FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Quick Take

• Founded in 2016, Crypto.com is a Singapore-based company that provides various crypto-related financial services – key products include the Crypto.com App and the Crypto.com Exchange
• A key part of Crypto.com’s global branding strategy is engaging with sports fandoms around the world through partnerships, such as securing the naming rights of the Crypto.com Arena and FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 sponsorship
• In December 2021, Crypto.com announced its $216 million acquisition of the North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) and the Small Exchange from IG Group, which will help with Crypto.com’s penetration of the U.S. market
• In March, Crypto.com began its exchange rollout in the U.S. for select institutional investors – the company is working to provide access to retail investors as well

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The Governor of the Bank of France François Villeroy de Galhau said that the world might see a strong central bank digital currency emerge in the next three years.

Galhau was asked during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday whether in five years’ time there would be “a central bank digital coin” being used on the daily basis (whether wholesale or retail) that would become “a superior system.”

“We have several experiments which are not very far from that. They are not yet generalized but they could be, let’s say in the next three years,” he replied, not specifying what those were. “It will go quicker on the wholesale side I guess because it raises less sensitive questions.”

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva chimed in, stating that in the next five years CBCDs “would be quite present in the world.”

The panel did acknowledge existing projects like the Bahamas Sand Dollar, Nigeria’s eNaira and China’s digital Yuan. Other guests included the governor of the Bank of Thailand Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput and Credit Suisse chairman Axel Lehmann.

During the discussion, Georgieva seemed to address the recent collapse of the Terra network, saying: “When somebody promises you 20% returns on something that is not backed by any assets, how would we call normally call this thing? We would call it a pyramid.”

She also argued that people should not be quick to classify everything in the “digital money” world in a negative way.

Speaking on stablecoins, she said: “Some of them deserve the name because they’re backed by assets. And when they’re backed by assets one two one they’re really stable. (…) I do feel for the people who lost money because part of the reason they lost money is not really being well educated on this new investment world.”

The IMF managing director urged people to not miss out on the importance of the wider digital asset space, arguing that if properly regulated it could offer faster service, much lower cost and more inclusion.

“But only if we separate apples from oranges and bananas,” she added.

© 2022 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.

The Federal Reserve has issued its annual report examining the financial lives of US residents, and it indicates Americans are more likely to use cryptocurrency as an investment tool than a purchasing mechanism.

The Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2021 report is based on the Fed Board’s ninth annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, which was circulated in October and November of 2021. For the first time, the ensuing report contained data on crypto use.

In 2021, 12% of surveyed adults held or used cryptocurrency, according to the report.  The data showed that crypto is favored as an investment tool over a transactional one, with only two percent of adults using it for purchases and one percent to send money to friends or family.

It also concluded that lower-income adults were more likely to use crypto for transactional purposes. Thirteen percent of those who used crypto for these types of transactions lacked traditional bank accounts and 27% did not have a credit card. Nearly 6 in 10 adults who use crypto transactionally had an income under $50,000 and only 24% had an income of more than $100,000.

In contrast, those who held crypto for investment purposes were “disproportionately high-income, almost always had a traditional banking relationship, and typically had other retirement savings,” according to the report. Indeed, 46% had an income of $100,000 or more, while 29% had an income of under $50,000. Nearly all, 99%, had a bank account. 

The research was conducted prior to the Omicron variant surge in 2021. The Fed recognized that this and other changes to the economic landscape could have affected the outcome of the study had the research occurred later.

Still, the report indicated that self-reported financial well-being was at its highest level since the survey began in 2013.

© 2022 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.

Filecoin Foundation and the American aerospace tech firm Lockheed Martin announced plans on Monday to design decentralized storage for the space industry. 

The collaboration intends to build infrastructure to share information, hasten communication and reduce storage costs between earth and space. 

Filecoin Foundation is the creator of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a blockchain-based storage protocol that stores files based on content, using ‘content IDs,’ over location. On IPFS, multiple computers can store the same file so that if one computer were to go offline, another user can retrieve the file from another computer on the network. 

Therefore, these computers can be located somewhere besides earth to facilitate quicker extraterrestrial communication, such as with GPS coordination or environmental monitoring.

