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Silvergate Bank, a crypto-friendly lender that counts major crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken as clients, is expanding its SEN Leverage service. The product, which was first launched in 2017, allows the bank's customers to obtain US dollar loans collateralized by their bitcoin holdings at some crypto exchanges that Silvergate is currently serving. To do so, Silvergate partnering with the digital asset custodian Anchorage, which recently raised $40 million in a Visa co-led series B fundraising.

Genesis, Coinbase and BitGo, three of the largest digital asset platforms, have moved into the crypto prime brokerage space, as the importance of the function to attract institutional investors becomes abundantly clear. The combination of lending, custody, trading services and settlement agency services - among others - is crucial for institutional investors who do not want to deal with the current complexities of the digital asset market in its current form.

PieDAO, the decentralized organization building diversified token pools on the Balancer protocol, announced the mainnet release of its USD++ pool on Tuesday. The pool combines several of the top USD-pegged stablecoins into one tradable token. It's another example of a creative use case of the rapidly growing Balancer protocol-and of the expanding universe of ideas DAOs are working to address. The USD++ pool will contain Maker DAI, Synthetix sUSD, Tether TUSD, and Coinbase USDC.

US Dollar Coin (USDC) received a blockchain upgrade to support faster transactions on Algorand. Algorand brings over 1,000 transactions per second (versus Ethereum's 15) and transaction fees of 1/20th of a cent to the USDC ecosystem, and soon to be released innovations offer the potential of scaling throughput by 8-10x on Layer 1, accompanied by new secure smart contracts that complement standard tokens such as USDC.

Three "key values" will now steer Visa's digital currency playbook: maintaining robust data protection standards; remaining network and currency agnostic; and partnering with projects that align with the payments firm's existing expertise. Already a crypto bridge for tens of millions of merchants, Visa cast its digital currency partnerships as critical to preserving what it said was six decades of innovation. The publicly-traded firm cited its business collaborations with crypto exchange Coinbase and investment in the crypto custodian Anchorage. Visa said it is also working directly with policymakers and non-governmental organizations to "help shape the dialogue" around digital currencies, including the evolution of central bank digital currency. https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog/bdp/2020/07/21/advancing-our-approach-1595302085970.html

According to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) national banks may provide cryptocurrency custody services on behalf of customers, including by holding the unique cryptographic keys associated with cryptocurrency. The OCC also reaffirmed that national banks may provide permissible banking services to any lawful business they choose, including cryptocurrency businesses, so long as they effectively manage the risks and comply with applicable law. JP Morgan is one such national bank which provides banking services to crypto companies (eg Gemini and Coinbase). https://occ.gov/topics/charters-and-licensing/interpretations-and-actions/2020/int1170.pdf

MakerDAO is in the process of voting on whether to further diversify the collateral it accepts for loans beyond crypto-assets and tokens to include real-world assets. Specifically, Maker would also allow supply chain invoices and musicians' future royalty streams as security when it lends out DAI. These assets would be represented on the Ethereum blockchain by non-fungible tokens, the innovation that spawned CryptoKitties. Small businesses and artists could take the borrowed DAI, which usually trades 1-for-1 with the U.S. dollar, to crypto exchanges like Coinbase and convert it to cash.

Data aggregator Plaid Inc., whose software is used by apps including Venmo, Coinbase, Square, and Stripe, accesses user bank accounts and collects detailed financial information without consent, a new class suit filed in federal court claims. Plaid's software is used by more than 2,000 apps to link consumer financial accounts, and about 1 in 4 people in the U.S. have an account linked via Plaid, the suit says.

