Poly Network Hacker Says ‘In the Defi World Code Is Law’ While Returning Millions in Defi Tokens

August 12, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Poly Network Defi Hacker Returns a Large Fraction of Tokens, Chainalysis Evaluates Hacker’s Onchain Movements

August 12, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Poly Network Hacker Returns $4.7M in Funds — Attacker Asks Devs to Unlock Frozen Tether Stash

August 11, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Coinbase removes ‘backed by US dollars’ claim for USDC stablecoin

August 11, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Circle

The Coinbase website now states that USD Coin is “backed by fully reserved assets,” contrary to the now-removed claim of “backed by U.S. dollars in a bank account.”

USD Coin (USDC), Circle’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, seemingly lost one of its biggest competitive advantages over its rival, Tether (USDT).

Major crypto exchange Coinbase made an important change on the USD Coin page on its website following an audit which revealed that not all of USDC’s reserves were held in cash. This rain contrary to the previous statement that “each USDC is backed by one U.S. dollar held in a bank account.”

Coinbase visitors are now greeted with a statement that says USDC is “backed by fully reserved assets” when they enter the USD Coin webpage. This new claim states:

“Each USDC is backed by one dollar or asset with equivalent fair value, which is held in accounts with US regulated financial institutions.”

*Coinbase changed the promotional material for USDC. Source: Bloomberg*

USD Coin stands is the eighth-largest cryptocurrency with a total market cap of over $28 billion. USDC is also the second-largest stablecoin after Tether, which has almost $63 billion in total assets, according to its latest Consolidated Reserves Report.

Since its inception, USDC soared as a stablecoin fully backed by U.S. dollars. On the other hand, Tether found itself in hot water with regulators on more than one occasion due to undisclosed commercial paper accounting for almost half of USDT’s total reserves.

However, an audit by multi-national tax advisory firm Grant Horton showed that 61% of USDC’s reserves were held in cash and cash equivalents while 9% of the reserves were held in commercial paper. The audit report defines cash as deposits at banks and Government Obligation Money Market Funds, while cash equivalents are defined as securities with an original maturity less than or equal to 90 days.

The report revealed the USDC reserves include Yankee CDs and US.. Treasuries and certainly are not “fully backed by U.S. dollar held in a bank account.” According to Bloomberg, the wording for the USD Coin on the website was changed the day the mainstream media contacted Coinbase about the report and related marketing material.

Coinbase spokesman Andrew Schmitt reiterated to reporters that each USDC is backed by one dollar or asset with equivalent fair value:

“Users can always redeem 1 USD Coin for US$1.00. We have added additional detail to our website for customers to understand more about USDC reserves.”

Circle, the company that oversees USDC in partnership with Coinbase under The Centre consortium, recently announced its plans to become a full-reserve national digital currency bank in the United States. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company is willing to operate under regulators' supervision and risk management requirements.

As part of the announcement, he said that USDC will grow to “hundreds of billions of dollars in circulation,” continuing to support high-trust economic activity and become a popular tool in financial services and internet commerce applications.

Coinbase did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment.

The $62B Stablecoin Giant Tether Publishes Assurance Report Reviewed by Auditor Moore Cayman

August 10, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Huobi Stablecoin Issuer Publishes Attestation Reports Tied to HUSD Reserve Backing

August 6, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Circle and Unstoppable Domains to introduce username-based USDC payments

August 4, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Circle

USD Coin holders will soon be able to transfer the stablecoin via human-readable addresses across supported wallets and crypto exchanges.

The bid to introduce human-readable addresses as an alternative to the usual lengthy alphanumeric crypto wallet address system is set to achieve another milestone following the recent partnership between Circle and Unstoppable Domains.

According to an announcement issued on Wednesday, Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain domain name provider, and USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin issuer Circle are collaborating to release readable “.coin” usernames for USDC transfers.

As part of the partnership, both companies will collaborate to enable support for .coin username extensions across wallets and crypto exchanges that support the popular stablecoin.

Under this arrangement, USDC transfers will become akin to sending an email, likely mitigating the problem of transferring coins to the wrong address, especially for the not-so-tech-savvy.

Indeed, the announcement quoted Josh Hawkings, senior vice president of marketing at Circle, making a similar point adding that the feature will help to make USDC more accessible.

Commenting on the partnership, Unstoppable Domains CEO Matthew Gould said, “Simple usernames combined with dollar-pegged stablecoins take the fear and risk out of spending crypto.”

The Circle partnership comes swiftly on the heels of a similar collaboration with popular crypto wallet provider Blockchain.com. In June, Cointelegraph reported that Blockchain.com was integrating Unstoppable Domains’ human-readable username feature to enable crypto transfer to other supported wallets and exchanges, including MyEtherWallet and Coinbase, among others.

