Mastercard opens network to USDC, OKX departs Canada, Bitcoin climbs

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Take, for exam­ple, the recent issues that Cir­cle-issued USD Coin (USDC) faced when it depegged from the U.S. dol­lar fol­low­ing Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank’s col­lapse. Two weeks lat­er, Mas­ter­card bold­ly inte­grat­ed the sta­ble­coin into its infra­struc­ture in the Asia-Pacif­ic region, allow­ing users to spend USDC through its net­work. It’s hap­pen­ing, folks!

And let’s not for­get about Bit­coin (BTC) — that dig­i­tal gold is still on the rise and decou­pling from Wall Street, once again prov­ing its val­ue propo­si­tion and prompt­ing calls for a hedge against equi­ty mar­kets in the long run. 

This week’s Cryp­to Biz doc­u­ments the lat­est devel­op­ments on world­wide cryp­to adop­tion, and how bank­ing sys­tem fears impact the cryp­to space.

Banks tur­moil and reg­u­la­to­ry crack­downs hap­pen­ing world­wide have not slowed down the ongo­ing blend­ing of tra­di­tion­al and decen­tral­ized finance (DeFi). The on-ramps con­nect­ing the two sides seem even stronger despite the wild winds of change.

Mastercard to settle transactions for stablecoin wallet in APAC

Glob­al pay­ment provider Mas­ter­card has made anoth­er move into the cryp­to space to allow retail cus­tomers in the Asia-Pacif­ic region to spend sta­ble­coins any­where Mas­ter­card is accept­ed. This move was made pos­si­ble by a part­ner­ship with Sta­bles, an Aus­tralian sta­ble­coin plat­form. Users can spend and save USDC by con­vert­ing it into fiat and set­tling on the Mas­ter­card net­work. The wal­let will accept deposits in sev­er­al sta­ble­coins, includ­ing Teth­er (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD), with all deposits auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­vert­ed into USDC.

MetaMask enables direct crypto purchases in Nigeria

On-ramps for dig­i­tal assets are also increas­ing in Nige­ria, as cryp­to wal­let Meta­Mask expand­ed direct trans­ac­tions with local banks. MetaMask’s par­ent firm Con­sen­Sys has part­nered with cryp­to fin­tech Moon­Pay, enabling users in the coun­try to pur­chase cryp­to via instant bank trans­fers with­out requir­ing a cred­it or deb­it card. The inte­gra­tion is esti­mat­ed to reduce the decline rate for direct cryp­to pur­chas­es in Nige­ria from 90% to 30%. Nige­ria is a major mar­ket for Meta­Mask, rank­ing third in mobile month­ly active users. Chainal­y­sis ranks Nige­ria as one of the top 20 coun­tries in cryp­tocur­ren­cy adoption.

OKX to cease operations in Canada by June 22, 2023

In a “tem­po­rary” bye-bye, cryp­to exchange OKX emailed Cana­di­an users that the firm “will no longer pro­vide ser­vices or allow users to open new accounts in Cana­da start­ing on March 24, 2023.” OKX cit­ed “new reg­u­la­tions” behind the move, say­ing it is only tem­po­rary while it works with reg­u­la­tors. By June 22, OKX’s cus­tomers in the coun­try must close open options, mar­gins, per­pet­u­als and futures posi­tions. Fiat or tokens must also be with­drawn by that date. In Feb­ru­ary, The Cana­di­an Secu­ri­ties Admin­is­tra­tors pub­lished a notice requir­ing cryp­to exchanges to sign new, legal­ly bind­ing under­tak­ings while they await reg­is­tra­tion with regulators. 

Off-board­ing mes­sage sent to Cana­di­an OKX users on March 20, 2023. Source: OKX

Bitcoin’s banking crisis surge will ‘attract more institutions’: ARK’s Cathie Wood

With fears of a glob­al bank­ing cri­sis on the rise, Bitcoin’s val­ue propo­si­tion is on full dis­play as its price con­tin­ues to climb fol­low­ing the col­laps­es of Sil­ver­gate, Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank and Sig­na­ture Bank. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood believes the cur­rent decou­pling of BTC’s price to the equi­ty mar­kets may attract more insti­tu­tion­al investors into Bit­coin over time. As for the impact on Bitcoin’s price from insti­tu­tion­al inter­est, Wood expects that most firms would allo­cate between 2.5% to 6.5% of their invest­ment port­fo­lios to BTC by 2030, tak­ing the lead­ing cryptocurrency’s price to $1–1.5 million.

The impact of the Credit Suisse bank crisis on the crypto market

How to ana­lyze banks and avoid inac­cu­rate mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion indi­ca­tors — such as the $15.8 bil­lion val­ue of Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank? Cryp­to ana­lyst Mar­cel Pech­man delves into the enter­prise val­ue met­ric and how it pro­vides a bet­ter pic­ture of a bank’s bal­ance sheet terms by sub­tract­ing net debt from mar­ket cap. Of course, Pech­man first explains the rela­tion­ship between bank­ing val­u­a­tion and cryp­tocur­ren­cies, specif­i­cal­ly Bitcoin’s ethos. 

Cryp­to Biz is your week­ly pulse of the busi­ness behind blockchain and cryp­to, deliv­ered direct­ly to your inbox every Thursday.



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