The cryptocurrency business is thriving, but a lot of things are happening, including, Microsoft reportedly testing Edge browser Web3 wallet integration, Bitcoin dominance rising to a 9-Month high, Polygon partnering with Salesforce, and much more!
In this issue:
- Microsoft is reportedly testing Edge browser Web3 wallet integration.
- U.S Fed and other Central banks take coordinated action to assure Dollar liquidity.
- Bitcoin dominance rises to a 9-Month high as Altcoins retrace.
- Russia is expanding the concept of the digital Ruble to replace cash.
- Ethereum’s Shanghai Hard Fork now has an official target date.
- Arbitrum to airdrop $ARB tokens in March.
- Polygon partners with Salesforce for an NFT-based loyalty program.
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Microsoft is reportedly testing Edge browser Web3 wallet integration.
Microsoft is reportedly working on integrating a crypto and nonfungible token (NFT) friendly Web3 wallet into its Edge web browser.
In a March 17 Twitter thread, software documenter and occasional info leaker Albacore shared a series of supposed Edge user interface (UI) screenshots showing the early stages of the firm’s new Web3 wallet.
“Newest in the gauntlet of questionable upcoming Microsoft Edge features, a crypto wallet not sure how to feel about this kind of thing being baked into the default browser,” Albacore pessimistically noted.
The first screenshot is of an introductory page to the Edge wallet, with Microsoft seemingly noting that: “we encourage you to test our first Web3 wallet and provide candid feedback along the journey.” If found to be true, it appears that the wallet will be non-custodial with Microsoft having no access to passwords and recovery keys, while it will also be “embedded in Edge” as opposed to being an installed browser extension.
The accompanying screenshots show the ability to swap, send and buy crypto assets, with crypto exchange Coinbase and Web3 infrastructure firm MoonPay displayed as integrated “platforms that help you purchase and deposit crypto to your wallet.” In terms of NFTs, the UI simply states: “browse different marketplaces to find your first NFT, as you build your collection of NFTs, we’ll organize them here.”
The potential move from Microsoft marks another recent effort to significantly ramp up the offerings and capabilities of Edge, which has generally lagged behind competitors such as Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari in terms of popularity. Will you be using the Microsoft Web3 wallet?
U.S Fed and other Central banks take coordinated action to assure Dollar liquidity.
The U.S. Federal Reserve announced that it collaborated with the Swiss National Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Canada, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, and Bank of Canada in a coordinated effort to enhance the supply of liquidity through the established U.S. dollar swap line arrangements.
The action, which followed a deal supported by Swiss authorities to have UBS UBSG.S purchase rival Credit Suisse CSGN.S to stop its disorderly collapse, demonstrates the severe worry central bankers have regarding the recent turmoil in the financial system on both sides of the Atlantic.
The central banks that are currently offering U.S. dollar operations have agreed to increase the frequency of 7-day maturity operations from weekly to daily to increase the efficacy of the swap lines as a source of U.S. dollar financing. These ordinary processes will take place from Monday, March 20, 2023, through at least the end of April.
Bitcoin dominance rises to a 9-Month high as Altcoins retrace.
The US banking crisis, in which three banks were closed within days, and the subsequent bailout speculations and US Fed lending $300 billion to certain banking institutions, pushed BTC north this week.
The asset stood just inches above $20,000 last Sunday but started marching on as the working week began. After several consecutive massive rallies, the cryptocurrency found itself trading above $26,000 for the first time in months on Tuesday.
It retraced by a couple of grand in the next two days but went on the offensive once more on Thursday and Friday. This resulted in jumping above $27,000 and reaching a new 9-month high at almost $28,000.
Despite being unable to overcome that line yet and falling slightly, BTC still trades north of $27,000. Its market cap is above $520 billion, while its dominance over the altcoins has reached its highest levels since June 2022 at over 45% on CMC.
Russia is expanding the concept of the digital Ruble to replace cash.
In Russia, a third form of the national currency, the digital ruble, will be introduced in addition to cash and non-cash. On the first reading, the State Duma lawmakers approved a bundle of pertinent laws.
The legislators have passed a draft bill that would make it easier to establish the ruble’s digital counterpart. The Act updates many other statutes to provide definitions and procedures for the establishment of the central bank’s digital currency.
The notion of the digital ruble will now be included in the Russian Civil Code. It is a kind of Russian national currency that combines the characteristics of cash and non-cash rubles. Payments and settlements might be made using the digital ruble. The latter will be augmented with legal terminology about the Bank of Russia’s central bank digital currency (CBDC). At that point, the Russian Federation Central Bank will be in charge of accounting for money and ensuring its safekeeping in Russian accounts.
