Shopify Joins Libra, Because Why Just Be Tech When You Can Be A Bank Too?
Plus central bank digital currency launches and massive exchange fundraising valuations
Happy early weekend, Blockfolians!
The Lede
After months of headlines of members leaving, the Libra Association surprised today with a bit of good news: Shopify are bringing their 1m+ stores to the fold. In many ways, this seems like a more natural fit for a novel, vanguard-of-finance group like Libra than some of their initial legacy institution partners.
P.S. Cheers to TechCrunch for this epic picture.
Highly Relevant Reading
🇸🇪Sweden launches digital currency pilot | Speaking of Libra, despite regulatory hangups, Libra continues to spark action among governments around the world. In announcing its new e-krona yesterday, Sweden said that it would “reduce the risk of the krona’s position being weakened by competing private currency alternatives.”
🇲🇹Where the world is Binance? | About a year after a PR tour touting the benefits of Malta, that country’s financial regulator said the company was not authorized to operate there. CZ then said they had never been there in the first place and the whole thing was weird. We’re not sure why it matters, but damn does this company command a news cycle.
😖IOTA to resume mainnet March 2 | IOTA went offline last week after a hack stole some $2m worth of the currency. The IOTA Foundation said that the network would be reactivated by the beginning of next month. Ouch.
Community Commentary
MyCrypto’s Taylor Monahan wrote a serious debrief about risk in DeFi via the Our Network newsletter
As debate rages about the bitcoin halving, Kraken enters the fray
A Really Big Number You Should Be Paying Attention To
$1,000,000,000+
That’s the valuation 9-month old derivatives exchange FTX is looking for in its current fundraise. We told you their Presidential election futures were hot fire. J/K…it’s probably more about their $1.5B in derivatives volumes…🤷♂️
Final Thought
Tell us how you really feel, Jimmy.