Here’s a quick breakdown of the biggest news stories and developments in the cryptocurrency sector for September 29, 2022.
Emurgo plans to invest $200 million into the Cardano ecosystem
Emurgo, one of the founding organizations of the Cardano blockchain project, plans to invest $200 million distributed across 7 projects in the Cardano ecosystem. The news was reported by CoinDesk, citing Emurgo founder Ken Kodama. $100 million of investments will be allocated to projects in Africa, which is a significant market for Cardano.
Cardano recently successfully completed a notable upgrade called Vasil, which has boosted the platform’s smart contract capabilities. ADA, the native asset of Cardano, currently boasts a market capitalization of $14.63 billion.
Circle announces support for USDC on 5 new blockchains
Circle, a fintech company whose services are centered around the USD Coin stablecoin, says it plans to bring USDC to five new blockchain platforms. The five blockchains that USDC will be expanded to include Polkadot, Cosmos, NEAR Protocol, Arbitrum and Optimism. The tokens will be available on these blockchains natively, eliminating the need for bridging or wrapping solutions.
1/ Another exciting announcement just shared at #ConvergeSF22 ? we intend #USDC to be available on @arbitrum @cosmos @NEARProtocol @optimismFND @Polkadot pic.twitter.com/OKR8Scq6yY
— Circle | #ConvergeSF22 | Sept 27-30 (@circlepay) September 28, 2022
USDC, which is the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, is already available on a wide variety of blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, Avalanche, and others.
CFTC chairman says regulations could drive Bitcoin price growth
While many cryptocurrency investors and traders primarily see regulation as a negative influence on the crypto market, not everyone agrees. Rostin Behnam, the chairman of U.S. regulator CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) says that more clearly defined regulation of the Bitcoin markets could “double” the BTC price by opening the door for more institutional capital to flow into the market. Behnam made the comments during a chat at the NYU School of Law.
Institutional investments played a large role in Bitcoin’s 2021 rally, which saw the world’s largest cryptocurrency hit its all-time high price of just under $69,000.
Terraform Labs says South Korean authorities are overreaching their authority
Terraform Labs, the company that led the development of the Terra blockchain platform, says that South Korean prosecutors are overreaching their authority in their investigation of the collapse LUNA and UST. The company says the case “has become highly politicized”, and that “the actions of the Korean prosecutors demonstrate unfairness and a failure to uphold basic rights guaranteed under Korean law”.
Recently, reports came out stating that Interpol has issued a “red notice” for Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon at the requests of South Korean authorities. Kwon has stated that he is not on the run, and that he has been cooperating with all government agencies that have shown interest to communicate.
NFT project QQL sells out its mint, earns $16.7 million
Even though the cryptocurrency market is undoubtedly in the midst of a slump, there is still plenty of demand for NFTs from acclaimed artists. QQL, a generative art project by Fidenza creator Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist, has sold out all of its 900 minting passes, netting about $16.7 million worth of ETH in the process.
The QQL project has a unique minting process. The algorithm that’s generating the artwork is available to the public, and anyone can play around with its parameters to generate unique images. However, only holders of the minting passes can “immortalize” their creations through NFTs.
An example of an image generated through QQL’s algorithm.
