Binance mints 50M TrueUSD days after Paxos ordered stop issuing BUSD

February 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Despite the minting of $50 million in TUSD, Zhao previously said the regulatory crackdown on stablecoins in the U.S. will cause the USD-back stablecoin market to “shrink.”

Only days after reports of United States regulatory scrutiny of Paxos and Binance USD (BUSD), cryptocurrency exchange Binance has minted nearly $50 million worth of TrueUSD (TUSD).

The transaction took place on Feb. 16, according to data from Etherscan, and also comes two days after Binance CEO Chanpeng 'CZ' Zhao said in a Feb. 14 Twitter Spaces that Binance would look to “diversify” its stablecoin holdings away from BUSD.

We're live!

Tune-in to our Twitter Space AMA with @cz_binance below https://t.co/bXIztCKdry
— Binance (@binance) February 14, 2023

Despite minting nearly $50 million in TUSD from the TrustToken platform’s smart contract on Feb. 16, CZ had earlier said the recent regulatory action by the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) over the long term may lead to a fall in the dominance of U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins.

“I think with the current stances taken by the regulators on the U.S. Dollar-based stablecoin, the industry will probably move away to a non-U.S. Dollar-based stablecoin, back to algorithmic stablecoins.”

“There’s multiple agencies putting applied pressure there. It is just going to shrink the U.S. Dollar-based stablecoin market,” he added.

CZ said that “this has prompted us to look for more options in different places” and that they’re now exploring other options.

50M #TUSD minted at #Binance and the price of $TRU increased by 200%.

On-chain data shows that #Alameda and #justinsun are the two largest minters of $TUSD.#Alameda minted a total of 1.64B $TUSD in history.#justinsun minted a total of 889M $TUSD in history. pic.twitter.com/N1tUjFQm5U
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 16, 2023

While the CEO stated that Binance would provide more support for USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) over the short term — in expectation that BUSD “winds down over time” — he added that they’re now looking to explore more into Euro and Japanese Yen-based stablecoins.

As for BUSD, CZ said “the existing circulating supply of BUSD is there and safe, and as more people want to redeem, they will be burned.”

Interestingly, the Binance CEO added that he was never too bullish on the success of the Binance-branded BUSD stablecoin anyway:

“To be honest BUSD was never a big business for us, when we started I actually thought the BUSD project may fail, so we actually don’t have very good economics on that collaboration.”

Interesting, in September, TUSD was one of the stablecoins that Binance auto-converted to BUSD to enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for its users. Other stablecoins that got auto-converted were USDC and USDP Stablecoin (USDP). This drove up BUSD’s share in the stablecoin market from 10% to 15% in a matter of weeks.

TrustToken launched TUSD on Mar. 5, 2018, which operates on the Ethereum, Avalanche, MATIC and Tron networks.

New TUSD is minted whenever a buyer wires USD to a third-party escrow that holds USD deposits on Prime Trust's behalf. Once received, TUSD will be transferred in a 1:1 ratio to the USD sent to the trader’s nominated ERC-20 or BEP-2 wallet address.

DeGods and Y00ts NFTs are bridging off Solana. Here’s why

December 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Anatoly Yakovenko

The migration of Solana's top two NFT projects to Polygon and Ethereum is set for the first quarter of 2023 on an opt-in basis.

Nonfungible token (NFT) firm Dust Labs is migrating its two top-performing Solana NFT projects — DeGods and y00ts — onto Ethereum and Polygon in a bid to expand their adoption.

The news was announced on DeGods and y00ts Twitter page on Dec. 25, with both NFT projects expected to be officially bridged onto Ethereum and Polygon respectively in the first quarter of 2023.

Rohun Vora — the creator of DeGods and y00ts who is known by the alias Frank III — said the decision was made to “explore new opportunities” and to allow for the continued growth of the collection. The move will also see the DUST token — used to buy, sell and mint NFTs on the DeGods ecosystem — also be bridged onto Ethereum and Polygon.

It's just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/F3vxzXQAOy
— Frank III (@frankdegods) December 25, 2022

Vora confirmed that two NFT projects will still remain on Solana for the time being, and in a separate post responding to a Twitter user, confirmed that the bridge/migration will be owner "opt-in."

During a Dec. 26 Twitter spaces, Vora explained to 66,000 listeners that it was simply a matter of getting the NFT projects on the platforms that he sees will drive the next wave of NFT adoption.

In his reasoning, he made parallels to the intense battle for intellectual property (IP) between streaming services such as Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max — suggesting that the streaming service that secures the best IP will ultimately win the lion’s share of viewers, which then attracts better projects.

“They’re trying to get the best IP on their streaming services because that IP is ultimately going to drive the growth on that platform.”

“Once you get enough IP on the platform it becomes a virtuous cycle, people want to be on Netflix because that’s just the brand and the place to be,” he added.

He said a similar battle is playing out between different blockchains that are trying to build the best NFT platforms, noting that as NFTs are driven by attention, there is an opportunity for “virtuous cycles” that would create a network effect for NFT projects.

From there, “the metrics, the volume and the liquidity will follow that,” he added.

Vora said his bullish view on Polygon for NFTs was influenced by the fact that Disney, Adidas, Nike and Reddit chose Polygon as their NFT platform of choice.

