Friday, 16th of December. As the week comes to an end, we can focus on the highlights of the crypto industry over the past few days.
Binance’s net outflow of stablecoins hit $3B over the 24-hour period
Over a 24-hour period, more than $7 billion worth of stablecoins were withdrawn from the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance. In the meantime, the inflow of stablecoins reached about $4 billion.
USDT, BUSD and USDC are in the highest demand. According to Nansen analysts, this is by far the greatest outflow of coins since June.
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the exchange, stressed that amid Terra’s collapse in May, the volume of outflows was even higher, though now ‘deposits are ‘coming back in.’
As reported by DeFi Llama, the total value of coins held by Binance exceeds $60 billion. Ethereum dominates the asset profile with $32.5 billion (54%).
“Binance’s withdrawals are increasing due to the growing uncertainty about its reserves report,” the Nansen analysts told Reuters.
To recap, Binance briefly suspended the of USDC withdrawal on December 13.
As of December 11, the exchange halted withdrawals for a number of assets and blocked the accounts of some users due to “abnormal price movements for some trading pairs.”
Earlier, experts interviewed by the WSJ said there were troubling signals in Mazars’ report on Binance’s BTC holdings.
MetaMask to integrate the purchase of cryptocurrency through the PayPal app
ConsenSys will add the feature of buying cryptocurrency through the PayPal electronic payment system app to the MetaMask.
Originally, only a limited number of U.S. users will be given access to the option. According to the statement, it would be possible to buy Ethereum for fiat through PayPal and transfer it to your wallet (if you have sufficient funds).
The payment system introduced the way to withdraw Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin to third-party applications back in June. ConsenSys claimed that MetaMask is the pioneer in using such feature.
“This integration with PayPal will allow our U.S. users to not just buy crypto seamlessly through MetaMask, but also to easily explore the Web3 ecosystem,” MetaMask product manager Lorenzo Santos said.
As of April, the wallet team enabled the purchase of digital assets for fiat through MoonPay. This May, they announced the integration to the Coinbase Pay.
As you may remember, ConsenSys warned about the collection of MetaMask users’ data by the Infura platform. In response to privacy concerns, the company shortened the retention period to seven days.
Toncoin price surged by 20% in one day
The Toncoin token (TON) is now trading at $2.72. In the last 24 hours, the asset rallied by more than 20%, and during the week it jumped approximately 51%, according to CoinGecko.
On December 7, Telegram introduced the feature of signing up for anonymous accounts with blockchain-based phone numbers. You can buy the latter for TON on the platform Fragment, launched on October 27.
With no publicity, the platform has launched a mechanism for the implementation of random numbers. The minimum lot price is 17 TON. Each 3 hours this amount is increased by 1 TON up to 99 TON, until the number is no longer available for sale.
In early November, Fragment began selling Telegram user names for Toncoin. The trader nicknamed CryptoNik pointed out that on December 7, TON volume has already exceeded $50 million.
As of December 12, the Toncoin team announced the launch of DeDust, a decentralized exchange, as part of the project’s ecosystem, to complement the two exchanges already up and running, TonSwap and STON.fi. The latter was included in the Defi Llama’s ranking.
Previously, Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, announced the DEX messenger and non-castodial wallets based on the Toncoin blockchain.
Bitget announced full support for TON deposit and withdrawal on the coin’s mainnet.
As you may remember, Durov publicly endorsed the Toncoin team in December 2021. As a result, the token responded with a 46% spike.
U.S. senator: there’s ‘no reason’ for the presence of crypto
The digital asset market is backed by nothing and provides nothing, so there is “no reason” why it should exist. This was stated in an interview with NBC by Montana Democratic State Representative in the U.S. Senate Jon Tester.
Tester is a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which is examining the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the United States.
“It’s not been able to pass the smell test for me. I have not been able to find anybody who’s been able to explain to me what’s there other than synthetics […] which means nothing. If we regulated it, it may give it the ability of people to think it’s real,” the legislator explained.
In an interview with Semafor on Dec. 2, Tester called the industry “bullshit” and found it difficult to find something that sustains cryptocurrencies. Elizabeth Warren, a prominent critic of cryptocurrencies and a member of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, seconded her colleague.
Jordan Weissman, editor of the publication, noted that the FTX collapse allowed “dems to suddenly feel free to say what they really think about the crypto industry.”
Recall that in November Warren called for stronger crypto regulation, drawing comparisons between FTX and Lehman Brothers.
Warren has previously compared cryptocurrencies to the U.S. mortgage credit crunch. In July, she called on Congress and the SEC to take a tougher stance on the industry amid problems with Celsius Network and several other companies.