A new stablecoin from the creators of the unstable USDN and Binance’s murky business: top crypto and Web3 news for December 20

A new day, new challenges, and new swings. While we were recovering from the FTX collapse, new “adventures” apparently awaited us. And quite possibly, there will be news from Binance (let’s hope not). Of the good things: blockchains and projects of different Layers are developing and trying to be more convenient and cheaper for users. Read more in our traditional news digest of the day.

OKX will list BNB

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced the listing of the token Binance BNB. Trading will open on the spot market on December 21 in pairs BNB/USDT and BNB/USDC. Deposits are already available.

Reuters’ special report on Binance reveals much interest

Here are the keynotes from the article:

• Binance refuses to disclose where Binance.com is located and does not disclose basic financial information: revenue, profits and cash reserves. 
• The company has its own cryptocurrency but does not disclose what role it plays in its balance sheet. 
• The exchange lends customers money against their crypto assets and allows them to engage in margin trading with borrowed funds. But the documents don’t specify how much of that business it does. There is no exact information on how much risk Binance is exposed to and whether their reserves cover the full amount to fund withdrawals.
• Binance has not raised outside capital since 2018.
• Many of the exchange’s local units are inactive. Former regulators and former Binance executives say these businesses serve as a front for the main unregulated exchange.

Waves must be joking

Waves founder Sasha Ivanov announced the launch of a new stablecoin. A solution will be found for the unpegged USDN situation before the launch. The price of Neutrino USD has once again fallen and is around $0.58. During the previous week, the USDN token lost 37% of its value. South Korea issued an “investment warning” regarding this stablecoin. 

Visa goes deeper into Web3

Payment processor Visa has proposed a solution known as “account abstraction,” which uses smart contracts that can be used to enable automatic programmable payments in Ethereum.

Such a move would allow regular payments to be made entirely over blockchain networks, which currently lack this capability. The company offered to deploy the solution on Ethereum’s Layer-2 network, StarkNet.

ORBS on TON

According to The Orbs Network’s announcement, the token ORBS has been added to the list of assets supported by Orbit Bridge Ozys. Starting in December 2022, ORBS is available on The Open Network through all of its decentralized applications (dApps).

In addition, the ORBS token will be available on Megaton Finance, the first decentralized cryptocurrency exchange protocol with an automated market-making mechanism (AMM DEX) on The Open Network (TON). The exchange will be launched in January 2023.