Vora also said that he had received grant offers from many other platforms, most of which were much larger than what was offered by Polygon, but Polygon provided y00ts with the best opportunities moving forward.

“Polygon by far was one of the lowest, if not the lowest in terms of dollar value, but we went with Polygon because we see a lot of opportunity on a strategic level and that’s what excites me and should excite you holders more than anything.”

The news has only added to the growing list of concerns for Solana, which has seen the total value locked (TVL) on the ecosystem fall 97.88% from a peak of $10.17 billion to $215M at the time of writing, according to decentralized finance data aggregator DefiLlama.

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko shared his “bittersweet” feeling on the news that the NFT projects would no longer “100% focus on Solana” to his 223,600 Twitter followers on Dec. 26, but accepted the “reality” that these projects want to expand their reach.

But controversial figure Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong and a fair share of his 1 million Twitter followers weren’t so optimistic on Solana’s future, with 70% of 11,881 voters in a poll voting “Yes” to “Is Solana dead.”

Let’s check the temperature on #solana now that the top 2 NFT projects are leaving $SOL.

Is Solana dead?
— Ben Armstrong (@Bitboy_Crypto) December 26, 2022

According to DappRadar, both the y00ts and DeGods NFT collections are ranked first and second in terms of fiat transaction volume on Solana over the last 30 days.

Only 1% of people can handle crypto self-custody right now: Binance CEO

December 15, 2022 Coin Telegraph

BUSD

Changpeng Zhao’s comments come as billions of dollars of stablecoins continue to flow out of the Binance exchange.

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has cautioned the crypto community about self-custody, suggesting that 99% of people choosing to self-custody their crypto will likely lose it one way or another.

CZ has been been a supporter of self-custody for years, referring to its as a “fundamental human right” but has always urged users to “do it right.” He published a “CZ’s Tips” on self-storing crypto in Feb. 2020.

During a recent Binance-run Twitter Spaces on Dec. 14, the Binance CEO continued to urge caution for those using self-custody wallets — suggesting that more often than not, security keys are not stored securely, backed up or properly encrypted, commenting:

“For most people, for 99% of people today, asking them to hold crypto on their own, they will end up losing it.”

CZ reiterated that holding crypto in one’s own wallet is “not risk-free” and postulated that “more people lose money holding their own — lose more crypto when they’re holding on their own than on a centralized exchange.”

And we're live!

Tune-in to our Twitter Space where @cz_binance is answering all of your questions. https://t.co/U0hJOWy74P https://t.co/CDDC20cHgt
— Binance (@binance) December 14, 2022

“Most people are not able to back up their security keys; they will lose the device [...] They will not have the proper encryption for their backup; they will write it on a piece of paper, someone else will see it, and they will steal those funds,” he explained.

The Binance executive also stated that even where self-custody funds are properly managed, “if a person passes away, they don’t have a way to give to their next of kin,” but custodians like Binance can implement a “standard operating procedure” to solve that problem, he said.

The Binance executive concluded that “different solutions have different risk profiles” and that it is up to the user to decide what is best for them.

Despite most of Binance’s operations being “centralized,” CZ iterated that the company remained “neutral” on its preference towards custody and self-custody solutions, with the CEO stating in an earlier Twitter Space discussion on Nov. 14 that he’d happily shutdown the centralized cryptocurrency exchange if users moved to decentralized alternatives.

“If we can have a way to allow people to hold their own assets in their own custody securely and easily, that 99% of the general population can do it, centralized exchanges will not exist or probably don't need to exist, which is great,” CZ said.

Binance’s latest Twitter spaces comes amid a turbulent time for the exchange, which has seen significant withdrawals on concerns over its balance sheet and potential incoming litigation.

A Dec. 11 report from The Wall Street Journal suggested several red flags in Binance’s proof-of-reserves audit, while a Dec. 13 Reuters report suggested that the U.S. Department of Justice is nearing the end of a three-year investigation into Binance, which may come with criminal charges.

The last few days has seen a high volume of stablecoin outflows withdrawn from the trading platform, including $2.2 billion outflow of stablecoins Binance USD (BUSD), Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) over a 24-hour period between Dec. 13-14, according to data from blockchain intelligence platform Glassnode.

*Outflows of BUSD, USDT and USDC on Binance Over 24 Hour Period Dec. 13-14. Source: Glassnode.*

Interestingly, Bitfinex’ed — a long time Tether critic —shared a screenshot to its 98,000 Twitter followers on Dec. 14 of Binance’s latest offering 50% APR on staked USDT to its customers, alleging that the exchange may be looking to shore up its allegedly fast dwindling stablecoin reserves.

Binance now offering 50% APR on Tether fraud tokens. Binance appears to be desperately attempting to increase deposits.

First cloud mining scams now 50% APR rates on Tether fraud tokens!

H/t @Tethertothe1 pic.twitter.com/TZ0oPKxvss
— Bitfinex’ed Κασσάνδρα (@Bitfinexed) December 14, 2022

In the latest Twitter Space discussion, CZ attributed the weakened market sentiment — particularly with reference to custodial solutions — to the catastrophic fall of FTX.