News Roundup — Uphold to end support for USDT, DAI, FRAX and other stablecoins ahead of MiCA

Major news stories this week;

1. Uphold to end support for USDT, DAI, FRAX and other stablecoins ahead of MiCA
2. Coinbase partners with payments firm Stripe
3. USDT stablecoin supply on TON blockchain crosses 500 million
4. ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova Gets New $5 Million Bounty From FBI
5. Mt. Gox to Begin Repayments in July

Story Summaries;

1. New York-based crypto exchange Uphold will discontinue support for several stablecoins, such as Tether (USDT), Dai (DAI), and Frax Protocol (FRAX), in anticipation of the upcoming Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, according to Uphold’s recent notice shared by Antony Welfare, a senior advisor to CBDC Europe and Global Partnerships at Ripple. The affected stablecoins also include Gemini Dollar (GUSD), Pax Dollar (USDP), and TrueUSD (TUSD). Starting July 1, 2024, these assets will no longer be available on Uphold. The exchange has advised customers to convert their stablecoin holdings by June 27, 2024, to avoid automatic conversion to USDC on June 28.
2. The crypto exchange giant Coinbase and payment firm Stripe have penned a partnership. Stripe will incorporate Coinbase's Layer 2 network Base into its crypto payout products, and Coinbase will add Stripe as a way for its customers to buy crypto with credit cards or Apple Pay inside the Coinbase Wallet, according to a Coinbase release published Thursday. Additionally, Coinbase customers will be able to use the stablecoin USDC via Base on Stripe to streamline fiat-to-crypto conversions and facilitate money transfers to over 150 nations, the release continues.
3. Tethers stablecoin’s USDT net circulation surpassed 500 million on the The Open Network. According to The Block’s USDT supply dashboard there were 519.28 million USDT stablecoins on the TON network as of Tuesday. This comes around two months after Tether launched the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin on TON, along with the company’s gold-backed stablecoin, XAUT. “The demand for USDT-TON is soaring, and it’s not surprising,” The Open Network announced via its official Telegram channel. “The ability to send digital dollars to anyone, anywhere, as easily as sending a text message, is a practical and real-world use case that sets USDT-TON apart.”
4. Despite reports of her death, the story of so-called “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova is not over yet, as the U.S. Department of State announced that it was raising the reward for information leading to her arrest and conviction to $5 million on Wednesday. In June 2022, Ignatova was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. While the Department of State and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation did not give a reason for the reward increase, the bounty on Ignatova was $100,000 in 2018. Still, as the mystery over her disappearance grew, law enforcement steadily increased the size of the bounty.
5. Defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox said Monday it will start to distribute assets stolen from clients in a 2014 hack in the first week of July, years after continually moving deadlines. “The Rehabilitation Trustee has been preparing to make repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash under the Rehabilitation Plan,” trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a Monday statement posted on the Mt. Gox website. “The repayments will be made from the beginning of July 2024,” Kobayashi said, adding that due diligence and certain safety steps will be required before the payments go through.

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

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