TLDR Crypto 2022-05-12

Crypto exchange Mara has launched in Kenya and Nigeria. It has also announced a deal to become the official crypto partner of the Central African Republic. The platform aims to become Africa's portal to the crypto economy. It is unclear how the exchange will operate in Nigeria since the country has prohibited crypto transactions within the banking sector. The exchange will target consumers, traders, and developers and feature a range of trading options and technical analysis tools.

The Anchor Protocol community has submitted a proposal to lower minimum interest rates for UST in order to help UST recover its peg. Anchor is a decentralized finance platform where the majority of UST is staked or borrowed. It offers a yield of 18%, which is currently unsustainable with UST being depegged. The proposal suggests a temporary reduction of the yield rate to around 4%. This will prevent the Anchor reserve from depleting and help stop UST's death spiral. Another emergency proposal suggests increasing virtual liquidity for UST to LUNA swaps by a factor of 1,000.

Decentralized finance protocol Bancor has launched its Bancor 3 protocol update on mainnet. The update adds new incentives for people to use the protocol, including auto-compound earnings, dual rewards, and 100% impermanent loss protection. Impermanent loss happens when users provide liquidity to a liquidity pool and the ratio of the deposited assets changes so that the investor ends up with more of the lower value token. More about the update and how Bancor plans to raise the funds to compensate users for their impermanent loss is available in the article.

Do Kwon, founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, has proposed an increase in the supply of LUNA in order to help repeg UST. The proposal will increase LUNA's minting capacity from $293 million to $1.2 billion. It aims to absorb the stablecoin supply that wants to exit, which must be done before UST can start to repeg. If UST recovers its peg, the Terra team will begin adjusting its mechanism to be collateralized.

NFT lending is a way to make money from NFTs without selling them. While assets like Bitcoin can be sold pretty much instantly, NFTs are far more illiquid and can take months to sell. The NFT lending sector is structured around four models: peer-to-peer NFT lending, peer-to-protocol NFT lending, non-fungible debt positions, and NFT rentals. This article explains each of the models and how they can be used to make profits.

Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon was one of the pseudonymous co-founders behind the failed algorithmic stablecoin Basis Cash (BAC). BAC launched in late 2020, just before the launch of UST, and it also sought to maintain its peg through code. Its total value locked peaked at $174 million in February 2021. The project never achieved its target and was abandoned.

The fall in the price of Bitcoin has caused investors to start doubting whether El Salvador will be able to make its next debt payment. The country made Bitcoin legal tender last year and purchased nearly $25 million worth of the cryptocurrency. This resulted in the International Monetary Fund withdrawing support from the country, making it harder for the government to meet its next foreign debt payment in January 2023. Several credit agencies have downgraded the country's rating, resulting in higher interest rates.

Coinbase's first-quarter earnings release contained a message saying that customers' balances would be considered Coinbase's property in the event that it files for administration. In traditional finance, unsecured creditors and stockholders are typically out of luck if a company declares bankruptcy. Crypto holders are able to transfer their assets to non-custodial wallets to prevent losses if exchanges default. The recent bearish turn in the crypto market has affected Coinbase's financials, and the exchange has urged shareholders to view its stock as a long-term play.

Terra's LUNA token has fallen to under a dollar. It lost 32% of its value in the space of an hour. UST fell to a low of $0.30 yesterday. US Secretary Janet Yellen has pointed to UST's collapse as a reason for more stablecoin regulations to be introduced this year.