“Goldman Sachs is seriously considering its own cryptocurrency, possibly a stablecoin, as it significantly expands its digital assets team and appoints a new head to spearhead efforts.
We are exploring the commercial viability of creating our own fiat digital token, but it’s early days as we continue to work through the potential use cases.
McDermott also said Goldman might consider collaborating with its rival, JPM, as well as Facebook on future digital asset initiatives.”
See Also: Russia’s Sberbank Launches Blockchain on Hyperledger, Mulls Stablecoin in 2021
“Crypto analyst Mati Greenspan says the correlation between crypto assets and the S&P 500 has fallen significantly since the dramatic sell-offs in tandem early in the pandemic.
We can clearly see earlier this year, where the correlation spiked up to 0.6 due to the multi-asset early-pandemic sell-off. By now, however, we’re once again below 0.2, which basically means that there is no correlation on a day-to-day basis anymore.”
“Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard said the U.S. central bank will debut its instant payment service “as soon as practically possible.” COVID-19 showcased Americans’ dire need of a “resilient instant payment system.” FedNow aims to be the answer, even if it won’t arrive until 2023 or 2024.
The Federal Reserve remains optimistic that emerging payment technologies could benefit consumers at the retail payments level when the appropriate safeguards are in place.”
See Also: China’s State-Run Banks Reportedly Testing Wallet for Digital Yuan
“Amidst the Ether (ETH) bull run, Grayscale Investments voluntarily decided to make its Ethereum Trust an SEC reporting company. This would likely present the Trust in a more favorable view to potential institutional investors.
Grayscale noted that the filing is under review. If approved, it would be the second cryptocurrency investment vehicle to attain such status.
Grayscale emphasized the increased willingness to diversify beyond Bitcoin for the returning institutional investors. In the last quarter, 81% of these investors diversified their holdings beyond Bitcoin, an increase from 71% over the trailing 12 months.”
“The incoming bull market for crypto will look completely different than the last one. Mostly because there won’t be just one, but two different bull markets simultaneously playing out over the next 12-18 months.
One will involve the rotation of capital from zombie projects to protocols where the underlying product is actually being used and accruing value. DeFi is outshining alts, and investors now demand properly designed systems that actually contribute to the broader crypto ecosystem.
The second bull market will be led by the usual suspect, bitcoin. As policymakers around the world continue to provide pandemic-related economic relief, bitcoin’s long-term value proposition as a hedge against fiat currency debasement only grows stronger. Circumstances are converging to accelerate us towards precisely the kind of world crypto was designed for.”
See Also: Bitcoin Entering ‘New Adoption Cycle’
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“The top DeFi platforms in July in terms of development activity include Maker, Synthetix, Band Protocol, and Augur. The top three ERC-20 projects were Gnosis, Status and Aragon.
Maker was the top DeFi platform for the month (at No.4) with several governance proposals being passed as the voting portal was upgraded, and new tokens and oracle feeds onboarded.
Synthetix came in second with several development milestones being achieved in July as it continually improves the platform in preparation for the launch of a branding refresh.”
See Also: Crypto venture firm Draper Goren Holm goes big on DeFi
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“Set will deploy yield farming strategies designed by Set Labs team and by the community. The platform aims to reduce the complexity of these trades, which often require interacting with multiple protocols.
V2 also aims to increase flexibility for Set managers to create portfolios and includes more sophisticated investment features like margin trading, limit orders, and DEX trading.”
“Rococo allows developers to “register” a Substrate-based blockchain as part of Polkadot’s grander parachain network.
Rococo is the first test of inter-blockchain communication through its Relay Chain logic. The testnet will begin with three parachains.”
“This fresh attack to Ethereum Classic’s network follows on from a recent attack that occurred between July 29 and Aug. 1.
Bitquery said Wednesday that an attacker double-spent a little over 800,000 ETC (about $5.6 million), and paid about 17.5 BTC ($204,000) to acquire the hash power for the attack. The monetary value of Thursday’s 51% attack in terms of the double spends is not yet known.
The attack follows the deprecation of the OpenEthereum client on July 16. Hashing power on Ethereum Classic looks to have decreased considerably since Monday, August 3 dropping nearly 20% from 1.6 TH/s to 1.3 TH/s as of press time.”
“The Ethereum-based hybrid exchange said Thursday the $2.5 million would go to launching IDEX 2.0, a new, more liquid platform, accessible to market makers and algorithmic traders.
Algorithmic traders have previously been shut out because of high transaction costs.
IDEX is a hybrid exchange in that settlement and storage are decentralized, while trade executions and deposits are processed centrally. This makes it fast enough to be usable while offering the security of a fully decentralized exchange.”
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