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Paxos is teaming up with Mercado Libre to make the regulated Pax Dollar available in Mexico.

The stablecoin, which is backed by the U.S. dollar, will be accessible on the Mercado Pago payment platform to all customers in the country, Paxos said Wednesday in a statement. 

Mercado Pago has nearly 40 million active users and is a leading online payment provider in Mexico. Paxos said the partnership represented the continuation of its investment in Latin America.

“Mexico is one of the most active marketplaces for digital assets with millions of users tapping into the ecosystem to gain access to key financial services,” Paxos head of Latin America Arnoldo Reyes said in the statement. “The launch of USDP within Mercado Pago represents another way that Mercado Libre continues to democratize access to commerce and financial services through innovative digital asset solutions throughout Latin America.”

Paxos said in April that it would exit the Canadian market. 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

DeFi lending protocol Maple Finance is launching a new direct lending arm called Maple Direct.

The debut marks the emergence of a new DeFi lender after the bankruptcies of crypto lending giants Celsius and BlockFi last year. Maple Direct will focus on offering bespoke, or project-tailored, deals to web3 native entities with outside capital from Institutional Allocators. The first lending product is set to begin in July, and the company mandates all of its lenders to pass know-your-customer checks, the company said in a statement.

“Maple Direct is the first Web3 lending business since the fall of CeFi lenders such as BlockFi and Genesis,” the company said in a statement. “These platforms had lent $55 billion but have since exited the space, leaving Web3 businesses without a reliable debt capital source.”

Maple Finance expertise 

Traditional debt-capital providers don’t have the necessary focus or expertise to underwrite the sector, the company added. 

“Maple is launching this new business division to directly address the lack of direct lending offerings in the crypto market,” Maple Finance CEO Sid Powell told The Block. “Web3 businesses, which are touted to contribute trillions to the global economy, currently don’t have a reliable debt capital source. The establishment of a sophisticated debt market is essential to facilitate the evolution and economic growth of the space.”

Maple Finance version 2.0 released last December after one of its clients, Orthogonal Trading, defaulted on a $36 million loan. The firm has over $43.6 million in deposited assets and over $2 million in total issued loans, according to the firm’s website.

Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July, 2022, with estimated liabilities to be upwards of $10 billion. BlockFi filed for bankruptcy protection four months later in November with a similar amount of estimated liabilities.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Illicit activities involving cryptocurrency are diversifying, with Bitcoin being used in only 19% of these cases. This is according to a report released today by TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence firm that works with law enforcement agencies.

In 2016, Bitcoin accounted for a staggering 97% of the total illicit crypto volume, demonstrating its previous dominance. This figure has since decreased significantly, with Bitcoin now representing just 19% of all illicit crypto activities in 2022.

The rise of multi-chain crime

The report titled “Illicit Crypto Ecosystem Report” revealed a significant shift in criminal behavior, marked by a diversification towards other chains such as Ethereum, Tron, and Binance Smart Chain. Tactics like “chain-hopping” — the act of moving crypto assets between different chains — was also noted by TRM as an increasingly used method by criminals to launder stolen crypto assets and evade detection.

“The shift away from the Bitcoin blockchain towards other blockchains and tactics underscores the importance of our mission to build the industry’s most comprehensive map of illicit financial flows on-chain,” said Esteban Castaño, co-founder and CEO of TRM Labs.

The report further specified that overall, approximately $7.8 billion was funneled into various crypto-related fraud schemes in 2022. Roughly $2 billion was stolen through hacks on cross-chain bridges, mechanisms that enable the transfer of cryptocurrency between different blockchains.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy purchased an additional 12,333 bitcoins for a total of $347 million in cash, at an average price of around $28,136 per bitcoin, between April 29 and June 27, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing submitted Wednesday.

This latest purchase brings the company’s total bitcoin holdings up to around 152,333 bitcoins, worth roughly $4.6 billion at the current bitcoin price of around $30,300. The company acquired these bitcoins at a total price of around $4.52 billion, with an average purchase price of about $29,668 per bitcoin, inclusive of fees and expenses.

The latest massive purchase comes two months after MicroStrategy acquired an additional 1,045 bitcoins for a total of $23.9 million in April.

This is a developing story and will be updated…

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.