As Filecoin Foundation president Marta Belcher explained in a blog post: 

Web3 projects commonly use IPFS to forgo centralized and limited storage systems from companies such as Google or Amazon. For instance, IPFS was how a Tezos-powered marketplace called Hic et Nunc (now Teia) managed to stay online after its founder unexpectedly abandoned the project.

© 2022 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.

Police authorities in South Korea are taking action to freeze assets tied to the non-profit group Luna Foundation Guard, according to KBS, the country’s national broadcaster.

Per the publication, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency asked multiple exchanges to block Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) from withdrawing any corporate funds.

However, the exchanges are not bound by law to do so, meaning that whether or not those actions will be carried out is unclear, according to KBS.

Police said that they intervened after finding clues indicating that there were embezzled funds within LFG, per the report.

Following the recent Terra meltdown, which saw the value of stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) fall below $0.10, some investors have already sued Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon.

Also in relation to the recent collapse of the Terra ecosystem, Korean legislators are meeting with representatives from five of the biggest exchanges in South Korea on Monday and Tuesday, according to Chosun Daily.

Those companies are Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, according to Newspim. They will likely have to answer to whether or not they should also be held accountable for the loss of funds by token holders.

“We will request a quality investor protection policy to be implemented amongst exchanges,” Yoon Chang-hyeon, chairman of the People Power Party’s Virtual Assets Special Committee, said in a Facebook post, according to Newspim.

Coinone suspended trading of Luna — which is part of the Terra ecosystem and was meant to help UST keep its peg to the dollar — after its value plummeted. At the same time, Korbit and Bithumb issued “investment warnings.”

© 2022 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.

Pebble, a crypto app that lets people save, spend and send money, has raised $6.2 million in a seed funding round as it plans to find a product-market fit.

Investors included Y Combinator, Lightshed Ventures, Cadenza Capital, East Ventures, Orange DAO and Global Founders Capital. Angel investors, including Odell Beckham Jr of the National Football League; Matthew Bellamy, lead singer of the Muse band; and Richard Ma, CEO of blockchain audit firm Quantstamp, also joined the round.

There was no lead investor in the round, but Lightshed Ventures was the largest investor, Pebble’s co-founder and CEO Aaron Bai told The Block in an interview. Bai added that this was an equity funding round and brought Pebble’s valuation to $65 million.

How Pebble works

Pebble’s key offering is a savings account that currently provides a 5% interest rate. Users need to deposit fiat (US dollars) in its app. Pebble then converts those US dollars into USDC stablecoins. It then lends those USDC coins to its lending partners. In the process, it receives a commission from lending partners.

“Our lending partners give us 8% to 9% depending upon the market demand for USDC,” Sahil Phadnis, co-founder and CTO of Pebble, said in the interview. Pebble’s current lending partners are Vauld and Wyre, Phadnis added.

As for Pebble’s exchange and custody partners, they are Prime Trust and Piermont Bank, respectively, said Phadnis.

Customer acquisition plans

When asked how Pebble plans to acquire customers in the current bearish market scenario and especially after Terra’s crisis, Phadnis said inflation is rising and people are looking for alternative investment options, so customer acquisition “will not be extremely difficult.”

Bai said Pebble’s business model is market agnostic, meaning the bear market conditions shouldn’t impact its business. According to Bai, borrowers, i.e., large institutional clients, need USDC not just for buying crypto but also for shorting, longing, and various other trading strategies. And borrowers put 150% collateral, so Pebble is a safer option, according to Phadnis.

The Pebble app is currently in private beta with nearly 100 people, said Phadnis. “In the next three months, we are looking to onboard between 2500 and 5000 people and then get up to 100,000 people by the end of the year,” he added.

Pebble will initially be available only to US residents, but the firm has plans for international expansion by the year-end. The firm has shortlisted Southeast Asia markets, including Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, as its targeted markets for expansion, said Phadnis.

To that end, Pebble plans to expand its current team of four to around eight in the near future. “We want to stay lean and mean,” said Phadnis.

Besides a savings account, Pebble will also provide 5% cashback to its users at its over 50 partnered merchants such as Uber and Amazon. It will also issue a Mastercard debit card to let users spend their funds, pay bills and it will offer reward points called “Pebbles.”

