Amazon crypto rumors send BTC over $40000, Tether executives facing criminal charges and more people traded Ether than Bitcoin this year? These stories and more this week in crypto.
Reports emerged early this week that Amazon was allegedly looking to accept cryptocurrency for payments in the future. Following the news, Bitcoin rose beyond $40,000, though trading excitement later calmed down once it was revealed that the initial reports were based on rumors and that Amazon is not yet looking to accept BTC.
Executives behind popular stablecoin Tether are potentially facing criminal charges following a probe that suggests they deceived banks and financial institutions. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has claimed that Tether possibly committed bank fraud by hiding the fact that its transactions were largely linked to crypto and not USD.
Binance—one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges—is working to limit activity amongst unverified users. Customers that do not engage in the platform’s KYC protocols will only be permitted to withdraw 0.06 BTC, a major drop from the previous figure of 2 BTC. Customers who are willing to upload supporting documents can withdraw up to 100 BTC daily.
Payments provider PayPal revealed that the initial version of the company’s super app wallet was “code complete” and the wallet will be fully ramped in the United States in the next several months. The super app wallet will feature high yield savings, early access to direct deposit funds, messaging capability, and additional crypto features.
Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs filed with the SEC to launch the first ever DeFi ETF. The fund would invest at least 80% of its assets into companies that advance blockchain technology and the digitization of finance. The SEC is now reviewing more than a dozen crypto related ETF applications with delayed decisions on several of them.
Coca-Cola is selling a series of four non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that will be sold as a single asset with proceeds benefiting Special Olympics International. One feature specific to this NFT launch is that the digital assets can be worn within the virtual world Decentraland and Coca-Cola will even host a “Rooftop Party” on the platform to celebrate the launch.
E-commerce giant Shopify has made it possible for eligible sellers to sell NFTs directly using a credit or debit card on its platform. One of the first Shopify merchants to offer NFTs will be the Chicago Bulls, which launched an NFT “Legacy Collection” featuring the franchise’s six world championship rings.
Figures from some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges suggest Ether trading in the first half of 2021 outpaced that of Bitcoin. While ETH volume surged by more than 1,400 percent during the first six months, BTC lagged by comparison, with the asset’s trading volume surging only by 489 percent during that same period.
That’s what’s happened this week in crypto, see you next week.
