- BTC is currently trading near $17,400 while ETH trades at $1,270, down 2.22% and 2.82%, respectively. Stocks have dropped significantly through mid-day following a negative retail sales report which indicated sales fell 0.6% in November, a larger drop than the Dow Jones estimate of 0.3%. The S&P 500 dropped 2.67%, while the Nasdaq fell 3.08%. Markets are also digesting yesterday’s rate hike by the Fed, which saw them decrease the pace of hikes to 50 bps while increasing the expected terminal rate from ~4.6% last quarter to ~5.1%. The ECB and BoE also piled into the hawkishness, hiking in line with consensus by 50 bps. Toncoin (TON), messaging platform Telegram’s layer-1 blockchain, has been a notable outperformer rising 31.0% over the last week. The token’s outperformance has come from demand for Telegram’s new feature that allows users to buy an anonymous phone number with the token and create an account on the platform. The Telegram messenger team launched the sale of the numbers with the +888 prefix, which exist as collectibles on the ‘The Open Network.’ Despite the SEC fining Telegram $18.5 million in 2020 for raising $1.2 billion in an unregistered securities offering, the TON ecosystem has evolved independently while regularly integrating innovations with the Telegram messenger.
- ConsenSys, a leading Web3 software company, announced a partnership to integrate PayPal into its popular self-custodial wallet MetaMask. Users of the world’s leading wallet will now be able to seamlessly buy crypto directly in the wallet application instead of having to purchase and then transfer to their wallet from an exchange. Within the MetaMask app, users must log in directly to Paypal, where they can buy ETH or send existing ETH on their PayPal account directly to their MetaMask wallet. The feature will initially only be available to select U.S users on the mobile app version, with plans to expand to more users and the desktop browser extension early next year. PayPal has continued to broaden its crypto offerings, initially letting users buy and sell select cryptocurrencies in 2020 and enabling withdrawals in June this year. Collapses of major centralized custodians, such as FTX and Celsius, have led to rising demand for self-custody solutions.
- Undercollateralized DeFi lender Maple Finance released Maple 2.0, which aims to reduce friction in its defaults and liquidations procedures. Unlike most of DeFi, which operates with overcollateralized loans, Maple issues unsecured loans after diligence and approval from designated ‘pool delegates.’ Recently the protocol experienced two defaults totaling ~$40 million in loans following FTX’s blowup. The first was from Auros Global, which missed the 2400 wrapped ETH payment due on Dec. 1st and has begun to incur penalties following the 5-day grace period for defaults. Five days later, crypto hedge fund Orthogonal Trading indicated they had been “severely impacted by the collapse of FTX” and was shortly issued a notice of default on $36 million in loans. Defaults were previously covered by Maple’s MPL token stakers, which received interest for staking their holdings in an insurance fund in case of defaults. Under Maple’s new version, Pool Delegates must provide “first loss capital,” further aligning their interests with the lending pool contributors. While the market remains wide open for potential growth in blockchain-based unsecured lending, we highlighted risks in existing protocols in a DeFi Digest deep dive into the sector.
Markets pullback after FOMC, MetaMask integrates Paypal
Dec 15, 2022
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