Friday, August 11th. As the week comes to an end we can focus on the highlights of the crypto industry over the past few days.
Stablecoin market cap to skyrocket to $3T in 5 years, Bernstein says
Total stablecoin market cap will climb from the current $125 bln to $2.8 tln over the next five years. This is reported by CoinDesk citing a report from broker Bernstein.
Analysts are optimistic that integrating with various platforms will serve as a “growth flywheel” for dollar-pegged digital assets.
“We expect major global financial and consumer platforms to issue co-branded stablecoins to power value-exchange on their platforms,” CEO Gautam Chhugani wrote.
Bernstein’s representatives stressed that the stablecoins will operate at the “hyper-fast financial settlement layer,” that is, actively using Ethereum-based Layer-2 solutions.
They believe the growth of the sector will be based on “regulated, onshore stablecoins.” To prove the point, analysts mentioned Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, where pilot projects featuring stablecoins and CBDC are being implemented.
As you may remember, PayPal has recently launched their native PYUSD stablecoin. The token issuer turned out to be Paxos, an infrastructure company.
Crypto community split over regarding the prospects of this brand new stablecoin. While some are convinced that the new asset would spark mass adoption of crypto, others have criticize PayPal’s new tool for its centralized nature, potentially high fees, and outdated version of Solidity.
Elon Musk rebrands Twitter Blue to X Premium
As part of a major rebranding of social network dubbed X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk has renamed his Twitter Blue subscription service to X Premium.
As for X Premium, services come with an ad revenue sharing model based on the number of ads placed in the comments of tweets. Users who are at least 18 years old, have no less than 500 followers and have gathered 15 million or more views of their tweets over the past three months are eligible for such payments.
Tesla CEO pointed out that the platform will deduct all ad revenue generated from users who don’t have a premium subscription, Musk said.
The social network allocated the first payouts in mid-July. The feature has been available to all Blue subscribers since the end of the month.
In early August, X’s support team notified that it was overwhelmed by the number of premium subscribers, so it may take some time to verify and distribute payouts.
It should be noted that Twitter’s rebranding took place on July 24. Musk altered the social network’s name to “X” and dropped the iconic blue bird in its logo, opting for a black color scheme. Following the hype, anonymous people have created a number of themed coins.
Musk later stated that he is not planning to issue platform-related crypto-assets.
In fact, according to lawyer Josh Gerben, the Twitter’s update could lead to lawsuits.
Poll: 60% of investors expect bitcoin to rally post-halving
In a survey conducted by trending blogger PlanB, nearly 60% of participants said they believe the bull market will kick off after the first-ever-crypto halving in 2024.
“Will the bitcoin halving in April 2024 lead to a new bull market like it did in 2012, 2016 and 2020? Or is this a different case (due to macroeconomics, interest rate, environment or other reasons) and there will be no bull market in 2024-2025?” PlanB asked his subscribers.
As of this writing, 17,329 people have taken part in the survey. The responses were distributed as follows:
- 59.9% stands for a post-halving bull market, again;
- 17.3% – no bull market between 2024 and 2025;
- 22.9% of respondents do not know.
Earlier, analysts at JPMorgan said that the upcoming halving of the Bitcoin network would pose a crucial test for miners due to declining block mining rewards and rising costs.
Recall that in August, Blockstream CEO Adam Back predicted a hike in the price of the alpha cryptocurrency to $100,000 pre-halving. He bet 1 million sats (0.01 BTC) if that happens.
Matrixport’s head of research Markus Thielen projected BTC’s rise to $125,000 by the end of next year. Analysts at Standard Chartered bank came to a quite similar conclusion – $120,000 in 2024.
Binance becomes fully licensed in El Salvador
The renowned crypto exchange said it made history by claiming to be the first fully licensed one after receiving approvals from two regulators.
We are talking about registering as a Bitcoin Services Provider (BSP) with the Central Reserve Bank and the first perpetual Digital Assets Services Provider (DASP) license from the National Digital Assets Commission.
“These licenses allow Binance to expand the products and services offered, including options tailored to the needs of our clients in El Salvador,” said Daniel Acosta, general manager for Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean at Binance.
During an interview for The Block, the Binance spokesperson said the exchange is already up and running in the country, but “only through an offshore platform.”
As per the statement, by obtaining the license in El Salvador, the exchange is reaching 18 regulated markets, including France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Dubai.