We round up the week’s most important crypto-industry news.
- Coinbase identified directions for geographic expansion and projects in Layer 2-network Base, which will receive funding.
- Kraken added PayPal deposit support for residents of the EU and the UK.
- OKX and Circle integrated USDC into the OKX Wallet and the OKX DEX aggregator.
- BitGo struck a deal with Hana Bank of South Korea to launch a crypto custody service.
- Binance and Bitget released a fresh reserve assessment.
Coinbase identifies geographic expansion priorities
Coinbase’s vice presidents of international business and international policy, Nana Murugesan and Tom Duff Gordon, highlighted the EU, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Singapore and Australia as “priority markets in the near term.”
The choice is driven by a well-developed regulatory framework. The company will focus on “obtaining licenses, registration, establishing and strengthening operations” in the specified jurisdictions. The initiative forms part of the second stage of the Go Broad, Go Deep expansion programme.
Globally, countries are vying to become crypto hubs. Regulatory clarity has emerged in the EU, UAE, China (HK), Singapore, Australia and Canada, to name a few.
— Coinbase ?️ (@coinbase) September 7, 2023
Coinbase Ventures released the first investments from the Base Ecosystem fund in six projects:
- Avantis and BSX — decentralized exchanges;
- Onboard is developing a non-custodial wallet focused on developing markets;
- OpenCover is working on aggregating insurance data for L2 protocols in collaboration with Nexus Mutual;
- Paragraph is building an online platform for content;
- Truflation — a network of blockchain oracles specialising in producing independent daily inflation data.
Investment amounts were not disclosed. The Base-focused L2 support structure attracted more than 800 applications.
Kraken added PayPal deposit support for EU and UK residents
Kraken added PayPal deposit support for users in the UK and Europe, excluding Hungary and Croatia. Funds are credited to accounts almost instantly.
As of writing, the service is available in the platform’s latest mobile app version. Daily limits of £1,000 ($1,250) apply.
Earlier, Kraken added PayPal USD (PYUSD) support.
OKX and Circle integrated USDC into OKX Wallet and the OKX DEX aggregator
The USDC issuer Circle and the OKX exchange integrated the stablecoin into the OKX Wallet and the OKX DEX aggregator.
From 7 September to 5 October 2023, smart accounts on OKX Wallet users will be able to transact in US dollars without network fees. The feature is based on account abstraction technology. Users will also be able to swap USD across networks using the built-in exchange.
Thanks to the collaboration, users will also be able to perform cross-chain USDC swaps between Ethereum, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Optimism. The capability is enabled by the CCTP protocol.
BitGo reached an agreement with Hana Bank to launch a crypto custody service
Hana Bank of South Korea struck a deal with crypto custodian BitGo to launch a digital asset custody service in the second half of 2024.
The collaboration envisages the possibility of forming a joint venture to leverage the bank’s experience in financial services and regulatory compliance, with BitGo’s expertise in crypto security.
In June 2023 the South Korean Parliament enacted a digital assets user protection law. The document consolidated 19 different crypto-related bills. It introduces the concept of digital assets and defines liability for offences such as insider trading, market manipulation and unfair trading practices.
In August, BitGo closed a financing round worth $100 million, valuing the company at $1.75 billion.
Binance and Bitget publish a fresh reserve assessment
The cryptocurrency exchange Binance released its monthly Proof-of-Reserves (PoR) report — it holds 618,126 BTC (~$15.9 billion) on its balance sheet to back customer deposits of 588,171 BTC (~$15.1 billion).
In Binance’s PoR, only 31 tokens out of 350 listed on the platform are shown. For the PoR, the exchange uses a zero-knowledge proof— zk-SNARK. This method prevents disclosure of customer data.
Bitget also published its PoR. The overall reserve ratio stood at 208%, according to the document.
Also on ForkLog:
- MetaMask added fiat withdrawal function.
- Coinbase launched a lending service focused on institutions.
- Binance top executives left the Russian arm.
- Trading volume on OpenSea reached a two-year low.
- Riot Platforms earned $31 million from bitcoin-miner outages.
- Genesis sued DCG over unpaid loans of $600 million.
- Cronos Labs launched a $100 million acceleration programme.
What to read this weekend?
Cryptocurrencies as a means of payment are advancing rapidly. In some countries it has become routine to scan a QR code at the till and pay with stablecoins for purchases. ForkLog studied the statistics and spoke to businesses of varying sizes to explain how the technology is being adopted: