Market focus

Payments firm PayPal announced its plans to integrate its buy, sell, and hold crypto services with MetaMask Wallet on Dec. 14, aiming to broaden users’ options to transfer digital assets from their platforms. Users will be able to buy and transfer Ether from PayPal to MetaMask soon. The partnership between PayPal and MetaMask developer firm…

Binance has resumed processing withdrawals of the USD Coin stablecoin (USDC) after pausing them for several hours earlier on Dec. 13. The exchange said it worked on a token swap to increase its USDC reserves. On Dec. 13, the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance temporarily stopped processing USDC withdrawals due to inadequate USDC reserves on…

Global financial watchdogs are set to lay out a firm framework to regulate the crypto industry in early 2023 and implement it quickly. The secretary-general of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), Dietrich Domanski, told The FT there is ‘strong agreement’ on a framework for digital asset rules. While the EU, the UAE, and other countries…

The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, following the US authorities filed criminal charges against him. The Bahamas intends to extradite Bankman-Fried after US officials request it. Meanwhile, the “surprising” arrest comes just a day before a scheduled hearing before the US House Financial Services Committee hearing on the FTX collapse, “disappointing”…

Breaking crypto news from the last week (Dec. 3–9, 2022): Dec. 4: USDC stablecoin issuer Circle and publicly traded special purpose acquisition company Concord Acquisition Corp (SPAC) mutually ended their proposed business combination after the deal “timed out.” The mutual termination comes after over a year and a half of deliberating around the terms of…

Top investment deals across the crypto sector over the last week (Dec. 3–9, 2022): Uniswap-based DeFi protocol Panoptic raises $4.5 million Panoptic, a Uniswap-based decentralized finance protocol for trading perpetual options, raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round. Gumi Cryptos Capital led the round, with Uniswap Labs Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Jane Street, Avalanche Foundation’s…