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Messaging app Signal, which now has around 40 million users, is exploring the addition of payments into the app. Significant engineering resources have reportedly been devoted to integrating privacy-focused Stellar blockchain-based payment system MobileCoin into Signal. Adding credence to this story is that Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike serves as a technical adviser to MobileCoin, although he played it down, saying that the company had only done some "design explorations" around the idea.

"Signal just blew a huge hole in its credibility, when it announced on Sunday 4 April that the Signal app would be getting a payments interface - using a cryptocurrency. Specifically, its founder's own cryptocurrency."

"Signal recently launched a beta integration of MobileCoin (MOB) for payments. Its price has jumped from $7 to over $55 in the past month. Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike, whom MobileCoin previously described as a technical adviser, may have been more deeply involved in the cryptocurrency project. An earlier, nearly identical white paper found online, which MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard called "erroneous," lists Marlinspike as the project's original CTO."

Signal is rolling out the ability for U.K. users to send money to one another from within their iOS and Android app. To do so, it has integrated support for the crypto-asset MobileCoin, a form of digital cash designed to work efficiently on mobile devices while protecting users' privacy and anonymity. Unlike payment features integrated into other messaging apps like WhatsApp or iMessage, it doesn't link to a user's bank account.

What is worth underscoring is that Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal and CEO of the nonprofit that runs it, was a paid advisor to MobileCoin. In fact, he was the original CTO of the company, according to an early MobileCoin white paper.

The halving may turn out to be negative for Bitcoin (BTC) prices, as analysts suspect the recent price slide was triggered by a "miner capitulation." A signal based on hash ribbons, a measure of mining activity, signals more selling may be in store.

In the Spring of 2021, the encrypted communications app Signal added a payments feature in beta for its UK users, testing out integration with MobileCoin privacy-focused cryptocurrency. However, since mid-November, this feature has become accessible to all of its users, offering the ability to send MobileCoin to millions of phones. The MobileCoin wallet can be accessed within a message by tapping the "+" icon and then "payment" although users in some countries (e.g., the US) have no way of loading the cryptocurrency into the wallet yet.

"In an effort to restrict supply and raise the value of DAI, MKR token holders have steadily been increasing what is known as the Stability Fee in larger and larger increments. However, this week, MKR token holders have signaled their support for a smaller, more measured increase to the Stability Fee of 3 percent."

An Indian government panel has recommended banning all private cryptocurrencies and a jail term of up to 10 years and heavy fines for anyone dealing in digital currencies, which could signal the end of them in India.

In Facebook's vision, the actual end-to-end encryption client itself such as WhatsApp will include embedded content moderation and blacklist filtering algorithms. These algorithms will be continually updated from a central cloud service, but will run locally on the user's device, scanning each cleartext message before it is sent and each encrypted message after it is decrypted... Of course alternatives like Signal will exist for those who don't want to be subject to Facebook's content moderation, but what happens when this filtering technology is built into operating systems?

Convertibility will be the most important factor in influencing demand for a retail central bank digital currency, according to a new poll conducted by the Bank of England.

When bitcoin advocates claim adoption is surging in developing countries, particularly during periods of political unrest or economic turmoil, their go-to source for evidence is often the LocalBitcoins P2P exchange. But a closer look at the way this data is collected shows substantial noise mixed in with the signals, undermining the claims of growing crypto use empowering the downtrodden.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has identified certain behaviors and characteristics that serve as red flags for regulators trying to detect illegal or illicit transactions. One of the primary methods is to compare a user's transaction activity with that of their profile. This can include instances where a deposit or transaction amount is inconsistent with a user's available wealth or historical financial activity, perhaps signaling money laundering, a scam or a money mule. Other red flags include whether the person in question is much older than the average age of a crypto user, as well as if they have a criminal record or have been active on websites and public forums associated with illicit activity. Other red flags include instances where users send crypto to exchanges with no known KYC/AML checks, or where they are sending transactions that are just below the Travel Rule threshold. Regulators might also look at users who exchange digital assets on public and transparent blockchains (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) for privacy coins, like monero or zcash, which obfuscate or withhold transaction activity from third parties. http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/methodsandtrends/documents/virtual-assets-red-flag-indicators.html

Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and signaled its intent to begin accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment, sending prices to a new record after the vote of confidence from the electric-car market leader. "In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future. Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt." https://sec.report/Document/0001564590-21-004599/

Stablecoin transfer patterns show that different stablecoins are potentially being used for different purposes, and are favored in different parts of the world. USDT-ETH transfers are concentrated during Asian and European market hours. USDC transfers are also clustered during Asian market hours, but not as densely packed as USDT-ETH. PAX transfers are more dispersed, which could signal that it is being used for non-institutional purposes. And DAI transfers mostly occur during U.S. hours.

MakerDAO's latest spike comes amid a community vote showing strong support for supporting non-crypto-native assets as collateral for the creation of DAI. Currently, MakerDAO users can lock up Ether, Wrapped Bitcoin, Basic Attention Tokens, or the stablecoin USD Coin to fund DAI loans. The vote signaled support for a protocol developed by blockchain startup Centrifuge that would allow "real-world assets" to be tokenized as ERC-20-based securities that can be used as collateral for DAI minting.

Bitcoin has created a new level of transparency and auditability previously unknown in financial and economic data. Since all Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a public ledger, we can analyze activity in a relatively comprehensive fashion. By creating metrics and analytics using data straight from the Bitcoin blockchain, we can gain novel insights into investors' behavior that are not possible with traditional, non-crypto assets.There are a variety of different on-chain metrics that we can use to gauge bitcoin market cycles and signal when price is nearing local maximums and minimums.

Lending Club will cease offering Retail Notes as of the end of 2020, signalling a dramatic shift entirely away from the peer to peer (P2P) lending model under which the company was launched. Over the years, the online lender has utilized a marketplace model as more institutional money funded loans originated on the platform with the retail investor becoming a smaller segment of overall lending. The company said "unfortunately, under a prospective banking framework, it is not economically practical for LendingClub to continue to offer Notes." https://help.lendingclub.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050574891-Important-Updates-to-the-LendingClub-Notes-Platform

Digital asset custodian Anchorage is seeking a national charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). A banking charter would give Anchorage the clear authority to act as a "qualified custodian" for institutional investors under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules. Most crypto custody firms in the U.S. have trust company licenses, but the SEC has signaled that it is unsure whether such entities, regulated at the state level and less stringently than banks, make the cut as qualified custodians. https://apps.occ.gov/CAAS_CATS/CAAS_Details.aspx?FilingTypeID=23&FilingID=317667&FilingSubtypeID=1117 https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement-im-finhub-wyoming-nal-custody-digital-assets

Bank Negara Malaysia "is actively assessing the value proposition of central bank digital currency (CBDC) to Malaysia," it said in an email to Bloomberg. "While a decision has not been made to issue CBDC, we have focused our research on CBDC via proof-of-concept and experimentation to enhance our technical and policy capabilities, should the need to issue CBDC arise in the future." The central bank first signaled CBDC exploration intent in their 2020 annual report.