Binance Takes on USDC

September 6, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

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Daily Bits✍️✍️✍️

• PoolinWallet, the wallet service of one of the world’s biggest bitcoin mining pools, suspended withdrawals amidst a liquidity crisis.
• The Australian Federal Police (AFP) formed a unit to tackle the use of cryptocurrency as a means of money laundering.
• A UK agency ordered crypto exchanges to report sanctions breaches.
• Prior to the Merge, the hash rate of Ethereum Classic (ETC) has reached an all time high.
• Move-to-earn platform STEPN will open an office in Hong Kong.

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Today in Crypto Adoption…

• LG Electronics launched a new NFT marketplace dubbed “LG Art Labs”.
• Nigeria wants to partner with Binance to create a virtual free zone focused on crypto.

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What Do You Meme?

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What’s Poppin’?

by Juan Aranovich

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced it will delist USDC and other stablecoins as tradable assets by the end of this month.

On September 29 at 3:00 pm UTC, the platform will automatically convert any USDC, USDP and TUSD tokens into its own stablecoin BUSD at a 1:1 ratio.

The company said that the reason it is doing this is to “enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users.”

The stablecoin market is currently dominated by Tether’s USDT with a market cap of $67.5 billion, followed by Circle’s USDC ($52 billion) and Binance’s BUSD ($19.5 billion). These three centralized stablecoins account for almost 90% of the stablecoin market and are all backed by fiat.

Binance is currently the world’s largest crypto exchange. It is unclear if by removing USDC from the platform and converting it into BUSD, the company will earn a larger market share for its stablecoin.

“Binance delisting USDC is yet another example of the consequences of Gary Gensler’s policy of cracking down on rule-followers, and thus enabling rule-sidesteppers to become market dominant monopolies,” said Scott Lewis, cofounder of DeFi Pulse.

Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of Wintermute, had a different opinion. “Removing most stablecoin pairs is a good thing(…) It’s not USDC “delisting”, it’s another big step towards tether losing ground to US-native stablecoins.”

The news comes a week after Reuters reported that US authorities have asked Binance to provide documentation on its anti-money laundering practices.

Binance also said that, in preparation for the Ethereum Merge, it will suspend deposits and withdrawals for ETH and WETH on multiple networks beginning today. In addition, the company announced it hired a former Brazilian central banker and economy minister as a board advisor.

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Recommended Reads

1. Doug Colkitt on the economics of BSC
2. Polynya on the demand and supply of blockspace
3. rpn.eth on the Merge in NBA terms

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On The Pod…

Arthur Hayes, cofounder of BitMex, discusses how he’s trading the Merge, the impact of macroeconomic policy in the markets, his career as a writer, and much more. Show highlights:

• why Arthur initially thought Ethereum was worthless
• why Arthur thinks that a successful Merge is understated and why this is a valid reason for hedging
• why he thinks an Ethereum proof of work chain won’t succeed and how Arthur will trade ETHPoW
• why LDO, Lido’s token, is a riskier bet but has more potential gains
• whether the Merge affects BTC’s narrative as digital gold and whether the inflation hedge theory of Bitcoin still holds
• why Bitcoin is a measure of USD liquidity and why the Fed rates don’t matter as much as everyone thinks
• what Arthur believes the impact of a potential US recession would be on the crypto markets
• how the credit cycle works and how it repeats again and again
• Arthur’s method for identifying good projects to invest in
• whether BTC is money and the religious aspect of the Bitcoin culture

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Book Update

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians