Terra's Decentralized Stablecoin Hits $10B Milestone

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

Dec. 28, 2021

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Today's must-reads

Top Shelf

DEFI'S DOLLAR: The Terra blockchain's fast growing stablecoin UST, which had surpassed its rival DAI to become the world's largest decentralized stablecoin by market value, has now attained another milestone: a market capitalization of $10 billion. The fast growth in UST comes as the Terra blockchain has become a major player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, where stablecoins play a critical role in staking, liquidity management and yield-generating.

SEEING RED: A drop in crypto markets from Monday evening (UTC) prompted almost $300 million in liquidations across several crypto futures contracts, data from analytics tool Coinglass showed. More than 109,000 traders' positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin prices rose above $52,000 on Monday before tumbling by as much as $3,000 early Tuesday, causing over $94 million in liquidations. The whole market is seeing red, with Polkadot's DOT token leading the losses among altcoins.

BINANCE & BAHRAIN: Bahrain has become the first Middle East-North Africa country to approve Binance as a crypto asset service provider. The world's leading cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume still has to complete the full Bahraini licensing application. This comes as Binance Canada Capital Markets registers with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), the country's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing regulator, amid growing attempts to operate above the board.

METAVERSE DISPATCH: Luxury marketplace UNXD, which is built on the Polygon network, and Decentraland, a virtual reality platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, plan to offer a metaverse fashion week with catwalk shows, pop-up shops and afterparties in March. Meanwhile, Ready Player Me, a startup focused on in-game "wearables," raised $13 million. Finally, Ozzy Osbourne, the former lead singer of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath who purportedly bit the head off a bat during a 1982 concert, is making his first foray into NFTs.

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What others are writing...

Off-Chain Signals

The $900 Billion Cash Pile Inflating Startup Valuations (Wall Street Journal)
Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Says 'I Like Crypto' Amid China's Ban (Decrypt)
Popular Miami nightclub E11EVEN buys Bored Ape #11 for $400,000 (The Block)
Tether timeline: The complete history of crypto's most stubborn stablecoin (Protos)
Don't Expect a Thai CBDC Soon (Sam Reynolds/Blockworks)

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NEAR Predictions: Creatives Ready to Level-Up

NEAR was always meant to be more than just a blockchain protocol with a few financial tools. Instead, the team behind the platform wanted to foster community and creativity in as many forms as possible.

Now, the possibility for communities beyond financial speculators is expanding at a rapid clip. Long past are the anecdotes of early Bitcoin, where new adopters came in the form of stray systems designers or hedge fund managers quitting their jobs to go all in on crypto.

Today, we're seeing professional migration on a much larger scale: huge companies creating virtual worlds built with rare digital items, as brand names like Facebook, Nike, the NBA and more have signaled.