The recent collapse of the once third-largest stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST), has raised questions about other fiat-pegged tokens and their ability to maintain their pegs. Stablecoins' stability in question Stablecoin firms claim that each of their issued tokens is backed by real-world and/or crypto assets, so they behave as a vital component in the crypto market, providing traders with an alternative in which to park their cash between placing bets on volatile coins. They include stablecoins that are supposedly 100% backed by cash or cash equivalents (bank deposits, Treasury bills, commercial paper, etc.), such as Tether (USDT) and Circle USD (USDC). …

The CEO of crypto lending and staking platform Celsius Alex Mashinsky believes “the Sharks of Wall Street” can smell blood in the water and are causing instability at several crypto projects. Mashinsky attributes recent Celsius (CEL) price falls, the brief Tether (USDT) depegging and collapse of Terra (LUNA) — at least in part — to short sellers on Wall Street. CEL has fallen from its all-time high of $8.05 to $0.82, which is a 90% drop. In a Twitter Spaces event on Tuesday, some Celsius users claimed that the platform liquidated their holdings as CEL dropped. They said trading was …

The world of decentralized finance (DeFi) is gradually expanding to encompass a significant share of the global financial lending space by virtue of the inherently trustless manner of operation and the ease of accessing capital. As the crypto ecosystem has grown to a $2-trillion industry by market capitalization, new products and offerings have emerged thanks to burgeoning innovation in blockchain technology. Lending and borrowing have become an integral part of the crypto ecosystem, especially with the emergence of DeFi. Lending and borrowing are one of the core offerings of the traditional financial system, and most people are familiar with the …

The seemingly endless freefall of Terra (LUNA) affected two decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols due to a price discrepancy, as the Chainlink price feed for LUNA gets suspended over extreme market conditions. Avalanche-based liquidity protocol Blizz Finance reported that as the price of LUNA was stuck at $0.10, attackers were able to deposit millions of LUNA to “borrow all the collateral.” As a result, Blizz Finance mentioned that its protocol was drained before its team could pause. The team apologized to those who were affected. We have built on the AVAX ecosystem in good faith with the expectation that @chainlink oracles …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) current 20% drop over the past four days has put the price at its lowest level in nine months and while these movements might seem extraordinary, quite a number of large listed companies and commodities faced a similar correction. For example, natural gas futures corrected 15.5% in four days and nickel futures traded down 8% on May 9. Other casualties of the correction include multiple $10 billion and higher market capitalization companies that are listed at U.S. stock exchanges. Bill.com (BILL) traded down 30%, while Cloudflare (NET) presented a 25.4% price correction. Dish Network (DISH) also faced a …

On Monday, decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocol Compound Treasury announced that it received a credit rating of B- from S&P Global Ratings. As told by the team at Compound, this represents the first time a major credit agency has issued a rating for an institutionalized DeFi protocol. The S&P Global Ratings' investment suitability scale ranges from AAA (extremely strong) to D (in default). A score of B- indicates the issuer can meet financial commitments, though vulnerabilities to business, financial and economic conditions persist. Regarding Compound's rating specifically, S&P Global cites the uncertain regulatory regime for stablecoins such as USD Coin …

Swyftx exchange will begin offering interest-bearing yields on a wide range of cryptocurrency assets — the first Australian-operated crypto exchange to do so. Swyftx’s new product, called Earn, will offer Australian and New Zealand residents the ability to earn interest on 21 different digital assets, including large-cap cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA) and stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Swyftx CEO Ryan Parsons said that the exchange’s Earn feature was one of the most competitive in the crypto industry, as the Brisbane-based company will allow customers to withdraw their assets from Earn …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been unable to break from the 26-day-long descending channel. Investors are uncomfortable holding volatile assets after the United States Federal Reserve pledged to reduce its $9 trillion balance sheet. While inflation has been surging worldwide, the first signs of an economic downturn showed as the United Kingdom's retail sales fell 1.4% in March. Moreover, Japan's industrial production dropped 1.7% in March. Lastly, the U.S. gross domestic product fell 1.4% in the first quarter of 2022. This bearish macroeconomic scenario can partially explain why Bitcoin has been on a downtrend since early April. Still, one needs to analyze …

For years, cryptocurrency advocates have touted the world-changing capability of digital currency and blockchain technology. Yet with the passing of each market cycle, new projects come and go, and the promised utility of these “real-world use case” projects fails to satisfy. While a majority of tokens promise to solve real-world problems, only a few achieve this, and the others are mere speculative investments. Here’s a look at the three things cryptocurrency investors can actually “do” with their coins. Lending Perhaps the simplest use case offered to cryptocurrency holders is also one of the oldest monetary applications in finance: lending. Ever …

A new homeowner has bought an apartment in Austin, Texas, through a program that allows crypto holders to take out traditional uncollateralized mortgages based on their credit scores. The USDC.homes crypto mortgages platform issued its first crypto loan to an Austin resident who bought a $680,000 condo with a $500,000 loan issued in USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin over the Polygon network. This new platform combines practices from traditional lending markets such as leveraging a borrower’s credit score to determine eligibility with new decentralized finance (DeFi) innovations such as cryptocurrency staking to help pay off the balance. Today, we’re excited to …

Crypto capital markets platform Maple Finance has expanded support to the Solana blockchain and has deployed a $45 million fund to spur ecosystem growth. Maple provides undercollateralized loans for institutional borrowers on Ethereum and now Solana from several pool delegates. The project stated in a Monday blog post that it has already “originated over $1.2 billion in loans and currently count over $900 million in TVL to the platform.” The ecosystem fund was launched in partnership with decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform X-Margin, with capital being provided by USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle, digital asset manager CoinShares and several unnamed …

In a rare comedic bungle among decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits, an attacker has fumbled their heist at the finish line leaving behind over $1 million in stolen crypto. Just after 8:00 am UTC on Thursday, blockchain security and analytics firm BlockSec shared it had detected an attack on a little-known DeFi lending protocol called Zeed, which styles itself a “decentralized financial integrated ecosystem.” The attacker exploited a vulnerability in the way the protocol distributes rewards, allowing them to mint extra tokens, which were then sold, crashing the price to zero, but netting just over $1 million for the exploiter. Blockchain …