MV Index Solutions GmbH and CryptoCompare launch the MVIS CryptoCompare Bitcoin Benchmark Rate (BBR), an index designed to offer a robust hourly price for Bitcoin in USD. The raw data powering the index is derived from transaction prices across five top exchanges: Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, itBit, and Kraken. https://www.mvis-indices.com/indices/digital-assets/mvis-cryptocompare-bitcoin-benchmark-rate

USD Coin (USDC) has broken the $1 billion market capitalization barrier. Multiple factors are driving recent growth, including COVID19-related currency volatility across many developing economies, the addition of support for blockchains other than Ethereum (with Algorand being the first to join) and the adoption of USDC by Compound (a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending crypto-asset lending platform. https://compound.finance/

Coinbase CEO Tim Armstrong claimed that the U.S. Treasury is rumored to be working on a law to regulate self-hosted crypto wallets. The proposed law will require exchanges to verify the identity of users who use self-hosted wallets, before a withdrawal could be sent to their self-hosted wallet. https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1331744884856741888

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks received a letter from multiple members of Congress expressing concerns over his crypto-heavy leadership. The letter references the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's (OCC's) "recent unilateral actions in the digital financial activities space, including interpretive letters on cryptocurrency custody, stablecoins, and its announced plans to start offering special purpose 'payments' charters." https://tlaib.house.gov/media/press-releases/tlaib-lynch-lead-letter-blasting-occ-unilateral-actions-fintech-charter

A consortium of leading decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols will together provide up to $100 million in educational initiatives, grants, and incentives in an effort to educate individuals globally about decentralized finance. The initiative - built on the Celo ecosystem - aims to utilize the decentralized nature of crypto and blockchain to provide finance to the world's 6 billion mobile phone users. "Celo is an open-source blockchain ecosystem consisting of individuals and organizations who work alongside each other to promote global financial inclusion. Their conscious arm, Alliance for Prosperity, includes 150 partners such as Deutsche Telekom, Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz."

The Senate Banking Committee has sent letters to stablecoin issuers Coinbase, Gemini, Circle, Paxos, Tether, TrustToken, Centre, and Binance US, asking about general business practices and safeguards. Responses are expected by December 3. This is likely a sign of an upcoming hearing.

Facebook's Novi digital wallet app is being rolled out a small pilot in the United States and Guatemala. With it, people can send and receive money instantly, securely, and with no fees. It will use the Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin through partnerships with Paxos and Coinbase. A small cohort of users in both countries will be able to download the Novi app on iPhone or Android devices, sign up with valid government-issued ID, and add money to their accounts with a debit card. According to CEO David Marcus, USDP was chosen because it's been operating successfully for over three years and has important regulatory and consumer protection attributes. He also made it clear that Novi's support for the larger-scale Diem project hasn't changed and they intend to launch Novi with Diem once it receives regulatory approval and goes live. https://www.novi.com/file/pilot-version-of-novi-now-available

Walmart has partnered with coin-cashing machine company Coinstar and crypto-cash exchange CoinMe to set up a pilot of 200 Bitcoin ATMs in its stores across the US. The wider launch aims to eventually see the installation of 8,000 bitcoin ATMs across the country. These Bitcoin ATMs have an 11% surcharge, consisting of a 4% fee for the Bitcoin option, and an extra 7% cash exchange fee. In comparison, popular cryptocurrency trading platforms Coinbase and Binance charge 3.99% and 3% to 4.5% for credit and debit card purchases respectively.

A Bloomberg reporter tells the story of how he tried to pay all his bills in El Salvador in Bitcoin using the Chivo wallet during a five-day visit. It didn't go so well. Only 10 of almost 50 businesses had taken his Bitcoin, amounting to $485 out of $1,700 he spent. And only four crypto transactions had been entirely seamless. He also paid $40 in Bitcoin fees, such as levies for transferring the currency between Coinbase and his digital wallet. His Visa, by contrast, paid him $20 in cash-back rewards.

"A CoinDesk review of privacy policies from two dozen major crypto exchanges found the industry collects a wealth of personal information about users. Some disclose more about their practices than others."

The U.S. House of Representative's Committee on Financial Services will hold a hearing entitled, "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States" on December 8, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. ET. This hearing will have one panel with the following witnesses: Jeremy Allaire (Circle), Samuel Bankman-Fried (FTX), Brian Brooks (Bitfury), Charles Cascarilla (Paxos), Denelle Dixon (Stellar), and Alesia Jeanne Haas (Coinbase).

Also, a footnote to ruling made it clear that this was not a ruling on secondary sales of XRP, like those that take place on exchanges, "because that question is not properly before the Court." More specifically, it ruled that Ripple's XRP token does not immediately qualify as a security when it's been offered through programmatic sales to the public or distributed to employees of Ripple Labs.