Visa stablecoin plan, debt ceiling effect on Bitcoin price: Hodler’s Digest, 23-29 April

Top stories this week

Circle launches cross-chain USDC transfer protocol

Circle launched a cross-chain protocol that enables USDC transfers between the Ethereum and Avalanche blockchains. The protocol works by burning the chosen amount of native USDC on the source chain, and minting a corresponding amount of new USDC on the intended destination chain. The protocol essentially makes USDC transfers between the two networks faster and more user-friendly, as prior to launch people had to use third-party bridges or a Circle partner to facilitate transfers between the two networks. Additional support for Solana and other blockchains will be added later in 2023.

Stablecoin payments: Visa shares plans for ‘ambitious’ crypto product

Cuy Sheffield, the head of crypto at Visa, announced a new cryptocurrency-related project on April 24, focused on stablecoin payments. Details are sparse at this stage; However, Sheffield shared a job posting related to the project, with the description noting that “the Visa Crypto team is building the next generation of products to facilitate commerce in everyone’s digital and mobile lives.” The job advertisement is looking for candidates with a good understanding of layer-1 and layer-2 solutions, together with experience in writing smart contracts with, among other things, the Solidity programming language.

Kraken is asking the San Francisco court to intervene against claims by the IRS

Crypto exchange Kraken has fought back against the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over what it feels is an “unwarranted tax hunt” for its users’ trading information. According to court documents, the firm asked a federal court in San Francisco to intervene and ask the IRS to back off. The IRS issued a subpoena in February demanding additional information about Kraken users who traded $20,000 or more in a single year from 2016 to 2020.

Meta revealed in its first quarter earnings report that its metaverse unit, Reality Labs, posted a loss of around $4 billion during the quarter. In what has been a costly venture for the firm, the $4 billion loss adds to Reality Labs’ $14 billion loss for all of 2022. Still, Meta posted a total profit of about $5.7 billion in the first quarter, with the company’s work with artificial intelligence something to mitigate the losses. Mark Zuckerberg was also unfazed by the loss from Reality Labs, reiterating that “we continue to expect Reality Labs’ operating loss to widen year-over-year in 2023” as the firm sees long-term growth.

Gary Gensler links crypto with cash in viral 2018 video – Crypto Twitter reacts

Viral clips of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler began circulating this week, showing him taking a very adversarial stance on crypto compared to what he has now. As it stands, Gensler believes almost every crypto asset except BTC is a security, and has pushed hard to regulate the crypto sector from that point of view. However, in an excerpt from one of his “Blockchain and Money” lectures from 2018 – while he was working as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Gensler said: “Three quarters of the market is non-securities, it’s just a commodity. , cash, crypto.” He even suggested that Ether was not a security, despite repeatedly suggesting otherwise over the past couple of years.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $29,275Ether (ETH) on $1900 and XRP on $0.47. The total market value is at $1.2 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, this week’s top three altcoin winners are Render Token (RNDR) at 40.91%, Cronos (CRO) at 13.47% and Injective (INJ) of 10.49%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are PancakeSwap (CAKE) at 19.13%, Zilliqa (ZIL) of 12.41% and Optimism (OP) of 11.26%.

For more info on crypto prices, be sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most memorable quotes

“It’s a critical moment here in the United States, and as I like to say, it’s really a moment for Congress to step up.”

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle

“I think it’s probably not a coincidence that you’re seeing all these concerns about de-dollarization at the same time they’re cracking down on crypto.”

David Sacks, co-host of All-In podcast

“[Blockchain] is about helping different groups of people to come together to be able to trust each other more, to collaborate over greater distances on many different types of projects.”

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum

“The battles over mining aren’t really about mining. It’s not really about environmental concerns. What it’s really about is controlling energy use.”

Perianne BoringCEO of the Chamber of Digital Commerce

“While DeFi has enormous potential, more education is needed to alleviate the confusion and fear plaguing ordinary users.”

Julian HospCEO and co-founder of Cake DeFi

Prediction of the week

Analysts Disagree on Fed, US Debt Ceiling Affecting Bitcoin Price

After House Republicans narrowly passed the bill to increase the US debt ceiling on April 26, market analysts immediately began weighing its potential impact on the price of Bitcoin (BTC). Analysts such as CEO of investment firm Onramp, Jesse Meyers, believe that raising the debt ceiling is likely to prompt the Federal Reserve to print more money, thereby increasing capital inflows into “risky” assets such as BTC.

“When the debt ceiling is lifted and credit crunch leads to economic crisis … they will have to print money on a massive scale,” he noted. “#Bitcoin was the winner during the last round of stimulus.”

FUD of the week

Ordinals Finance has completed a $1 million carpet pull: CertiK

Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol Ordinals Finance, was accused of carrying out a blanket move. The protocol enables users to lend and borrow inscriptions. However, blockchain security firm CertiK reported that the protocol’s developer abruptly withdrew 256 million OFI tokens from its smart contracts using a “safuToken” feature. According to CertiK, an additional 13 million OFI were subsequently removed through an “ownerRewithdraw” function, bringing the total number of withdrawn tokens to 269 million. In total, the reported loss to investors was estimated at around $1 million, almost half of OFI’s total market value.

One crypto wallet launched 114 questionable memecoins in two months

According to research by the pseudonymous blockchain scam ZachXBT published on April 26, a specific wallet address launched “114 memecoin scams” in the last 45 days. The ZachXBT track 0x739c58807B99Cb274f6FD96B10194202b8EEfB47 address, and found that stolen funds from fraud are continuously being sent to this address. ZachXBT was unable to calculate how much the funds equaled, as the alleged scammer used multiple wallets to split the funds. “I suspect there are more as well. These are just the ones sent to that deposit address lol,” ZachXBT wrote.

Google Ads data: $4 million stolen through phishing URLs

According to Google Ads data combined with blockchain analysis, over $4 million has been stolen from people who clicked on malicious phishing websites impersonating legitimate crypto platforms. It marks a worrying trend for the crypto community, given that these dubious sites are promoted on Google search results and mimic real platforms.

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Brian Quarmby

Brian Quarmby discovered crypto in 2013 and immediately fell in love with the idea of ​​decentralization. Brian has since lived and worked in Asia and returned to Melbourne in late 2019. A lover of sport and art, Brian is optimistic about the potential for NFTs to transform artists’ lives in the near future.