Weekly Update: 20 Oct 2022

1) Binance pool starts $500M fund to support bitcoin mining [Coindesk]

– The miners will need to pledge security in the form of physical or digital assets for the loan, which will have a duration of 18-24 months.

2) Tether Says USDT now backed by T-Bills [Blockworks]

– Tether reports it has eliminated commercial paper from its stablecoin reserves, ending a years-long relationship with the investment vehicle that had partially backed its crypto.

3) Crypto investment management and trading firm NYDIG has laid off more than a third of its staff, despite having raised hundreds of millions of dollars for its bitcoin fund earlier this month. [Blockworks]

– The firm had raised $1 billion in October of last year with a valuation of $7 billion.

4) Europe moves toward regulatory action on crypto’s environmental impact, energy use [Cointelegraph]

– It noted that the proposed Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation would require crypto-asset market actors to make environmental disclosures.

5) Grayscale Lawsuit Moves Forward as GBTC Discount Widens [Blockworks]

– Eligible shares of GBTC ($12.3 billion in assets) quoted on OTC Markets Group’s OTCQX have traded at a substantial premium or discount to the value of bitcoin held by trust.

6) Japanese crypto self-regulatory body to loosen token vetting process [Coindesk]

– The Japan Crypto-Assets Association (JVCEA), a legally recognized self-regulatory body made up of crypto exchanges, is looking to get rid of a “lengthy” screening process that currently precedes the listing of tokens on local exchanges.

7) New Mastercard Program Looks To Offer Crypto Capabilities to Banks [Blockworks]

– The payments giant will partner with Paxos to offer a new suite of products, including crypto trading, custody, and security management for institutions.

8) Société Générale progresses in crypto space with digital asset services registration [Cointelegraph]

– Société Générale’s digitally focused Forge subsidiary was registered to provide digital assets custody, the purchase/sale of digital assets for legal tender, and the trading of digital assets against other digital assets.

9) Terra developers propose revised 95M LUNA ecosystem funding program [Cointelegraph]

– The revised expansion program for allocating 95 million LUNA ($248M) is designed to incentivize development in the Terra ecosystem and fix issues in the original proposal.

10) Uniswap to deploy on privacy-focused zkSync following community vote [Coindesk]

– zkSync, uses a novel technology called ZK Rollups (EVM-compatible) to offer a privacy-focused scaling product that enables faster transactions at lower fees.