Unstoppable Domains has reportedly sold over 1 million crypto-related domain names across contextual extensions such as .crypto, .nft and .coin, among others. In May, privacy-focused browser platform Brave announced support for Unstoppable Domains, a move that enabled seamless access to .crypto domains for its users.

With a Cloudfare integration going online back in February, major mainstream browsers have begun integrating with Unstoppable Domains, including Opera, which expanded its .crypto support for all its browser platforms, both web and mobile back in April.

Crypto derivatives exchange Bitget to list USDC as collateral for margin trading

July 27, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitget

The Singapore-based crypto trading platform has inked a partnership with stablecoin issuer Circle.

Derivatives exchange Bitget is set to become one of the first exchanges to list USD Coin (USDC) as collateral for trading crypto derivatives.

The development comes courtesy of a strategic collaboration between the Singaporean crypto derivatives trading service and USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, as reported by Crowdfund Insider on Monday.

Bitget will support USDC margin for Quanto Swap Contract trading as part of the partnership, a move the exchange says will provide more liquidity for the market. USDC now joins Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), EOS, and XRP as accepted margins for Quanto Swap contracts.

Bitget launched Quanto Swap contracts back in April allowing traders to utilize one or more cryptocurrencies as margins for cross-currency trades.

Quanto Swaps are said to solve the issues related to inverse contracts as well as Tether (USDT)-paired contracts, especially in the area of capital utilization and costs.

Since Quanto Swaps are cross-currency trades with multiple margins, traders can switch markets without having to convert cryptocurrencies.

The collaboration with Circle will also reportedly scale Bitget’s trading channels. USDC will also be available for purchase on the exchange via debit and credit card payment channels among others.

CoinMarketCap data ranks Bitget as the eighth-largest crypto derivatives exchange with a 24-hour volume of almost $4 billion as of the time of writing.

Back in March 2020, the platform began working towards expanding its reach to the United States, securing a license from the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. At the time, its 24-hour volume was about $1 billion.

The exchange was also among a list of platforms granted a temporary exemption from Singapore’s crypto exchange licensing regime.

In an interview with Cointelegraph earlier in July, Bitget CEO Sandra Lou stated that crypto exchanges must prioritize regulatory compliance. Indeed, financial regulators across the globe are increasing their scrutiny on exchanges as governments push more stringent policies.

Paxos Standard Presents Assets Backing Its Stablecoins

July 23, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Tether promises an audit in ‘months’ as Paxos claims USDT is not a real stablecoin

July 22, 2021 Coin Telegraph

audit

Tether’s general counsel said a full audit is coming in months.

There will be an official audit of the world’s most popular stablecoin Tether within months according to the project’s general counsel.

An audit for the world’s third-largest digital asset has been awaited for several years and increased regulatory pressure appears to have accelerated the process.

In a rare mainstream media interview on CNBC, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino and general counsel Stu Hoegner were asked some pressing questions on the subject of USDT’s backing and transparency.

Hoegner responded to the question by saying:

“We are working towards getting financial audits, which no one else in the stablecoin sector has done yet.”

Hoegner added that the firm hopes to be the first to do so and that audits will be coming in “months, not years”. He stated that Tether is backed one-to-one with its reserves but admitted that those reserves were not all US dollars. According to Hoegner, Tether’s reserves are heavily dollar-weighted but also include cash equivalents, bonds, secured loans, crypto assets, and other investments.

The current market capitalization of USDT is 62 billion according to Tether’s transparency report. It has grown by 195% since the beginning of the year but has lagged behind rivals USDC and BUSD in terms of growth.

Circle released its own reserves disclosure report on July 21, revealing that 61% of USDC’s reserves were held in cash and cash equivalents with the rest in commercial paper accounts, treasuries, and bonds.

Paxos takes a swipe

In a related development, rival stablecoin company Paxos took a swipe at both Tether and Circle in a July 21 blog post claiming that they are “not comprehensively overseen by any financial regulators.”

“Neither USDC nor Tether is a regulated digital asset, for the simple reason that neither token has a regulator. In fact, neither USDC nor Tether tokens are ‘stablecoins’ in anything other than name.”

Paxos revealed that 96% of its own stablecoin reserves are cash or cash equivalents.

Tether revealed a breakdown of its USDT backing for the first time in May, following increased scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. The firm has been submitting periodic reports regarding its reserves since reaching a settlement with the New York Attorney General’s Office in February.

USDC

Paxos takes a swipe

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