2023-02-23

📫 Sweet Music and Stablecoins

February 23, 2023

Howdy DailyCoiners,Welcome to Thursday’s installment of juicy crypto news.There are some very interesting stories in the press today, I was spoilt for choice.

However, these three are super fascinating.Let’s get into it!

USDC Issuer Bucks Trend and Increases Staff Numbers
Spotify Explore NFT Integration
Could COTI Come to Binance’s Aid?

Circle Provides Some Light on the Crypto Jobs Market

While it seems like companies are laying people off left, right, and center, Circle (the issuer of USDC), has announced plans to increase its workforce by 15-25%.Currently, Circle employs around 900 people. With the plans they have put in place, the stablecoin issuer will see numbers swell by between 135 and 225 people.

The good news comes just a couple of months after the issuer of the second-largest stablecoin canceled it’s plans to go public.

When it was first announced on July 2021, the company was valued at $4.5 billion, which was amended in February 2022 to a whopping $9 billion.

Jeremy Fox-Green (Cirlce’s chief financial officer) confirmed they do still plan to go public, they wisely want to wait for better market conditions.

He also added that the crypto industry needs more time to distance itself from the very public embarrassments that were the Terra and FTX crashes. The public-market investors need to see strength in crypto to build their trust up again.

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Spotify to Trial Token-Gated Playlists

Music streaming giant Spotify is experimenting with how they can integrate NFTs into their platform.

One such experiment includes token-gated playlists, where holders of a specific NFT gain access to exclusive content and playlists.

Spotify is initially working with a startup called Overlord, with the pilot being available in the U.S., UK, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. It is currently only available on Android and for people holding Creepz NFTs.

Creepz NFT holders can access curated playlists unavailable to non-holders.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club derivative music group Kingship also participates in the trial. A playlist will be made exclusively available to Kingship Key Card NFT holders.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…when highly recognized Web2 players enter Web3, that's when mass adoption happens.That's sweet music to my ears!

Could It Be COTI Who Save Binance?

Since U.S. regulators effectively canceled Binance’s Paxos-issued stablecoin (BUSD), CEO and all-around crypto legend Changpeng Zhao (AKA @CZ_binance) has been on the search for a replacement.

While the most successful stablecoins to date are all pegged to the US Dollar, recent actions from U.S. regulators have caused a bit of a ripple through the industry, with stablecoin issuers looking for certainty.Kevin Zhang, DFX Finance cofounder, Kevin Zhang said:“Stablecoin issuers are looking for ways to properly get regulated without making numerous assumptions and spending insane amounts of money on lawyers to provide opinions.”So, where does COTI come into the equation?COTI’s MultiDAG ecosystem is already regulation ready and is set up for stablecoin issuance built in. They recently successfully launched Djed, the first major stablecoin on Cardano.

Binance’s chief strategy officer, Patrick Hillmann. “There are very interesting opportunities, particularly in Europe and the Middle East,” COTI is based in Israel. Fun Fact: Israel just announced its own principles for regulating stablecoin issuance in the country.

COTI and Binance already have a strong relationship with COTI being added to Binance Pay last year and COTI being listed on both Binance and Binance US.Oh, and also…COTI CEO Shahaf Bar-Geffen said in a recent video on the COTI YouTube Channel that they were talking to Binance about issuing their next stablecoin.One thing for certain, whoever gets the nod to issue a Binance stablecoin is going to be very happy!