Crypto Trends Weekly – Aug. 13 – 19

Breaking crypto news from the last week (Aug. 13 – 19, 2022):

Aug. 13: Play-to-earn game Axie Infinity has completely removed the token rewards from its classic game mode to attract its users to a new game mode called Axie Infinity Origin. The team also described the move as part of its efforts to balance the economy for the SLP token. Meantime, the in-game NFT sales so far have exceeded $4 billion, all-time statistics show.

Aug. 14: Worldwide 2022 New Payments Index consumer polling by Mastercard revealed that crypto payments are rising in popularity worldwide, as 93% of those surveyed have heard of cryptocurrency, and 41% have done at least one crypto-related activity in the past year. However, consumers are still looking for more stability within the industry.

Aug. 15: Targeting anti-money laundering, the European Union is building a new regulator — “Anti-Money Laundering Authority” (AMLA) — that will direct oversee crypto businesses. Many negotiations remain before the AMLA launch, but all signs are that it’s underway.

Aug. 16: Ethereum’s Merge is poised to make staking the blockchain’s ETH tokens more rewarding than ever, derivatives traders believe. Yields are seen jumping to 8% from around 4% now, according to interest-rate swap pricing on the Voltz Protocol. As the Merge will happen in September, Ether prices have surged in recent weeks in anticipation of higher yields across the Ethereum ecosystem.

Aug. 17: EU banks exposed to crypto might face caps and hefty capital requirements due to proposed amendments to a financial-services law published on August 17. Lawmakers of the European Green Party want to anticipate international standards by legislating heavy capital requirements for lenders.

Aug. 18: Huobi’s HUSD became the latest stablecoin to de-peg from the US dollar. The HUSD stablecoin, associated with the Huobi Global crypto exchange, has temporarily fallen to $0.89, an 11% drop from its planned $1 peg.

Aug. 19: Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin USDT, published its latest quarterly attestation report for the token’ reserves on August 19. The report by Tether’s new auditing firm BDO Italia confirmed a more than 57.5% decrease in Tether’s commercial paper holdings over the prior quarter. However, many still await Tether’s audit report from a “Big Four” accounting firm.

FTX asked its users to refrain from using the Aztec mixing service in the future since doing so may jeopardize the FTX account. In response, Aztec stated that it does not intend to sacrifice user privacy to prevent the illicit use of its service.