The company behind stablecoin USD Coin is to launch Euro Coin, a euro-backed stablecoin, this month.
Available from June 30th, Circle says the regulated Euro Coin will follow the same full-reserve model as USDC, which is pegged to the US dollar.
It says it aims to usher in on-chain euro liquidity and unlock new opportunities for near-instant digital forex, bridging crypto-native and traditional financial services.
Businesses will be able to use EUROC tokens to accept and make euro payments globally that can settle in minutes, and access crypto capital markets for trading, borrowing and lending.
Euro Coin is fully-backed by euro-denominated reserves held conservatively in the custody of leading financial institutions within the US regulatory perimeter, beginning with Silvergate Bank.
“Circle has set industry-leading standards for moving financial value across the internet with USDC,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle.
“There is clear market demand for a digital currency denominated in euros, the world’s second-most traded currency after the US dollar.
“With USDC and Euro Coin, Circle is helping to unlock a new era of fast, inexpensive, secure and interoperable value exchange worldwide.”
USDC has around $54 billion in circulation.
Euro Coin will initially launch on the Ethereum blockchain starting on June 30, with support for additional blockchains expected later this year. As an Ethereum ERC-20 standard token, Euro Coin will work broadly with ERC-20 compatible wallets, protocols and other blockchain services.
A number of ecosystem leaders will support Euro Coin at launch, including Anchorage Digital, Binance.US, Bitstamp, Compound, Curve, CYBAVO, DFX, Fireblocks, FTX, Huobi Global, Ledger, MetaMask Institutional and Uniswap Protocol.
Euro Coin will be available to institutional customers via a free Circle Account starting June 30th, 2022. Developers can begin integrating with the Euro Coin smart contract immediately, ahead of the official launch.
Animoca Brands swoops for EdTech TinyTap in $39m deal
Blockchain games company Animoca Brands has acquired Israeli EdTech leader TinyTap in a $39 million deal.
The Hong Kong company, which advances digital property rights for gaming and the metaverse, now owns 84% of TinyTap and says it is entering the EdTech sector to ‘provide an alternative global system owned by educators’.
TinyTap is a user-generated content educational technology company that provides a no-code platform enabling educators to create and distribute interactive educational content while earning a usage-based revenue share.
Animoca Brands will leverage the acquisition of TinyTap to establish a new business segment for blockchain-based UGC educational content that will allow educators worldwide to generate their own equity.
“Educators number among the most prolific creators and traders of content,” said Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands. “Despite the fact that teaching is among the most important professions, educators generally struggle with funding and resources.
“Our goal is to mitigate some of the challenges faced by teachers everywhere. With our acquisition of TinyTap – a strong and proven leader in the field of UGC education – we will leverage blockchain to make new opportunities available to educators worldwide, allowing them to generate equity from their creations while offering parents enhanced learning opportunities for their kids.”
TinyTap was founded in 2012 and currently employs 30 staff.
More than 8.2 million families registered on TinyTap are able to learn from more than 200,000 interactive lessons and educational games created by publishers such as Oxford University Press, The Learning Company, and Sesame Street, in addition to more than 100,000 other publishers and independent contributors on the platform.
Cryptocurrency shorts
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban expects many of the 20,000 cryptocurrency projects which are currently listed to eventually fall by the wayside. “In stocks and crypto, you will see companies that were sustained by cheap, easy money – but didn’t have valid business prospects – will disappear… like [Warren] Buffett says: ‘When the tide goes out, you get to see who is swimming naked.’”
Should his Twitter takeover go through, Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk plans to make the social platform more ‘useful’ by enabling crypto payments between users. He reportedly told Twitter staff: “So the goal, my goal, would be to maximise the usefulness of the service – the more useful it is, the better. And if one can use it to make convenient payments, that’s an increase in usefulness.”
Musk is facing a $258 billion lawsuit that alleges he and his companies Tesla and SpaceX were “engaged in a crypto pyramid scheme by way of Dogecoin cryptocurrency”. Keith Johnson, an American citizen, alleges he was defrauded out of money and is seeking $86bn damages, with another $172bn on behalf of a group of investors who allegedly lost money after trading the meme coin.
The states of Texas, New Jersey, and Alabama are investigating the decision by crypto lender Celsius Network to block consumer withdrawals.
Tag Heuer’s Connected Calibre E4 smartwatch collection will allow users to display the NFTs they own on the watch face.
Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the more than 19,900 coins is at $899.46 billion at the time of writing (7am UK), a 4.7% decrease in the last 24 hours.
Market leader Bitcoin – the original cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – lost 5% in the last 24 hours to below $20,800. BTC is 31% down in a week.
Ethereum, the second most valuable crypto coin – created as a decentralised network for smart contracts on the blockchain – shed 7% to $1,100. ETH is 39% down over the course of a week.
Binance Coin is a cryptocurrency created by popular crypto exchange Binance to assist its aim in becoming the infrastructure services provider for the entire blockchain ecosystem. Its BNB token lost 5% to $216, leaving it 26% down over seven days.
Cardano is an open source network facilitating dApps which considers itself to be an updated version of Ethereum. Its ADA token, designed to allow owners to participate in the operation of the network, fell 4% to 49 cents and is 21% down over the course of a week.
The XRP token of Ripple, a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, acts as a bridge for transfers between other currencies. XRP shed 2% to below 33c and its price is 19% down on seven days ago.
Solana is a blockchain built to make decentralised finance accessible on a larger scale – and capable of processing 50,000 transactions per second. Its SOL token fell 9% to $30.79 and is 24% down compared with a week ago.
Meme coin DOGE was created as a satire on the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies but is now a major player in the space. DOGE lost 4% to 5.7c, leaving it 29% down in a week.
Polkadot was founded by the Swiss-based Web3 Foundation as an open-source project to develop a decentralised web. Its DOT token, which aims to securely connect blockchains, shed 9% to $7.26 and is 22% lower than its price a week ago.
Avalanche is a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments. Its AVAX token fell 8% to $16.18 and is 34% down in a week.
To see how the valuations of the main coins have changed in recent times – and for round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments – click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.