The cryptocurrency market remains range-bound with a slight bearish bias as Bitcoin (BTC) continues to make feeble attempts to break above $50,000. While writing this article, Bitcoin was trading at $48,621.86, down 1.90% in the last 24 hours. Ether (ETH) was trading at $3,972, a decrease of 2.20% in the same period. XRP was trading at $0.9877, reflecting an increase of 3.30% in the past 24 hours.
Major altcoins, which have gained ground in the last 24 hours, include and Tezos (XTZ-4.57, 5.60%), Solana (SOL, $180.11, 0.20%), ChainLink (LINK-$20.36, 2.90%), Cosmos (ATOM, $27.37, 12.20), Uniswap (UNI, $16.77, 9.10%), Cardano (ADA, $1.34, 3.10%), VeChain (VET, $0.876 3.50%), Polkadot (DOT, $27.85, 8.60%), Dogecoin (DOGE, $0.1743, 0.80%) and Internet Computer (ICP, $24.16, 3.90%).
Major altcoins, which have lost ground in the last 24 hours, include EOS (EOS-$3.35, -0.70%), IOTA (IOTA-$1.28, -0.90%), Dash (DASH-$135.22, -0.90%), Stellar (XLM-$0.2709, -1.20%), Bitcoin Cash (BCH, $441.20, -0.30%) and Bitcoin SV (BSV-$122.63, -2%).
Government level initiatives
Banque de France completes final trial of its CBDC
Banque de France has revealed the completion of the final trial of its wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). Four months after the venture began in March 2020, the central bank announced eight participants in the project, including HSBC. As the announcement explicitly states about the completion of the first tranche, there could be further trials in the months ahead.
Digital bonds were issued and traded in the recent trials involving HSBC, with real-time settlement done using CBDC under the delivery versus payment (DvP) mechanism. Forex transactions were also settled on a real-time basis using the same process.
Nathalie Aufauvre, Director General of Financial Stability and Operations at the Banque de France, opined, “Interoperability across platforms is a key element to maximize the benefits of the distributed ledger technology applied to financial markets.”
Nathalie Aufauvre further stated that the Banque de France and HSBC had proven the possibility of interoperability by completing the exchange of data and assets, and also the exchange of assets across various blockchains, in an atomic manner. Such interoperability is required to guarantee that the various ecosystems, over which the smooth running of markets is dependent, can exist side by side.
Private sector initiatives
Nike buys NFT firm RTFKT Studios
Nike has acquired NFT focused firm RTFKT Studios in an undisclosed deal. In May, the startup firm received $8 million as seed finance based on a valuation of $33.30 million. The funding round was headed by Andreessen Horowitz. The firm became popular after the sale of sneaker NFTs for over $3 million in March, weeks after Christie auctioned Beeple NFT at a record price.
RTFKT unveiled a collection of CloneX avatar NFTs designed by artist Takashi Murakami. The RTFKT founders are renowned for their creativity. Nevertheless, for the aforesaid sneakers NFTs, the founders joined hands with Fewocious, an 18-year old designer.
Commenting on the acquisition, John Donahoe, President and CEO of NIKE, Inc, said, “This acquisition is another step that accelerates Nike’s digital transformation and allows us to serve athletes and creators at the intersection of sport, creativity, gaming, and culture.”
Stellar partners with Tascombank to trial digital hryvnia
Stellar has revealed that it has partnered with Ukraine’s commercial bank Tascombank, to carry out a trial of digital hryvnia. Employees of government institution Diia will have their salaries paid in digital hryvnia. The programmable money will also be utilized for peer-to-peer and retail payments.
The National Bank of Ukraine, which is already in agreements with Stellar for studying digital money and central bank digital currency (CBDC), is governing the venture.
The regulated e-money will be released on the open Stellar blockchain. The deployment will be carried out using Bitt’s Digital Currency Management System (DCMS), which facilitates minting the digital currency. The platform, which is composed of a transactions network, facilitates single-point management of all operations. Notably, Bitt is a proven system utilized for the management of CBDC by Nigeria and the Eastern Caribbean. The DCMS is also used to manage stablecoins of Belize.
Commenting on the initiative, Volodymyr Dubey, Chairman of Tascombank, said, “Cooperation with Bitt to build on Stellar allows us to connect our core banking system with blockchain-based infrastructure, creating an ecosystem that includes a full range of banking products and operations with electronic currency on the Stellar blockchain.”
ConsenSys releases ConsenSys Rollups
ConsenSys Unveiled ConsenSys Rollups, a tool for clubbing transactions and paving the way for huge transaction throughput on public Ethereum blockchain and also enterprise-level blockchain applications on Quorum. Notably, Mastercard, which took part in one of the funding rounds held by ConsenSys earlier this year, facilitated the development of the tool.
Private chains have demonstrated their ability to process a maximum of 300 transactions per second (TPS). On the Ethereum mainnet, only 15 TPS is possible. On the contrary, ConsenSys Rollups boasts of reaching 10,000 TPS. There are many startups that have developed sidechains for public Ethereum. ConsenSys, notably, is active on both the private and public blockchain domains. The firm developed Hyperledger Besu and also owns Quorum, which was funded by JP Morgan.
Commenting on the intiative, a Mastercard spokesperson said, ‘We think that the community will be responsible for the creation of several of the layer 1 and layer 2 scalability approaches, and we wished to collaborate with some other expert who shared our aims and strategy in order to contribute our technical expertise and development ability.’
Disclaimer: Any financial trading analysis offered here is our opinion and is not intended as advice or direction for investors. We cannot guarantee the success of any trades made as a consequence of this article, and we encourage traders to incorporate a strong money management strategy to limit losses when they enter the markets. Please use this article as part of your own research before formulating strategies prior to trading.
