like crazy.
Some are even jumping way ahead.We are looking at you Jack Dorsey!
this will likely be our most important contribution to the internet. proud of the team. #web5
(RIP web3 VCs )https://t.co/vYlVqDyGE3 https://t.co/eP2cAoaRTH
— jack (@jack) June 10, 2022
Celsius suspends withdrawals
One of the biggest crypto lenders around, Celsius, has hired restructuring attorneys after having told users it was pausing withdrawals on Monday. Celsius customers were informed via email that the company was temporary suspending all swaps and withdrawals on its platform, due to high market-wide volatility.
This controversial move started playing out when Celsius put users into a “HODL mode”, an action that was supposedly meant to prevent fraudulent activity from taking place.
As this played out, and Celsius faced major liquidity issues, it began selling off its staked ETH (stETH), in order to cover the high amount of customers withdrawing their ETH from the Celsius platform.
As a result, Celsius’ stETH peg was slightly set off balance (de-peg).
It’s the talk of the town in crypto world right now, and we wait to see how this plays out, as it will most likely affect the wider crypto space.
MetaMask integrates Near
NEAR becomes the first non-EVM chain compatible with popular crypto wallet MetaMask. Now anyone who wishes to interact with the NEAR blockchain, or any of its dApps, is able to do so via the comfort of their Metamask wallet, without the need to create a native NEAR wallet.
The plugin codename is called nETH, and the integration is done entirely on the NEAR side, via smart contracts using Ethereum accounts
Even though the functionality is still in an early-stage Alpha version, and some bugs may reside, the contract used has already been audited.
Stablecoin backed by Electricity?
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have come up with a previously unthought-of solution to the stablecoin problem many developers are trying to resolve.
The proposal comes to the tune of enabling a decentralised conversion between data and electricity, with kilowatt hours being used as the backing asset here.
Diving too deep into this one could get a little too technical, so we’ll let you read the release below if you want to find out more.
DOE-backed researchers propose a solution to a stablecoin paradox: an electricity peg
by @the_postman_ https://t.co/eUufOO2HLZ
— The Block (@TheBlock__) June 8, 2022
USDD Stablecoin De-Peg
TRON’s native algorithmic stablecoin, the USDD, is starting to face similar issues to those that came to its predecessors. The USDD has faced a de-peg this week, knocking its correlation to the dollar off further than many can stomach.
The USDD reached a low of $0.91 on Sunday.
According to Tron founder Justin Sun, people shorting TRON’s native token (TRX) on Binance are to blame, as their positions are causing the price to destabilise.
Justin Sun publicly said that the TRON DAO were putting in $2bn to the USDD reserves in order to combat the issue.
Funding rate of shorting #TRX on @binance is negative 500% APR. @trondaoreserve will deploy 2 billion USD to fight them. I don’t think they can last for even 24 hours. Short squeeze is coming. pic.twitter.com/VRExM6UK70
— H.E. Justin Sun 🅣 (@justinsuntron) June 13, 2022
Circle to release Euro backed Stablecoin
Just in!
USDC issuer Circle, has just announced that it is preparing to issue a fully reserved, Euro pegged stablecoin from the United States.
The stablecoin is set to be called Euro Coin (EUROC), and available from June 30.
The EUROC will be built on the same principles as the crypto sphere famous USDC stablecoin, that has been trusted by many.
Read the full announcement here .
MakerDAO
Maker DAO, the organisation behind the DAI stablecoin, has sold off 65k ETH in order to pay off some of its debt and hence reduce its risk.
The world of stable coins seems to be getting a lot of volatility as of lately, and whilst many seem to be in trouble, this move will surely be seen as positive by the Maker DAO and DAI believers.
Coinbase Turbulence
Sad news from the world of crypto, as one of the main exchanges and entry points for the mainstream users to crypto, Coinbase, finds itself in a tough place.
After posting profits that didn’t meet the predicted market expectations last quarter, Coinbase has now taken to firing many of its employees. At the time of writing, approximately 1,100 jobs have been lost. Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, has admitted that the company’s extremely fast growth wasn’t sustainable, and that the exchange hired too many people during the bull market.
Andrew Grass helped hire about 200 people at Coinbase earlier this year. Now most of those hires — and Grass himself — are gone https://t.co/BQH1skoGjX
— Bloomberg Wealth (@wealth) June 15, 2022
Binance Hiring
On the other side of the spectrum is Binance, led by their CEO and founder CZ.
Binance is currently on the look out for new talent, as they look to expand their reach across the entire market. Almost 2000 positions across the entire company are available to be filled by talented individuals.
NEW: #Binance plans to hire 2,000 people from engineers, product, marketing to business development
— Blockworks (@Blockworks_) June 14, 2022
OpenSea migrating
Leading Ethereum based NFT marketplace, Opensea, is migrating to a new gas-friendly design. OpenSea announced it will be merging into a Web3 marketplace protocol named Seaport. As a result of the move, OpenSea hope to see a reduction of 35% in gas fees on their platform. Alongside this, the move will enable features such as collection offers, rarity scores and bulk listings.
Read their blog post here .
Today, we’re officially moving to the Seaport protocol!
We estimate the new contract will save $460m + in total fees each year. But, that’s not all Let’s go through the updates… https://t.co/89B1FJARnl
— OpenSea (@opensea) June 14, 2022
BAYC falling from the tree
Lastly, we have to mention the falling prices across the NFT space, with many blue chip collections seeing the lowest floor prices they have in a long time.
BAYC is amongst them, with the floor price of the popular NFT dropping below $100k.
People freaking out about ape floor crashing beneath $100K.
Should get a chance to buy apes for less than $10K by the end of this bear market fwiw.
— K A L E O (@CryptoKaleo) June 14, 2022
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