Ethereum faces 6-month lows versus Bitcoin — Will ETH price rebound?

Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), continues its multi-month downtrend against Bitcoin (BTC) in March, rising 5.5% versus the latter’s 19.5% gains on a month-to-date (MTD) timeframe. Bitcoin overshadows Ethereum amid banking crisis As of March 23, the ETH/BTC pair was down about 9% month-to-date (MTD) to 0.0633 while staying on course to record its worst month since September 2022 when it fell 11.75%. ETH/BTC monthly price chart. Source: TradingView From a fundamental perspective, traders preferred Bitcoin over Ether, hoping it would protect them from the ongoing banking turmoil in the…

Coinbase teams up with Brazilian central bank’s Pix to offer expanded services

Coinbase is expanding its services in Brazil through partnerships with local services, the company announced March 21. Round-the-clock customer support in Portuguese and easier onboarding are among its upgrades. Coinbase has inked deals with Brazilian payment solutions provider Ebanx and Pix, the instant payment app operated by the Central Bank of Brazil. The new partnerships will make it easier to purchase crypto using the Brazilian real, as well as enable deposits and withdrawals from Coinbase accounts in real. Brazilians will also have easier access to opening a Coinbase account.  Coinbase has…

Crypto.com gets MVP preparatory license from Dubai regulator

Crypto.com announced it has obtained a minimal viable product (MVP) preparatory license from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA). This preparatory phase operations license came after the exchange obtained provisional approval from the Dubai regulator in 2022. In the preparatory stage, the MVP license allows the exchange to fulfill the conditions to operate within set VARA rules. The rules outline that no company may carry out, or appear to, any virtual asset activity through promotions and offers in Dubai unless it is authorized and licensed by VARA. Dubai’s VARA was…

Sam Bankman-Fried to propose revised bail package ‘by next week’

The lawyer representing crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in the ongoing FTX case will soon present a revised bail package to Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York. The move comes after Kaplan expressed displeasure about SBF’s use of encrypted-messaging apps and virtual private network (VPN) services while out on bail. Legal proceedings around FTX’s downfall led SBF to avoid possible jail time with a $250 million bail bond. However, while on bond, the entrepreneur used Signal, an end-to-end encrypted messaging service, to contact former FTX and…

Circle clears ‘substantially all’ minting and redemption backlog for USDC

Stablecoin issuer Circle has announced it has cleared “substantially all” of the backlog of redemption requests for its stablecoin USD Coin (USDC). In a March 15 operational update, Circle said between the morning of March 13 to the close of business on March 15, it had redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $0.8 billion USDC. Update: As of close of U.S. banking operations Wednesday, March 15, we have cleared substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC. Get the details: https://t.co/5WEAgPps0E — Circle (@circle) March 16,…

Do Kwon had the right idea, banks are risk to fiat-backed stablecoins: CZ

The death spiral of the Terra (LUNA) and TerraUSD (UST) ecosystem served as a catalyst to the 2022 bear market — causing losses in the millions, damaging investor sentiment and intensifying the regulatory spotlight over cryptocurrencies. However, the recent depegging of Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) led Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao to believe that traditional banks are a risk to stablecoins that are usually pegged 1:1 with fiat currencies, like the US dollar. On March 11, Circle disclosed that Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) did not process its $3.3 billion withdrawal…