Hi Fam!
It's been a loooooong time since we gave you the rollup on the latest news and updates of the crypto industry. Exiting 2022 and entering into 2023, the Crypto world has experienced some nail-biting events which you must know about.
And like any other time, we take full responsibility to help you catch up with all the crucial turnarounds in crypto through this single blog.
So, let's get straight into it.
Solana Unveiled its Mainstream Entry Plan
Solana has been one of the most talked about cryptocurrencies these months because of its association with the founder of FTX, Sam Bankmann Fried. However, the FUD seems unsuccessful in slowing down the growth of Solana. Between November 4 to November 7, the Solana team organized a conference to share its upcoming plans and collaborations as a step forward toward its mainstream adoption.
These plans involve-
- Building a Solana store through the launch of GeoNFTs (NFTs to geo-tag an area.)
- Pre-booking of Solana smartphones that will launch in 2023 and can securely store the private keys of crypto wallets.
- Launch of Solana Playstore for Web3-based dApps.
- Making Google Cloud a validator of Solana Network.
SOL investors are excited about all these upcoming developments of Solana this year. If things go well, the cryptocurrency can recover all its losses and create a new high.
Crypto Lender Genesis Filed for Bankruptcy
The 'bankruptcy' wave generated by FTX is still ongoing, and this is the famous crypto lending firm, Genesis global, that fell for it. The lending firm was already struggling to stand strong after losing a hundred million dollars due to its involvement with the Crypto Hedge fund "Three Arrows Capital." However, the collaboration of Genesis with the Crypto exchange Gemini turned out as a fatal move for Genesis. In 2020, Genesis collaborated with Gemini to offer Gemini customers an interest-earning opportunity on their crypto assets. But in November 2022, Genesis denied Gemini customers to withdraw their crypto assets due to insufficient liquidity. When the matter came to light, the SEC charged Genesis and Gemini for the unregistered sale of securities to retail investors. Even though Genesis had been trying to raise fresh funds to restart operations, it eventually filed for Bankruptcy on January 19 2023.
Cardano Bringing New Stablecoin this Year
The famous Ethereum killer blockchain, Cardano (ADA), is ready to set up a new algorithmic stablecoin named Djed. Cardano partnered with COTI to launch an overcollateralized algorithmic stablecoin. The new coin will be backed by excess collateral, which will be stored as a cryptocurrency reserve. It will be pegged by the US dollar and use $SHEN as a reserve token. Cardano has been implementing developments in its ecosystem for years now. It also launched its Vasil hard fork in 2022.
RBI Launched CBDC Pilot in December
The Indian Government is keen on rolling out Indian CBDC to retail investors to make inter-bank payment more efficient. In our previous versions of the latest crypto updates, we told you about the launch of the Indian CBDC pilot that took place on November 1, 2022. At that time, its use cases were limited to secondary market transactions in government securities. The same CBDC pilot was launched for the retail sector on December 1, 2022, within a group of merchants and customers. RBI plans to expand the usage of CBDC in the upcoming months by bringing more banks under the CBDC umbrella.
Brazil Started Accepting Crypto for Payments
Countries are slowly accepting crypto as a mode of payment, and recently Brazil has done the same. The country has legalized using cryptocurrencies as a payment method within it. Notably, Brazil has not accepted crypto as a legal tender but has started accepting crypto payments. The same law that makes crypto acceptable as payment in Brazil also allowed the creation of licenses for crypto exchange platforms and third parties that manage crypto. Brazilian Jurisdiction has taken this step to avoid any more incidents like FTX collapses in the future.
Avalanche Collaborated with Amazon Web Services
As a milestone collaboration, Ava Labs partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to unlock the mainstream adoption of Avalanche blockchain. Through this partnership, Avalanche will be offering crypto infrastructure through the marketplace of AWS. Any institution or individual can get a customer Subnet service from Ava labs. Avalanche blockchain is known for a unique technological approach called 'subnets' through which custom blockchains can be built with a custom set of rules and use a unique token for paying gas fees. Since Amazon is a giant marketplace for businesses across borders, its partnership will prove positive for the ecosystem of Avalanche.
Russia and Iraq are Bringing Gold-Backed Stablecoin
As a significant step towards mainstream adoption of Crypto, Russia and Iraq are planning to bring a new cryptocurrency backed by Gold for inter-country trade. The countries will use new stablecoin to complete foreign trades without using fiat currencies like USD, Russian Ruble, and Iranian rial. An interesting thing about this update is that both these countries have historically banned their residents from buying cryptocurrencies. At the same time, they are planning to trade through a new cryptocurrency.
Polygon Launched New Hard Fork Upgrade
Polygon team launched a new hard fork upgrade for Polygon nodes on January 17 2023, to improve the efficiency of its blockchain. According to the official website of Polygon, this upgrade will reduce the sudden spikes in Polygon gas fees and the frequent reorgs of the Polygon blockchain. Notably, the upgrade has been spurring some controversies on its decentralization nature because it was implemented in a centralized way. A hundred validators of the Polygon blockchain were supposed to vote on its hard fork proposal. But only 15 teams of validators participated in the voting, out of which 13 voted in favor which is very low for a non-reversible fork to take place.
Read more about this Polygon Hard fork here.
New Year brought New Rally in Crypto
The year 2023 has begun on a positive note for the majority of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose above $23k for the first time in the last two months, giving a high profit of over 30% month to date. Not just bitcoin but many other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Solana, also made significant price surges in January. DOGE price increased from $0.0756 to 0.0919, ETH rose from $1199 to as high as $1659, and SOL surged from $9.932 to $25.66 in less than a month. The slowdown of inflation and the hope that the FED will reduce its interest rates this year seems like the most probable reason behind the positive investor sentiments in crypto.
Bitzlato Crypto Exchange Charged for Money Laundering
US authorities charged a Russian Crypto Exchange, Bitzlato, for a money laundering crime of over $700 million. They charged the founder of Bitzlato, Anatoly Legkodymov, for his involvement in money laundering and terrorist financing related to criminals. According to authorities, Bitzlato operates a Russian dark web marketplace that criminals use for trafficking drugs illegally and settling heavy illegal transactions and services. The officers also accused Bitzlato of inadequate KYC (Know your Customer) data, a mandatory step for Crypto exchanges. Interestingly, Bitzlato was not very popular before being charged with these accusations.
That's it for this year's first session of catching up with the hottest crypto updates with Flitpay.
We will come back soon with new tittle-tattle to ensure you get all the latest news of the crypto biome.