“Our mission is to onboard the next 100 million people into crypto,” said Bai.

© 2022 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.

Buy now, pay later  (BNPL) firm Klarna will let go of 10% of its workforce globally as the company suffers amid a worsening economic outlook, according to a statement issued by the company.

Klarna’s LinkedIn page says the company currently employs 7,000 people globally meaning that roughly 700 employees will be affected.

“When we set our business plans for 2022 in the autumn of last year, it was a very different world than the one we are in today,” said CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski in a statement. “Since then, we have seen a tragic and unnecessary war in Ukraine unfold, a shift in consumer sentiment, a steep increase in inflation, a highly volatile stock market and a likely recession.”

According to the Swedish press, the message was relayed to employees in a pre-recorded speech by Siemiatkowski at 4pm CET today.

While he notes that the majority of Klarna’s employees will not be affected, he says that those are will be invited individually to a meeting where information will be provided regarding their next steps.

Those in Europe will be offered to leave with compensation, while the process for those in other territories will differ depending on the region.

The news follows a Bloomberg report that Klarna saw its borrowing costs climb to record levels as rising interest rates hit the company’s debt and equity valuations. 

© 2022 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.

eBay, an online marketplace popular for secondary sales, announced Monday that it will sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through a partnership with the OneOf, an NFT platform specializing in selling music, sports and lifestyle digital assets.

eBay’s NFT collection will involve digital collectibles of popular athletes such as Wayne Gretzky, a Canadian ice hockey player. Each athlete will have four tiers of NFTs — green, gold, platinum, and diamond — with the green tier including the cheapest NFTs starting at $10.

The firm intends to release more NFT collections of high-profile athletes throughout 2022. 

While eBay officially supported NFTs since May of 2021, this new NFT launch appears to be the first time the company itself is releasing NFTs. 

“Through our partnership with OneOf, eBay is now making coveted NFTs more accessible to a new generation of collectors everywhere,” said eBay Vice President of Collectibles, Electronics and Home Dawn Block in a statement. “This builds upon our commitment to deliver high passion, high value items to the eBay community of buyers and sellers.”

OneOf is built on the Tezos blockchain, which uses a proof-of-stake consensus system.

© 2022 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.

Bithumb and Upbit, two of Korea’s Big Four crypto exchanges that account for the majority of trading volume, have issued investment warnings about litecoin following an update that allows transactions to be sent confidentially. 

Litecoin’s activation of privacy-focused technology Mimblewimble brings a “confidential transaction” ability to the Litecoin blockchain, enabling users to send tokens while hiding transaction information, Bithumb said in a post on Monday. Upbit also issued a similar warning today. The other two large Korean exchanges, Korbit and Coinone, haven’t made any announcements as yet.

The two exchanges pointed to Korea’s Act on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information, a policy that requires crypto exchanges to implement know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures. Korean exchanges tend to delist tokens after making such warnings.

Litecoin was launched in 2011 as one of the earliest rivals to bitcoin. It’s the 18th largest crypto token by value, with a market cap of more than $5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The network introduced Mimblewimble, an idea first proposed more than two and a half years ago, on May 20. 

© 2022 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.

Video game retailer GameStop announced on Monday that it has launched a crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) wallet, as it prepares for a push into the world of digital assets. 

The self-custodial ethereum wallet will allow gamers and others to store, send, receive and use cryptocurrencies and NFTs across decentralized apps without having to leave their web browsers, the company said in a press release. 

Available via the Chrome web store, it will also enable transactions on GameStop’s NFT marketplace, which is expected to launch in the second quarter of the company’s fiscal year, beginning July. 

The retailer, which surged to prominence during the pandemic as a notable meme stock, partnered with Immutable X in January of this year to build out the NFT marketplace. Digital Worlds plans to grant up to $100 million in IMX tokens to NFT creators and up to $150 million to GameStop itself as it meets certain milestones, according to the terms of the deal.  

Immutable X is an Ethereum Layer 2 network for NFTs built with StarkWare’s ZK-rollup technology, which purports increased scalability and lower gas fees.

© 2022 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.