Headlines
▌Sand Bankman-Fried: Not Planning to Acquire Huobi
FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) tweeted to clarify the recent market rumours about "FTX's acquisition of Huobi" and said, "No plans to acquire Huobi." It was previously reported that Huobi founder Li Lin was seeking to sell his majority stake in the trading platform at a valuation of $3 billion, and SBF and Justin Sun had already made initial contact with him. Justin Sun subsequently denied the acquisition.
Policies
▌Iran Has Approved the Use of Bitcoin or Cryptocurrencies for Transactions, Mining and Payment of Import Fees
Iran has approved regulations for the use of bitcoin or cryptocurrencies for transactions, mining, and payment of import fees. Iran’s trade minister stated that the regulation regulates all issues related to cryptocurrencies, including how to provide fuel and energy for mining them and how to grant licenses.
Cryptocurrency
▌ETH Merger May Affect Stablecoin-Based and DeFi Applications
In a report titled “DeFi’s Stablecoin Battle,” DappRadar highlighted that the imminent Ethereum merger is one of the most anticipated events in the crypto industry, but DappRadar and other stakeholders have expressed concern as it could adversely affect or destabilise several decentralised applications on the ETH blockchain network during the upgrade process. Grayscale also tweeted that the ETH merger could affect native tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Grayscale data shows that stablecoins like USDT account for 28% of Ethereum’s total market capitalisation. Furthermore, according to crypto market data provider Coinmetrics, the locked value of various Ethereum-based DeFi smart contracts is around $40 billion.
▌JPMorgan's Blockchain Chief: Most Cryptocurrencies Are Bound to Disappear
Umar Farooq, chief executive of JPMorgan’s blockchain division, told the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Green Buds Symposium on Monday that most cryptocurrencies are destined to disappear, except for a few dozen tokens. The financial industry has been slow to catch up with tokenised deposits, as regulation has not kept up, and there are not many use cases, with most of the money in the Web3 ecosystem going to speculation. Regulatory conditions need to clarify the risks involved in large transactions of tokenised deposits.
▌Meta Now Supported the Display of Personal Digital Collectibles on Facebook and Instagram
Meta announced that it will now let users post their NFTs across both Instagram and Facebook. Users can display their own NFTs after connecting their personal digital wallets to the app. Meta first opened up the ability to share NFT holdings on Instagram to a small number of creators and collectors in May. In August, the company announced support for Coinbase Wallet and Dapper wallet connections to post digital collectibles.
▌Arbitrum To Launch Nitro Upgrade on August 31
Arbitrum, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, announced that the migration to Nitro will take place on August 31st at 10:30 AM ET. Being an upgraded version of Arbitrum One, Nitro is expected to bring faster transactions and lower fees. Arbitrum will replace its current custom-built EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) emulator with Geth, the most popular and well-supported Ethereum client. It will boost EVM compatibility of the network, potentially leading to a 20–50x increase in Layer 2 execution speed. Arbitrum Odyssey is expected to resume in the following weeks. The event was abruptly paused just a week after its launch on June 21 due to network congestion that caused abnormally high fees.
▌The Trading Volume of Crypto Investment Products Hit a Two-Year Low
According to CoinShares, trading volumes in crypto investment products hit the lowest since October 2020. The products traded at $901 million last week, well below the year-to-date weekly average of $2.4 billion as of August 8th. Data shows that digital asset investment products also saw a net outflow of $27 million last week, slightly higher than the $9 million the previous week. CoinShares believe the outflows from bitcoin investment products were partly due to the ongoing hawkish rhetoric from the US Federal Reserve.