Coindesk

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has formed a strategic partnership with stablecoin giant Circle to accelerate global adoption of the USDC stablecoin, the companies said on Wednesday at Abu Dhabi Finance Week.Through the partnership, Circle's USDC will be more extensively available to over 240 million customers for trading, savings and payments. Binance will also adopt the second-largest stablecoin as "a vital dollar stablecoin" for its own corporate treasury, according to a press release."Through our strategic partnership, our users will have even more opportunities to use USDC on our platform, including more USDC trading pairs, special promotions on USDC across trading, and other products on Binance," Binance CEO Richard Teng said in a statement.Staunch competition for growth exists between Circle,...

“Good artists copy, great artists steal,” was a favorite saying of Apple's Steve Jobs to explain his company's blatant copying of technology from Xerox.Fast forward to the Web3 era, and BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz, who was appointed to the role in late 2022, says he's fine with competitors copying the crypto exchange's invention of the perpetual swap, the financial instrument that underpins the crypto derivatives market. The more traders access the tool, the healthier the market, the logic goes.“It was copied by everyone, because that’s just open-source know-how," Lutz said in an interview with CoinDesk. The whole world works on it, which is like the best form of flattery we can wish for in the end.”Unlike futures — which are...

Early traders of NFT marketplace Magic Eden's new token ME had a lot to be thankful for – if they could access their airdrops, that is.In the first minutes of trading Tuesday, the token's fully diluted valuation hit $15 billion. But as more claimants managed to process their airdrops – and in some lucky cases, sell – that valuation began to crater. It eventually settled at an FDV around $5 billion.ME's rocky rollout stood in sharp contrast to other recent token launches. Hyperliquid's HYPE token immediately went parabolic after launching in late November. And Move's days-old MOVE token had a far more stable rollout – even shooting up at times.Some observers saw ME's down-only price action as comeuppance for a...

El Salvador and Argentina are partnering to help develop the crypto industry in Latin America.Juan Carlos Reyes, El Salvador’s top crypto regulator and president of the Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD), and Roberto Silva, the president of the Comisión Nacional de Valores of Argentina (CNV), on Tuesday signed an agreement for the two countries to collaborate on crypto regulation.“At CNAD we have two core objectives, when it comes to international collaboration,” Reyes told CoinDesk in an email. “To share our expertise with international partners, enabling them to harness the benefits of a well-regulated industry. … to broaden the international footprint of our regulated companies by forging strategic partnership agreements with nations worldwide.”“This landmark agreement with Argentina holds particular...

Tether's stablecoin USD₮ has been recognized as an accepted virtual asset in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the company announced on Tuesday.The approval from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority means that companies which are licensed can offer pre-approved USD₮ services in Abu Dhabi's Global Market. Though, the release did not say what those approved services might be. CoinDesk reached out to Tether for comment.Tether 's USD₮ exceeded a $138 billion market cap but the company wants to continue advancing its growth, the statement said.“By bringing USD₮ to the forefront of ADGM’s regulated virtual asset framework, we are not only validating the importance of stablecoins as critical tools for modern finance but also opening new doors for collaboration and growth...