“Short liquidations – bearish trades where the principal was wiped out due to margin calls – kicked in around 9 p.m. ET time Sunday, helping to improve market sentiment and pushing the price of BTC up. According to one analyst, some $1 billion in trading positions were liquidated as prices surged.
Head of research at Synergia Capital, said the Tether news is less of a market negative because it is an investigation into executives and alleged practices. He said that’s not as concerning as “an investigation of what Tether is – a stablecoin.”
Thus, akin to the news last year when BitMEX was investigated, the entity remained intact and, in line with regulatory pressures, increased its [know your customer/anti-money laundering] approach.”
See Also: Bitcoin Climbs Past $40K for First Time Since Mid-June
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“Shopify powers the e-commerce sites of over 1.7 million businesses around the world. The company’s decision therefore potentially opens up NFTs to much wider adoption. One of the first Shopify merchants to offer NFTs will be the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, which launched an NFT “Legacy Collection” on Monday featuring the franchise’s six world championship rings.
Finkelstein noted that before Shopify’s move, its merchants would have to sell NFTs through a third-party marketplace, forcing them to relinquish control of the sale and the customer relationship.
Once again we are putting the power back into the hands of merchants and meeting customers how and where they want to buy.”
See Also: Russia’s Hermitage to Sell Digital Copies of Art Gems as NFTs
“The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Tether for a possible offense conducted “years ago.” Tether has long been dogged by accusations of murky banking relationships.
Tether and its sister exchange Bitfinex settled an investigation by the New York Attorney General’s Office (NYAG) into whether the stablecoin issuer was covering up the loss of nearly $1 billion in customer funds earlier this year. In the settlement agreement, the NYAG said Tether used various banks, but was suspended from some, including Wells Fargo, for unspecified reasons.”
See Also: USDT Maintains Dollar Peg as Traders Shrug Off DOJ Tether Probe Report
See Also: Tether’s Collapse Would Be Chaotic, Not Cataclysmic
See Also: The Tether Put: Crypto Equivalent of Credit Default Swap?
“Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has filed an application for an ETF that would offer exposure to public companies in decentralized finance and blockchain around the globe.
The Goldman Sachs Innovate DeFi and Blockchain Equity ETF (the ‘Fund’) seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Solactive Decentralized Finance and Blockchain Index (the ‘Index’).
The SEC is currently reviewing over a dozen bitcoin ETF applications and has delayed decisions on several of them. Both VanEck and WisdomTree have filed for Ethereum ETFs, but Goldman’s filing seems to be the first DeFi-related ETF application.”
“As the spokesperson’s comment suggests, Amazon is testing the waters, even if the reports of the company diving in were overstated.
Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true. We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon.”
“Lyra, an options trading protocol built on Ethereum scaling network Optimism, received $3.3 million in a seed round led by Framework Ventures and ParaFi Capital.
Lyra is integrated with Synthetix, a trading platform that also uses Optimism. The tie-up with Synthetix allows Lyra to hedge risk for liquidity providers. The decentralized finance (DeFi) project, which just launched its testnet less than a month ago, is expected to launch on mainnet in September.
Lyra’s novel on-chain pricing mechanism, Synthetix integration, and deployment on Optimism will introduce traders and liquidity providers to a scalable and capital-efficient options protocol.”
“Stoner Cats, an animated web series produced by actress Mila Kunis, already has an A-list Hollywood cast including Jane Fonda, Chris Rock and Ashton Kutcher. But the blockchain-linked TV show is also adding some crypto star power: Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin.
To watch the first five-minute episode, viewers must purchase a non-fungible token (NFT) that is both a digital artwork of a randomly selected character from the show as well as a ticket to unlock all “Stoner Cats” episodes as they are made. The NFTs will sell for 0.35 ETH – about $750 at time of publication.
The decision to use NFTs to fund the series arose out of concerns over censorship of the show’s drug content and a desire to keep creative control out of the hands of the networks. Crowdfunding via NFT sales allows for a direct exchange between consumers and creators, cutting out middlemen and, in some cases, offering a bit of creative control to consumers themselves.
The entire cast, including Buterin, will be paid in ether. He said Monday that 100% of his pay will be donated to the SENS Foundation, a non-profit research organization focused on finding cures for aging-related diseases.
We had to teach Jane Fonda how to set up a MetaMask wallet.
Buterin will join the cast of “Stoner Cats” as the voice of Catsington, a taxidermied, monocle-sporting cat who gives advice to the five living cats belonging to Ms. Stoner, a spunky octogenarian with Alzheimer’s, whose magical strain of weed has somehow given her feline companions the ability to talk.”
The Disrupt 