Welcome to the first edition of CryptoSpend Roundup, your trusted newsletter for the latest, up-to-date and insightful crypto news. As the crypto landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, our mission is to keep you informed about some of the latest developments, market trends, and opportunities.
Before we get into the news, here's the current market prices for our listed currencies:
CryptoSpend Market Prices
With that out of the way, grab your favorite beverage, get settled and...
Let's dive in!
MicroStrategy Buys Even More Bitcoin: MicroStrategy, a prominent business intelligence firm, has made a substantial addition to its Bitcoin holdings. In November, the company purchased an additional 16,130 Bitcoin, costing approximately $593.3 million. This purchase brings MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings to 174,530 BTC, valued at around $6.6 billion. This acquisition is part of the company's ongoing strategy to adopt Bitcoin as its treasury reserve asset, a policy it has followed since August 2020. The firm reported a gain of $900 million for its Bitcoin holdings in the third quarter of 2023 and plans to continue making consistent purchases. Full article.
Binance Ends Support for BUSD: Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it will cease support for Binance USD (BUSD) starting December 15, 2023. This decision follows Paxos's announcement to stop minting new BUSD coins. Binance has advised users to withdraw or convert their existing BUSD on the exchange into other assets before December 15. Following December 31, Binance will disable BUSD withdrawals, and any remaining balances will automatically be converted into First Digital USD (FDUSD) for certain users. This move is part of Binance's strategy to gradually phase out support for its native stablecoin by February 2024. BUSD, once one of the largest stablecoins by market capitalisation, has seen a significant decrease in its value over the past year. Full article.
Australia's New Framework to Combat Crypto Scams: The Australian Department of the Treasury has proposed a new framework to address consumer and business scams in the cryptocurrency sector, among others. This initiative includes the implementation of sector-specific codes and standards for banking and cryptocurrencies to combat scams. The proposed "Scams Code Framework" aims to assign clear roles and responsibilities to both government and private entities in combating scams, including sharing scam intelligence across sectors. The Australian government is seeking to address the substantial financial losses due to scams, which amounted to at least $3.1 billion in 2022, an 80% increase from the previous year. The Treasury will be collecting comments on the consultation until January 29, 2024. Full article.
Fireblocks' New Trading System: Fireblocks, a provider of multi-party computation (MPC) wallets, has launched a new trading system called "Off Exchange" for institutions using centralised exchanges. This system allows institutional traders to swap tokens without depositing them on the exchange first, aiming to eliminate counterparty risk on centralised exchanges and prevent future collapses like FTX. The system operates on a shared MPC wallet, where the private key is divided into three shards, held by the trading firm, the exchange, and a third-party oracle. This setup ensures that neither the trader nor the exchange can unilaterally withdraw assets. Off Exchange is currently being used by institutional trading firms such as QCP Capital, BlockTech, and Zerocap, with plans to expand to more exchanges in the future. Full article.
And that's a wrap!
That's all for this week's edition of CryptoSpend Roundup. We hope you found the information valuable and that it helps you stay ahead in the ever-changing crypto landscape.
If you have any suggestions or feedback for us, please feel free to reach out to our team :)
**All information in this article is for informational purposes only. You should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained herein shall constitute a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by CryptoSpend to invest, buy, or sell any coins, tokens, or other crypto assets. Any descriptions of CryptoSpend products or features are merely for illustrative purposes. Past performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future performance. The value of crypto assets can increase or decrease, and you could lose all or a substantial amount of your purchase price. It is essential for you to do your research and due diligence to make the best possible judgement, as any purchases shall be your sole responsibility.
