News Roundup — US monetary policy has biggest impact on stablecoin market cap

Major news stories this week;

1. ECB study: US monetary policy has biggest impact on stablecoin market cap
2. Crypto.com sues SEC after receiving a Wells notice from the agency
3. OKX secures full UAE license, opens retail and institutional trading
4. Argentina overtakes Brazil in crypto inflows — Chainalysis
5. Uniswap launches its own layer-2, Unichain

Story Summaries;

1. The European Central Bank (ECB) released a paper examining the relationship between monetary policy, money market funds (MMFs), and stablecoins. Contrary to popular belief, the ECB found that stablecoins are not a safe haven in turbulent markets, with U.S. monetary policy being a key driver of stablecoin volumes. A rise in interest rates, for example, led to a 10% drop in stablecoin capitalization over 12 weeks, significantly more than the impact of a crypto-specific shock.The same rate hike boosted volumes in prime MMFs due to their relative attractiveness compared to bank rates, while non-prime MMFs saw an initial drop before stabilizing. Additionally, ECB Director Piero Cipollone outlined a vision for a Digital Capital Markets Union centered on a European Ledger for tokenization.
2. Crypto.com is suing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after receiving a Wells notice, indicating the SEC plans to take enforcement action against the company. The platform argues that the SEC has overstepped its jurisdiction and criticized its approach to regulating cryptocurrencies, calling it unauthorized and unjust. Crypto.com is not the first to sue the SEC; ConsenSys and Coinbase have also filed lawsuits, challenging the SEC’s stance on categorizing cryptocurrencies like ether as securities and the lack of clear rules for digital assets.
3. Crypto exchange OKX launched its trading platform for retail and institutional investors in the United Arab Emirates after securing a full license.The crypto exchange said UAE residents who completed the mandatory onboarding steps on the OKX website or application can access its services. This includes spot trading, express buy and sell, conversion and onchain earning products.In addition, the trading platform said that qualified traders and institutional investors who meet certain criteria will be given access to derivatives trading on the platform.
4. Argentina, one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency markets, has overtaken Brazil as the top Latin American (Latam) country in terms of estimated crypto inflows by users.Crypto users in Argentina deposited the largest amount of crypto in Latam between July 2023 and June 2024, with inflows totaling $91 billion, Chainalysis reported on Oct. 9.With an estimated $91 billion in crypto inflows, Argentina has overtaken Brazil in terms of total crypto value received, ranking slightly ahead of Brazil’s estimated $90 billion during the period
5. Uniswap, the most popular decentralized exchange (DEX), has launched its own application-specific layer-2 blockchain network, Unichain, developer Uniswap Labs announced on Oct. 10.According to Uniswap Labs, Unichain will initially feature 1 second block times. It eventually plans to cut block times to less than 250 milliseconds. Unichain will enable traders to access liquidity from other layer-2 networks in Optimism’s superchain.

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And that’s all for last week’s news! Wishing you a great week ahead!

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