“Institutional investors have had a buy-the-dip mentality during these risk-off events, suggesting increasing ease with handling bitcoin’s volatility.
We believe the root cause of the sell-off had to do with investor positioning rather than fundamental news. Simply put, traders were overleveraged and positioned long, resulting in forced liquidations.”
“In a rare show of support for cryptocurrencies, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said while he and his central bank believe digital assets are viable investment vehicles, there was a clear distinction to that of the digital yuan.
[An] encrypted asset is an investment option, it is not currency itself. It is an alternative investment.
We believe that encrypted assets [bitcoin and stablecoins] should play a major role in the future either as an investment tool or as an alternative investment.
The digital yuan will also not replace the U.S. dollar and that its internationalization was to be a “natural process” dependant on market demand, Li said at the same event.”
See Also: China aims to let foreigners use digital yuan at Winter Olympics in 2022
“Open banking, the umbrella term for sharing banking, identity and payments data among fintech innovation firms, is being connected to the Ethereum ecosystem via API3, a startup focused on porting data onto blockchains.
API3 has entered into a 10-year development partnership with the Open Bank Project, to merge over 400 banking APIs with blockchain smart contracts, Web 3.0 applications and decentralized finance (DeFi). The move could one day give bank customers easy access to the online smart contracts that provide bank-like services (with more risk but often better yield).”
“The Diem white paper made it clear that it is ‘open to having a discussion with any central bank [that] would be interested in adding [its] currency as a stablecoin on [Diem’s] network.’
The stablecoin project could provide an infrastructure layer on top of that provided by the public sector via CBDCs, the report suggested. This could provide greater functionality and features in the payments sphere, thus driving greater adoption of CBDCs by individuals and companies.”
“Last year and 2021 have been bedrock years for Lightning Network adoption among exchanges, which have added the feature in a bid to lower withdrawal and deposit fees for clients when moving funds through exchanges. OKEx is the seventh major cryptocurrency exchange to integrate the tech stack.
OKEx is pleased to announce that BTC Lightning Network is now live on OKEx website, enabling much faster and cheaper BTC transfers.”
“Reshma Patel, a Democratic candidate for the city’s chief financial officer position, unveiled a “future proof” plan for New York on Monday centered around investments in blockchain businesses and cryptocurrencies. She hopes that her proposal, if enacted, would increase the city’s efficiency in approving contracts, spur new businesses to operate within the city and diversify local pension funds.
Under Patel’s plan, New York’s five retirement systems would invest up to 3% of their funds into cryptocurrencies, the city itself would invest in funds with blockchain exposure to help support fintech startups and New York would utilize a blockchain-based system for its procurement contracts. Patel also wants to work with the New York Department of Financial Services to streamline the BitLicense.”
The Disrupt 