7HOT CRYPTO HEADLINES

Weekly Crypto News Highlights

Hello Bitcoinaire,

It’s Friday again.

As we roundup this week;

Here are some top 7 most trending cryptocurrency news/headlines for the week.

Canadian leadership debate reveals massive Bitcoin ignorance among candidates

The Conservative Party of Canada held a leadership debate in Edmonton on May 11, with Bitcoin among the many topics discussed by the six hopefuls.

Tackling the issue of finance, Pierre Poilievre said he would replace the current Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem over his handling of the cost of living crisis if elected Prime Minister.

“The Bank of Canada governor has allowed himself to become the ATM machine of this government. And so, I would replace him with a new governor who would reinstate our low inflation mandate.”

Tied with this issue is Bitcoin (BTC), or more appropriately, the understanding of it demonstrated by the candidates. Unfortunately, Poilievre was the only candidate able to articulate an understanding of the broader issues in play.

Hold on to your hats, Tether USDT shows signs of de-pegging on exchanges.

The price of Tether has sunk as low as $0.9663 causing concern that worse is to come.

The value of Tether (USDT) stablecoin against the U.S. dollar is seeing significant downward pressure on exchanges and has fallen below its $1 peg price.

May 11 saw a 0.8% swing to the downside before closing the day at $0.9958. However, there was a massive 3% downward swing on May 12, with the $0.9663 level providing support as of press time.

Stablecoins under the spotlight

With crypto markets still reeling from the unfolding Terra UST disaster, another stablecoin de-pegging could spell further trouble.

Terra’s UST is an algorithmic stablecoin, which, instead of being backed by assets, relies on an algorithm that incentivizes traders to maintain the peg.

Michael Saylor joyous at FASB decision to review crypto accounting rules

FASB previous guidelines provide that companies should report digital assets and commodities as “intangible assets” on their balance sheets.

The Chief Executive Officer of MicroStrategy and Bitcoin maximalist Michael Saylor has expressed excitement about the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) decision to review rules for crypto.

FASB to review crypto accounting framework

The current FASB guidelines provide that companies should report digital assets and commodities as “intangible assets” on their balance sheets. This is because cryptocurrencies don’t meet the standard definition of “cash and cash equivalents, financial instruments, financial assets, and inventory.”

The rule means that companies like MicroStrategy, which has most of its assets in Bitcoin, can’t report crypto as a tangible asset on its balance sheet. Companies holding intangible assets must measure them using the lowest price within the reporting period.

TerraForm Labs proposes to burn $1.3B in UST to save LUNA

Terraform Labs scrambles to save LUNA with another burn proposal that sacrifices roughly 8% of the total supply of UST.

Terraform Labs proposed to burn a total of $1.3 billion worth of UST to save LUNA to combat the current crisis.

A three-step emergency plan was posted on the project’s Twitter account, which included proposal 1188 — to burn the remaining UST in the community pool and the cross-chain.

Hoskinson blasts VCs, ‘Wall Street types’ for the downturn in crypto markets.

Charles Hoskinson drops some truth bombs regarding the market downturn and how VCs and 'Wall Street types' are responsible.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson posted a video on Wednesday sharing his views on the crypto market downturn.

He said, being in crypto for over ten years, he’s seen it all twice. Nothing fazes him or any of the ‘old guard’ anymore. Adding that, adverse events, be they the collapse of a stablecoin or a project exit scam, do not mean it’s the end of crypto.

“The new people, the minute that something occurs, like for example, the collapse of a stablecoin or the collapse of Bitconnect or these types of things, then they say, this is the end of crypto…”

This situation has created a disparity between institutions and retail. Retail investors choose to hold on because they wish to opt-out of a broken system. But, at the same time, they are suffering due to their conviction on the matter.

Terra founder reportedly has link to failed stablecoin, Basis Cash

Basis Cash is an algorithmic stablecoin pegged against the US dollar that failed to achieve stability against the dollar.

A former Terra Labs employee has reportedly revealed that Terra co-founder Do Kwon was one of the creators of Basis Cash. This algorithmic stablecoin failed last year, a Coindesk report has revealed.

Citing a former engineer at Terraform Labs, Hyungsuk Kang, the report stated that Basis Cash was, in fact, the early works of Terra creators, including Kwon.

The revelation is coming amidst the crash of UST, which lost its peg against the dollar a few days ago. This is a case of history repeating itself given that the same thing happened with Basis Cash.

Per the report, a group of anonymous developers launched Basis Cash on Ethereum in 2020 as an algorithmic stablecoin pegged against the US dollar.

But it failed to achieve that stability against the dollar, dropping below the peg in early 2021. As of press time, the stablecoin was trading below a cent.

Global Esports Federation launches Metaverse Council

Metaverse council will attempt to focus on shaping the future of global initiatives

The Global Esports Federation, whose goal is to become officially recognized as the governing body for the esports ecosystem, has formed a metaverse council to “focus on shaping tangible metaverse development initiatives for our global community.”

The council is to be made up of blockchain experts, NFT developers, and social media influencers. Paul  J. Foster, CEO of the GEF, commented,

“We’ve established the GEF Metaverse Council to cultivate ideas, voice, and shape to our metaverse reality; and to access the limitless opportunities for our entire #worldconnected community”

The council

Hugo Philion, CEO of blockchain interoperability project, Flare, will chair the council. According to its whitepaper, Flare claims to offer a “scaling method for smart contract networks without relying on economic safety mechanisms.”

Philion’s role as chair should bring some gravitas to the council, given his ability to deal with cross-chain matters rather than being a single chain expert. Philion commented,

“Esports presents boundless potential and a world of opportunities for blockchain applications.”

So, we wrap up this week’s crypto headlines here.

This is me on behalf of the entire Koinwa team, wishing you a pleasant weekend.

Best regards!

Saviour!