Voyager Lenders May Start Receiving Their Funds Soon
Voyager Digital, a company that has declared itself bankrupt, may start paying its creditors in the coming weeks, according to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the creditor’s bankruptcy case. “Voyager is also finalizing everything internally that is necessary to make distributions to creditors. We expect initial rollouts to begin in the coming weeks.”
PEPE Reaches $1B Market Capitalization and Will Be Listed on Binance
Pepecoin (COIN:PEPECOINUSD), a new meme-based token, has reached a market capitalization of $1 billion and is up 70% in the past 24 hours, boosting trading activity in other meme tokens on decentralized exchanges such as WOJAK (COIN:WOJAKKUSD), which has gained 1.464% in one week. Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, two of the oldest meme tokens, did not follow the same price movement and traded in the red for the week. Crypto exchange Binance revealed that it would list Pepe and Floki Inu (COIN:FLOKIUSD) in its innovation zone, according to a May 5 press release.
Block earnings
Block (formerly Square) reported an increase in Bitcoin (BTC) sales on its Cash App platform in the first quarter of the year. It sold $2.16 billion worth of BTC in the quarter, up 25% year-over-year and up from $1.8 billion sold in the fourth quarter of last year. Gross profit from BTC sales was $50 million, according to the Q1 shareholder letter.
Coinbase beats estimates
Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) reported a loss of 34 cents per share, with revenue down 33% to $772.53 million. However, sales were up 22% from the fourth quarter. Analysts at FactSet had expected Coinbase to report a loss of $1.45 per share, compared to a loss of $1.98 a year ago. FactSet expected revenue to drop 43% to $655 million. Consumer turnover fell 71% over the year to $21 billion in the first quarter. Institutional trading volume nearly halved to $124 billion over the period. However, reported revenue from subscriptions and services more than doubled to $361.7 million from $151.9 million last year. This translated into a 63% drop in total transaction revenue, dropping to $374.7 million from $1. 01 billion last year. Coinbase initially did not release an update on its number of verified users. But analysts pointed to an increase to 111.97 million, from 109.1 million at the end of the year.
FCA continues action against unregistered crypto ATMs
The FCA has carried out inspections at sites suspected of hosting illegal crypto ATMs in Exeter, Nottingham and Sheffield as part of its efforts to tackle illegal activity in the crypto sector. Ramona Senior, Head of Economic Crime at the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organized Crime Unit, said: “Machines such as these are a key component in facilitating money laundering and moving funds acquired through criminal activities”.
Solana founder unfazed by FTX collapse
Anatoly Yakovenko, founder of Solana, is not concerned about recent technical difficulties faced by cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which uses his technology, according to an interview. “The rest of the developers that are developing Solana really have nothing to do with FTX. And you saw it in the last hackathon. We had over 800 projects submitted in our biggest ever hackathon. So and this was basically two months after the FTX collapse,” Yakovenko shared. The market capitalization of Solana’s token (COIN:SOLUSD) grew by 118.1% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the last quarter of 2022, and the token is up more than 127% year-to-date. Furthermore, total network transaction fees paid in SOL increased by 68.7% in Q1 2023, suggesting an increase in network activity.
ResearchAndMarkets: Adoption of digital assets is gradually increasing
According to the “Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Market in Europe 2023” report by ResearchAndMarkets.com, the use and acceptance of digital assets is gradually increasing across Europe. More than half of surveyed cryptocurrency owners indicated plans to increase their holdings in the next 12 months, in the first half of 2022. The younger population, aged 18-39, was the most interested in doing this compared to older generations. The most favored cryptocurrencies were Bitcoin and Ethereum.
New York Attorney General Seeks New Crypto Powers for State Regulators
New York Attorney General Letitia James has proposed a bill that gives the New York Department of Financial Services more authority to regulate digital assets, including exchanges that would have to reimburse customers who are victims of fraud. The legislation also seeks to require greater disclosure of risks and conflicts of interest, as well as prohibit cryptocurrency companies from borrowing or lending assets from customers. James argues that the proposal aims to protect investors and fight fraud in the crypto industry. “We are proposing common sense measures to protect investors and end the fraud and dysfunction that have become the hallmarks of cryptocurrency,” said James.
White House unveils digital identity strategy
The US White House released the “National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies”, identifying eight technology sectors that would have a significant economic impact in the near future – including “Digital Identity Infrastructure and Distributed Ledger Technologies, which increasingly affect plus a variety of the main economic sectors”. Others are artificial intelligence (AI), communication and networking technologies, semiconductors and microelectronics, biotechnologies, quantum information technologies, clean energy generation and storage, and positioning, navigation, and timing services. “A proactive and sustained long-term approach is needed to ensure that the United States remains a global leader in contributing to the development of fair and merit-based standards for CET,” the report states.
BNP Paribas to Launch China’s CBDC Wallet Platform
BNP Paribas China will launch a yuan digital wallet management platform in partnership with the Bank of China. The platform will provide BNP Paribas corporate clients with e-CNY services, including opening and managing wallets, as well as token conversion and spending options. In addition, companies will explore other digital yuan-related business avenues, such as offline yuan payments, supply chain finance, smart contracts and cross-border agreements. “[This is] an important milestone for the Chinese yuan. The involvement of foreign banks in the yuan digital wallet space can open up the situation for the internationalization of the yuan. It can provide more tools for foreign financial users.”, said Sun Yang, senior financial technology researcher at Jiangsu Suning Bank.
Kenya plans 3% tax on digital asset transfers
Kenya is considering imposing a 3% tax on transfers of digital assets, including crypto assets and non-fungible tokens (NFT), according to proposals for the 2023 finance bill. The proposal would apply to both exchanges and individuals carrying out such transfers. If passed, the tax would have a significant impact on the country’s crypto market and could discourage the adoption of these technologies. Secretary of the National Treasury and Economic Planning Office, Njuguna Ndung’u, will present the budget statement to Parliament on June 8. About 8.5% of Kenya’s population owns crypto, ranking the East African nation fifth globally.
RBZ proposes gold-backed digital currency to stabilize local economy
The Central Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has called on individuals, financial firms, corporations and other organizations in the country to apply for the next gold-backed digital token. Per a notice, requests for the RBZ gold-backed digital tokens must be a minimum of USD 10 for individuals and USD 5,000 for financial companies and other entities. “Holders of physical gold coins, at their discretion, will be able to exchange or convert, through the banking system, the physical gold coins into gold-backed digital tokens,” the bank said.