Fei Labs raises over $1.2 billion for its stablecoin project

Fei Labs raises over $1.2 billion for its stablecoin project

Fei Labs, the firm behind the Fei Protocol stablecoin, raised 639,000 ETH, roughly $1.27 billion at current prices, in commitments for its Fei Protocol stablecoin on Saturday.

The ETH raised will be used as collateral to mint Fei stablecoins. According to Fei Labs, over 17,000 unique addresses participated in the “Genesis” event of the Fei stablecoin. As The Block Research writes, the Fei stablecoin uses a “Protocol Controlled Value” to sell and buy back supply to maintain its $1 peg. The Fei Protocol also disincentivizes sellers of its stablecoin below its peg by enacting a growing burn penalty for Fei sales.

With its raise, Fei Labs also provided liquidity on Uniswap, immediately making it the largest pool on the decentralized exchange with over $2.6 billion in liquidity.

Visa supports transaction settlement with USDC stablecoin – TechCrunch

Payment card network Visa has announced that transactions can be settled using USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Crypto.com is the first company to test the new capability with its own Visa-branded cards.

USDC is a stablecoin co-founded by Circle and Coinbase and by managed the Centre consortium. As the name suggests, USDC is a cryptocurrency that follows the value of USD. One USDC is always worth one USD — hence the name stablecoin.

In order to make sure that the value of USDC remains stable, USDC partners keep USD on bank accounts every time they issue new tokens. Those accounts are audited to make sure that there are as many USDC in circulation as there are USD in those accounts.

So why do stablecoins exist even though money is mostly digital these days? Like other crypto assets, stablecoins present some flexibility when it comes to sending, receiving and storing value. You don’t need a bank account and everything can be easily programmable. And you don’t need to support legacy systems, integrate with banks and pay transaction fees to other financial institutions.

While USDC originally started as a token on top of the Ethereum blockchain, USDC also supports two other blockchains — Algorand and Stellar. Visa has chosen to focus on the Ethereum variant of USDC for now.

The payment company already supports 160 currencies across the globe. That’s why you can seamlessly use your Visa card when you travel abroad. You’ll see a card transaction in your home currency on your card statement, but the merchant gets paid in their own local currency.

Thanks to a partnership with Anchorage, Visa is adding support for its first digital currency. Anchorage recently received a federal banking charter and is positioning itself as a digital asset bank. Visa was probably looking for a trustworthy partner for this program. As Anchorage got a thumbs-up from regulators, the partnership makes sense.

For Crypto.com, it means that it can send USDC directly to Visa. For instance, if a Crypto.com customer holds USDC in their wallet and makes a card transaction, Crypto.com doesn’t have to first convert USDC tokens to USD.

It can send USDC to Visa’s Ethereum wallet address at Anchorage to settle the transaction. The merchant then gets paid by Visa in their own currency. Visa says there will be more partners down the road in addition to Crypto.com.

Early Stage is the premier “how-to” event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear firsthand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, product-market fit, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in — there’s ample time included for audience questions and discussion. Use code “TCARTICLE” at checkout to get 20% off tickets right here.

Visa settles payments in USDC stablecoin

Visa is now settling payments made by Visa partner Crypto.com in the USDC stablecoin (on the ethereum blockchain). This is a major step forward for the digital currency industry and marks one of the first instances of a legacy financial institution using digital currency in a crucial aspect of its operations–payment settlement.

“Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their business and the complexities of digital currency form factors,” said Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product officer at Visa. “The announcement today marks a major milestone in our ability to address the needs of fintechs managing their business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency, and it’s really an extension of what we do every day, securely facilitating payments in all different currencies all across the world.”

How it works

Individuals using the Crypto.com Visa card are now able to make payments in digital currency that are then converted to USDC and settled in Visa’s erc-20 USDC address. The USDC payment settlement process is far more efficient than Visa’s standard settlement process which converts digital currency into fiat currency before sending a wire payment to Visa at the end of the day to settle the payment.

Visa has chosen Anchorage as its digital currency custodian to facilitate USDC settlement.

“Anchorage’s platform has been purposefully built for institutions like Visa to build new products in crypto. We’ve been with Visa every step of the way since 2019 and are extremely pleased to see these first stablecoin payment rails come to life through Anchorage APIs,” said Diogo Mónica, Co-Founder and President of Anchorage.

Obstacles on the Horizon

Visa’s USDC integration is positive for the blockchain and digital currency space. It signals that legacy financial institutions have their eye on both industries and the benefits that they are capable of providing. However, Visa might run into trouble when using ERC-20 USDC, as the Ethereum network increases in popularity and gains more users, transaction fees on the ethereum network tend to skyrocket, making it rather expensive to send even $1 worth of USDC.

Regardless, it is good to see Visa venturing into the world of blockchain technology and exploring the advantages it can provide when it comes to payment settlement. Although Crypto.com is the only Visa partner settling payments in USDC at the moment, Visa says it plans to offer the USDC settlement option to more of its partners later this year.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.