Turkish Crypto Exchange Under Investigation for Fraud
- The investigation of Thodex began only a week after the Turkish central bank announce it was banning the use of crypto for payments.
- It is alleged the company's CEO fled the country only a day after the exchange halted crypto trading and withdrawals.
EU Regulators Examining Binance’s Stock Tokens
- The U.K. FCA is reportedly working with Binance to better understand the stock tokens, and what regulation may apply to them.
- Binance said a prospectus was not required as the tokens were not settled in fiat currency, but in Binance USD (BUSD).
Facebook’s Diem Expected to Launch Stablecoin Pilot in 2021
- While there was no confirmed date for the launch of the pilot, sources have said it will involve a single stablecoin tied to the U.S. dollar.
- The pilot is expected to be a small-scale one, mainly focusing on payments between individual consumers.
Uniswap V3 Deployed to Testnets
- The third iteration of Uniswap is now available on the Ropsten, Rinkeby, Kovan, and Goerli Ethereum testnets.
- Set to launch on the mainnet on 5 May, Uniswap V3 will introduce a number of new features, such as concentrated liquidity and a multiple fee tier system.
PayPal’s Venmo Launches Crypto Trading Service
- The new "Crypto on Venmo" service will be made widely available to Venmo's 70 million customers within a "few weeks".
- Similarly to PayPal, crypto trading on Venmo will be limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
Signature Bank Becomes Circle’s Banking Partner
- With the partnership, Signature will become one of the leading financial institutions to hold billions of USDC reserve funds.
- By integrating with Signature's Signet payments platform, Circle is opening the door to future integrations of products and services within the bank.
Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Now Live on OKEx
- The layer-2 scaling solution is currently available on the OKEx desktop website and is yet to go mobile.
- The integration will benefit the entire Bitcoin ecosystem, as it will increase the number of participating lightning network nodes.
China’s Central Bank Sees Crypto Assets as ‘Investment Alternatives’
- China seems to finally recognise the investment potential of crypto, with a deputy governor of the PBoC stating that Bitcoin and stablecoins were investment alternatives.
- The bank will "continue to maintain the current measures and practices", until it has figured how to prevent digital assets from creating a serious financial risk.
Turkey’s Central Bank Bans Use of Crypto For Payments
- The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey will also prevent payment providers from providing fiat onramps for crypto exchanges.
- Citizens who exclusively use payment providers as fiat-to-crypto gateways now have two weeks to clear their balances.
OpenEthereum Experiencing Sync Issues Amid Berlin Upgrade
- Shortly after the Berlin upgrade was activated, the Ethereum software client malfunctioned, and is now stuck on block 12,244,294.
- Popular crypto companies, such as Coinbase and Ledger, are now experiencing issues with their ETH and ETC-20 services.