President’s Working Group on Financial Markets Publishes Stablecoin Report
The US President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) released its stablecoin report. It concluded that “the absence of appropriate [stablecoin] oversight presents risks to users and the broader system… and current oversight is inconsistent and fragmented, with some stablecoins effectively falling outside the regulatory perimeter. It called on Congress to create legislation to “require stablecoin issuers to be insured depository institutions, which are subject to appropriate supervision and regulation, at the depository institution and the holding company level.” [Read more]
Questions remain on USDC’s reserves
In August, Circle announced it would shift the assets backing its USDC stablecoin out of commercial paper and only invest in “cash and short US Treasuries.” However, although its latest attestation shows this transition is complete, it is not classifying anything that matures in 90 days or less as CP (see below). Tether is already reporting at this level of granularity, disaggregating “cash and cash equivalents” into its component parts, so why can’t Circle do the same? [Read more]
Avalanche launches fresh $220 million investment fund
The Avalanche Foundation announced a new $220 million investment fund, named Blizzard, that it hopes will attract developers focused on decentralized finance (DeFi), enterprise applications, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and culture. The program will also assist promising projects with equity investments, token purchases and other kinds of operational support. Outside funding came from Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, Republic Capital, R/Crypto Fund, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital and Finality Capital Partners. [Read more]
IMF Released the 2021 Financial Access Survey Results
The IMF released the results of the twelfth annual Financial Access Survey. The results confirm that social distancing and lockdowns have reinforced the use of digital financial services during the pandemic, while the usage of traditional financial services remained stable. The value of mobile money transactions as a share of GDP increased by 2 percentage points on average for low- and lower middle-income economies in 2020. The number and the value of mobile and internet banking transactions also grew for all country income groups, most notably among upper middle- and high-income economies. [Read more]
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