Moreover, the regulator will create such money, progressively released into circulation. As a result, the digital ruble will be included as part of the overall money supply and cash and non-cash money in circulation in credit institutions. It will evolve into a “third type of money.”
Ethereum’s Shanghai Hard Fork now has an official target date.
Ethereum developers set a target date of April 12 for its long-awaited Shanghai hard fork during the All Core Developers Execution Layer #157 call Thursday.
The Shanghai upgrade, more accurately called “Shapella,” marks the completion of Ethereum’s full transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network, and will finally enable staked ETH withdrawals.
Once the date is voted on by developers and confirmed via GitHub, epoch 620,9536, occurring on or around April 12, will be set in stone for the Shanghai upgrade. This means that Shanghai will be slightly delayed from the developer’s initial target for March 2023.
When Ethereum transitioned to a PoS consensus mechanism in September in an event known as the Merge, the network began using validators instead of miners. Validators had to stake 32 ETH to approve or add blocks to the blockchain.
Before validators joined Ethereum’s PoS blockchain, they were made aware that their staked ETH and any rewards would remain locked up until Shanghai. Some validators have had their funds locked up since December 2020, when Ethereum’s PoS Beacon Chain went live.
Now, those validators will finally be able to decide after April 12 what they want to do with their stake. Since the Merge, Ethereum developers have run numerous tests to ensure that staked ETH withdrawals would function properly. All three tests on Ethereum’s testnets ran smoothly, though the last testnet hard fork on Goerli experienced low participation rates because validator nodes did not upgrade in time.
Arbitrum to airdrop $ARB tokens in March.
Arbitrum, a famous Layer 2 project on Ethereum, recently announced that they will be airdropping a governance token on March 23 with the ticker symbol ARB.
This follows Arbitrum’s prior announcement that it intends to transition to a fully decentralized model. This airdrop will account for 12.75% of the token’s entire supply and will be given to users who have been active on the network within the past year.
According to the official blog post, ARB will mark the official transition for Arbitrum into a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). This means that holders of ARB will have the ability to vote on critical decisions governing Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova, which are networks that enable users to conduct transactions on the Ethereum blockchain at higher speeds with reduced fees.
Offchain Labs, the company developing Arbitrum, touted that the ARB token will make the ecosystem more decentralized than other scaling chains. This is even though the foundation intends to grant a substantial amount of tokens to its investors and core contributors (44%) of the total supply. However, it was made amply clear that the ARB token won’t be used to pay network transaction fees.
The overall number of ARBs in circulation is capped at 10 billion. The Arbitrum community will have control over 56% of those tokens; as part of the airdrop, eligible users of Arbitrum will receive 11.5% of the total supply, and DAOs that make use of the Arbitrum ecosystem will receive 1.1% of the tokens. The remaining community tokens will be transferred to a treasury that is managed by the new Arbitrum DAO. This treasury will provide holders of ARB the ability to vote on how the funds should be distributed. The remaining 44% of ARB’s total circulation will be distributed among the investors and staff members of Offchain Labs.
Polygon partners with Salesforce for an NFT-based loyalty program.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software company, Salesforce, has partnered with layer 2 blockchain platform Polygon for an NFT-based loyalty program, said Ryan Wyatt, president at Polygon Labs.
“Salesforce will help their clients onboard to Polygon with its management platform to help its clients create token-based loyalty programs,” Wyatt Tweeted on Thursday.
The news comes after the enterprise software giant said on March 15 that it is expanding its client services to include the management of non-fungible token (NFT) loyalty programs. “Monitor real-time blockchain data from collections launched on Ethereum and Polygon within your CRM,” Salesforce said on its website for the Web3 platform.
Loyalty programs can be profitable for businesses. Repeat customers can generate roughly 40% of a business’s revenue, according to data from Smile.io, a rewards program provider.
In recent years, blockchain technologies have increasingly been used to boost customer engagement and offer loyalty rewards. BlockFi and Gemini, for example, announced they would offer credit cards offering bitcoin rewards. In 2022, Mastercard supported Upstart, an NFT-based loyalty program, through its startup engagement program.
Closing
That’s it for now! Thanks for reading today’s newsletter! Be sure to have a look at the Blog section to read our previous editions as well! Have a look at our Guides section if you’re interested in learning more about crypto! And finally, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!
