Week 47 is coming to end and marks the beginning of the final 4 weeks before year-end of a crypto market being washed through its worst year. This week also marks some positive progression post-FTX collapse, where the contagion is continuing to creep into crypto with its curse. The Pen Team is bringing you a series of top trending news from all things DeFi, Web3, and crypto with bite-sized blurbs. Enjoy the read and see you next week.
BITPANDA’S BIT FOR DOMINANCE
With the aftermath of Celcius network, and FTX (amongst many more), crypto-related companies are seeking regulatory security and offering more transparency. Something Penning has been doing and offering long before the current market havoc. The latest in the “game” to prove they are not like others before them, is the EU-Based crypto exchange Bitpanda, which secured a crypto license in German, allowing them to officially process cryptocurrencies under its crypto custody and proprietary trading license. This makes Bitpanda the first European retail investment platform that meets requirements. One more for the trusty win of the industry, time will tell.
SORRY NOT SORRY
SBF, the mastermind behind the collapse of the exchange giant FTX (in case you’ve been hibernating in a cave for the past few weeks), says he’s sorry for the collapse. Quote “I never intended this to happen”. An apology that at least the Pen team doesn’t know what to do with and is not really sure what the world and the millions of people at loss are gonna do with it as well. It almost seems like a pre-emptive regret before the trials of their failure begin. How the rules of justice play out, time will tell.
YEN AND THE BANKS
Bank of Japan, another country in the “world cup” for adapting the CBDCs into its national payment infrastructure, is trialing the digital yen with three megabanks. However, unlike some other countries, Japan is taking its time before finally implementing it if that. The Japanese central bank's decision on whether to even issue a digital currency or not will be due by 2026. Japan likes to be thorough countries’, or they want to benchmark from other countries' failures before perfecting theirs, who knows time will tell.
NA ZDROWIE CRYPTO
No one knows what to make of it. Tinfoil hats are making their way to conspirators' heads as we speak, but the truth of the matter is, that the central bank of Russia is set to launch a national crypto exchange. The lawmakers of the country are in the workings of an amendment to launch a national crypto exchange. We don’t wanna get too deep into this one, but it’s pretty clear what could happen here – hint the Binance and Iran “affair”. One can only wonder, time will tell.
1-0 TO FAN TOKEN
When someone loses others usually win, but in this case, it was a loose-loose situation. Argentina had launched a so-called fan token, designed for fan engagement, which is very much (and likely so) impacted by the game performance of the national team. Messi, where art thou!. The ARG token fell 31%, which was priced at $7.21 at the time of kick-off with 31% to $4.96 after a shocking 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia. In contrast “The Saudis” (Saudi-Arabia-themed NFT) collection is uncorrelated to the team moonshot with 52.6%. Double whammy, ouch. Better luck next time.
ONYX FTW
If you thought, we were done with our favorite celebs (read Jamie Dimon and Elon Musk) who have another thing coming. DBS has become the first bank in Asia to conduct an intraday repo transaction on JP Morgan’s blockchain network ONYX. Using the US bank’s JPM Coin digital token to complete an instant settlement marks the power of the blockchain overshadowing the historic industry metric of one to two working days. Will more major banks follow suit? Time will tell.
BACKED BY BITCOIN
For those who thought bitcoin is dead, tell that to Nayib Bukele and Maria Luisa Hayem Brevé (The Ministry of Economy), who are introducing a so-called “Bitcoin Bond”, from which the government will raise north of $ 1 billion to invest in infrastructure construction at the base of the Colchagua volcano candidly named “Bitcoin City”. Could this be El Salvador’s Road to recovery after reportedly having failed at becoming a bitcoin nation? Time will tell.
GRAND THEFTX
Oh yea, SBF again, or a so-called “hacker” apparently. Whoever the hacker is (we’re not making any allegations here), stole more than $447M of crypto from the crypto exchange FTX, and has again been spotted moving their malicious made funds. This time FTX hacker splits nearly $200M in ETH across 12 wallets! Last we checked the ETH has not moved from any of the 12 wallets. Whoever the hacker is, and whether the hacker will succeed in moving the funds to their physical wallets, time will tell.
GIVE US TIME
During the turmoil of the FTX collapse, the contagious effects have rippled through the community, concurring fear uncertainty, and doubt on who’s next in line. One such has been cryptocurrency lending company Genesis, who refuted speculation that they were planning a see-no-end bankruptcy filing in case they failed to hedge a $ 1 billion shortfall caused by…well the fall of FTX. They are working on resolving the situation, but whether they will succeed or be the next collapse in a volcanic eruption of the disaster from mount SBF, time will tell.
THE NEW WHITEPAPER?
An institution of intellect is recommending (some) central banks to HODL crypto. From the temple of the established economic order, a Ph.D. candidate (not a full-time professor), Matthew Ferranti published a paper this month that quotes: “nations in danger of international sanctions could lessen the impact by squirreling away some cryptocurrency like Bitcoin”. Does this ring a bell? I think Iran and now Russia might’ve gotten a hold of that whitepaper. Kenneth Rogoff, the Harvard professor who was once chief economist at the IMF said (paraphrased) if he wrote this before the Russian sanctions many would’ve questioned the usefulness of the model. Whether there will be negative implications of the paper, whether it will hold ground and pave the way for further national adaption of bitcoin and crypto in general…time will tell.
TILL WE YIELD AGAIN