☕️The Morning Cup: Nasdaq taps into the crypto market; DBS allows more investors to trade crypto; Lebanese banks shut indefinitely amid economic crisis
Good morning, good day, and good evening. Welcome back to The Morning Cup. It’s your weekly recap of the latest in crypto news and your start to the week, no matter where you are. Don’t worry, we’ve selected just what you need to stay up-to-date, so you won’t spend time pouring through the news you don’t need, only the news you care about.
So what happened this week?
Cryptos trade flat after BTC, ETH dipping last mid-week
The crypto market was relatively uneventful over the week although Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) dipped in the middle of last week after the US Fed hiked interest rates. For ETH, it’s down 19% since the Merge, according to Decrypt. BTC is now trading at $18,887 while ETH is at $1,301 by the writing time. Meanwhile, the 24-hour gainers on Poloniex are XLMBEAR/ USDT, BEAR/USDT, TRU/TUSD, XRP/ TRX, KUD/ USDT and USDD/ USDT.
Decrypt, OSL
Nasdaq taps into the crypto market
Nasdaq Inc (NDAQ.O), the second-largest stock exchange in the world, followed other big players in the traditional financial world, including Blackrock and Fidelity, to launch a digital assets business to tap into the cryptocurrency market with a focus on institutional investors. Spearheaded by Ira Auerbach, the former head of the Gemini exchange’s crypto prime brokerage,Nasdaq Digital Assets, will offer custody services for cryptocurrencies including BTC and ETH, to institutional clients. As the crypto market is still at a nascent stage with limited regulations, the stock exchange stressed that its anti-financial crime technology is able to detect and curb money laundering, fraud and market abuse risks. When asked how a traditional financial entity would surpass its crypto counterpart in terms of providing digital asset custody services, Auerbach asserts that Nasdaq is uniquely positioned because of its rich knowledge on clients’ needs. Meanwhile, DBS, the largest bank in Southeast Asia, has rolled out self-directed crypto trading via its app, DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx), to allow a total of 100,000 customers in Singapore including accredited investors to trade four cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH & Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ripple (XRP) with a minimum investment of USD$500.
Forbes, Reuters, Bloomberg, TechInAsia, Bitcoin.com News
Lebanese citizens turn to crypto when banks remain shut indefinitely
Lebanese banks are to remain shut “indefinitely” due to a lack of security protection by authorities, as decided by the Association of Lebanese Banks last week. The announcement came after a spate of heists seen in at least eight banks since September 14 because depositors’ demand for accessing frozen savings fell on deaf ears. Lebanon has faced a severe economic crisis since 2019 against the backdrop of high inflation and a plummeting Lebanese pound (or Lira). Since then, local banks have limited withdrawals of dollars and more strict measures are in effect, preventing depositors from accessing most of their savings. Therefore, depositors have held up some local banks starting last week to try to gain back their hard-earned money, and the raids have mostly been lauded as acts of desperation to make ends meet by the general public. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last week that the Lebanese government’s slow actions on reforms was exacerbating the country’s economic meltdown. Due to the worsening situation, Lebanese citizens, especially among the younger generations, are turning to the crypto market to seek financial relief.
Cardano’s Vasil upgrade goes live
Cardano rolled out its newest upgrade on Plutus (its smart contract platform) last Thursday to improve network performance and throughput. Dubbed Vasil, the upgrade is expected to be more user/developer friendly in terms of the cost reduction of script execution and reducing the transaction size of smart contracts. This, as Frederik Gregaard, Cardano Foundation CEO, explained on his Twitter account. Meanwhile, Tim Harrison of Input Output, a company that contributes to research and development for Cardano, called the upgrade “a step-change in the blockchain’s capabilities”. He also remarked that ADA (Cardano native token) holders don’t need to do anything before and after the upgrade.
Helium migrates to Solana after teaming up with T-Mobile for crypto-powered service
Apart from Cardano, another so-called “Ethereum Killer”, Solana, will welcome the Helium community to expand its cohort. The Helium Foundation announced last week that its mainnet would be moved to the Solana blockchain following a community vote for better scalability and a partnership with T-Mobile, American telecommunications provider. The move to partner with T-Mobile was initiated by Nova Labs to co-launch Helium Mobile. The self-proclaimed “ People’s Network”, Helium started with a decentralized wireless network for Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices like sensors and trackers in 2017, and rewards users with tokens for running nodes and sharing their connectivity. Now, Helium aims to do the same in the Helium Mobile project.
New Listings on Poloniex
Here’s what we’ve listed recently:
New Coins
Futures
Polopedia
In case you missed it, this week the crypto world witnessed the next iteration Cardano!
Crypto Glossary
Last time, Crypto Glossary explained the term, Hard fork, which was often seen in articles related to the Ethereum Merge🐼, so this week, we explain its antonym, Soft fork.
Different from Hard fork, Soft fork requires a majority of nodes to change to the new rules and it’s backward compatible. Meanwhile, it also allows for adding new features and functions to get them integrated into the new chain and it doesn’t upgrade to newer versions while the original chain is still valid. For the pros, soft fork allows the old nodes to validate the new blocks and the only risk is the malicious actors might trick nodes into validating rules.
What’s happening here at Poloniex?
This is what Poloniex’s week looked like
Highlights for the week
Campaigns
Our recap of ongoing campaigns that YOU can get involved in!
Poloniex Launches Zero-Fee USDD Trading (ONGOING)
Poloniex Feedback Bounty Program (ONGOING)
Hold USDD to Mark Your Presence at Times Square (9/26–10/23)
👩🚀Space Traveller Program
We had the pleasure of sitting down for an AMA with one of our stand-out Space Travellers, CryptoHamster!
The community megaphone📢
Highlights from the community
And that about covers it for this week! Curious about our campaigns or upcoming events? Give us a shout in our Telegram channel-
Is there anything you’d want to see us cover in our newsletter? Make sure to comment on this Medium article! Just want to show your appreciation? Smash that clap button and give a round of applause👏
Thanks for spending some time with us as we went over what’s going on. And wherever you are, from the team here at Poloniex, good morning, good day, and good evening!
