Crypto banks could join the central banking system, Huobi’s stablecoin briefly loses its peg, and Bitcoin now has over a billion unique wallet addresses. These stories and more this week in crypto.
Sudden Crypto Crash Takes Bitcoin Below 21,000
Bitcoin fell to its lowest level in three weeks, falling below $21,000 amid a sudden sell-off in the broader crypto market. It is unclear what caused the cryptocurrency prices to fall, as the move comes just days after Bitcoin breached the $25,000 mark for the first time since June.
Central banking could embrace crypto banks
The Federal Reserve has provided guidance to innovative financial institutions to access their master accounts and participate in the global payment system. This appears to move the US Central Bank closer to allowing crypto neobanks free access to the central banking system, eliminating the need for them to conduct business through intermediary banks.
Huobi’s abandoned stablecoin became unstable
HUSD had serious difficulty maintaining its dollar parity as the cryptocurrency lost more than 10% compared to its expected fixed value of $1 only to find its way back to parity within a day . HUSD was launched by cryptocurrency exchange Huobi in 2018, but in a statement, a community manager claimed that Huobi had left HUSD in April.
SEC sues Dragonchain for $16.5 million
The SEC is suing startup founder John Joseph Roets and his Dragonchain project for raising millions of dollars through unregistered securities offerings. Dragonchain was originally developed as Disney’s private blockchain platform. The SEC claims the presale and initial offering of Dragon Token Coins were unregistered securities that allegedly raised about $14 million from more than 5,000 investors.
FTX was warned to stop misleading consumers
The FDIC has issued letters to five crypto companies demanding that they stop making false claims about deposit insurance. The agency contacted FTX US, Cryptonews.com, Cryptosec.info, SmartAsset.com and FDICCrypto.com. The regulator said in a press release that these companies made representations falsely suggesting that certain crypto-related products were insured by the FDIC.
Buenos Aires will run the Ethereum nodes
The city of Buenos Aires will begin running its own Ethereum validator nodes in 2023. The designated nodes and hardware will be deployed in partnership with private companies. The goal of the project is to explore the network in an effort to better regulate crypto assets in the future.
Coinbase Warns About Ethereum Merger
Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, is preparing users for Ethereum’s network switch in the test of stake known as The Merge. The exchange will briefly halt deposits and withdrawals of ETH and ERC-20 tokens as a precautionary measure during the merger which has a target date of September 15. Coinbase assured its users that their assets will be safe and secure during this period.
Bitcoin exceeds 1 billion wallet addresses
Bitcoin now has over 1 billion unique wallet addresses, with Ethereum’s 158 million a distant second in network participation. The latest data from on-chain analyst Glassnode showed that Litecoin is close to Ethereum with 148 million unique addresses. Both Ethereum and Litecoin have experienced some stagnation in 2022.
That’s what happened this week in crypto, see you next week.
