***Qrafty waving and jumping happily with a big smile*** Wahaha, searcher of magical internet coins!

The Sun warmly and gently embraces us on this new day and I, Qrafty the Crypto Badger, gladly welcome you to Coinqraft – your personal sherpa guiding you on the tricky path towards the peaks of crypto !

🦡 So take the first step today on the crypto road alongside your favorite badger buddy because Qrafty just got back with news 📰 and scoops 🔍 from the crypto jungle, so here’s what’s today letter is about:

1. Crypto Social Network Friend.tech is Booming.

2. Countering PayPal, Coinbase buys a stake in Circle (USDC).

3. US credit card debt surpasses 1 trillion.

Bonus: What bank crashes are we going to see in September? Also, China?

Today’s Story

The BRICS are on the move

In the magical world inside Qrafty’s head, a new story has formed… Once upon a time in a world not so far away, the BRICS nations decided to embark on a hilarious escapade. They collectively launched their Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and unleashed a unified stablecoin, setting off a chain of uproarious events in the jungle of international finance.

They started to eliminate the US dollar as the world's top trade dog in the currency kingdom. The dollar, used everywhere from pizza joints to intergalactic space travel, was suddenly facing an identity crisis. With BRICS nations saying, "No more dollar domination" the US's plan to export inflation became as tricky as trying to catch a greased-up pig at a county fair.

Their mischief disrupted US monetary policy. Interest rates went haywire, making Wall Street look like a roller coaster. The money supply became as unpredictable as a squirrel on an espresso binge. Economists went from discussing charts to deciphering riddles, and investors started attending financial yoga classes to stretch their sanity.

Then, the BRICS gang took a jab at Uncle Sam by sending back his Treasury bonds with a "No, thank you." Suddenly, interest rates flew higher than a squirrel with a jetpack, and the US was stuck in a fiscal limbo dance with no music.

And as if that weren't enough, the shift led to a carnival of chaos at home. People in industries tied to global trade and finance found themselves on a roller derby rink, slipping and sliding to economic uncertainty with their jobs disappearing. Economists with disheveled hair scribbled equations on cocktail napkins, hoping to crack the code of this confounding comedy.

In the end, BRICS nations left the world economy as we knew it and formed their own club to play with each other, as the USD and the US tried to untangle the hilarious web of financial and economic factors that created a lot of trouble and headaches. Was it time to learn from history? Was it time to reignite history… and weapons of mass… you know…? What was it time for?

As you know, Qrafty loves stories and this is just a fantasy from my rich imagination 😇 

🙃 Qrafty hopes that today’s main story brought brave badgery value to you! Now it’s time for a break, you deserve a bit of fun! 😇 👇️ 

A good giggle… priceless. For everything else there’s… laughing hysterically.

Here are the main news of the day

1. Crypto social network earns more fees than some CEXs. Also, someone scraped the API and tried to FUD.

Qrafty talked before the weekend about the launch of the new crypto social network generating buzz around the cryptoverse. It’s called friend.tech and they’re about monetizing yourself if you are an influencer or someone who has something to say in a particular area.

It’s like you are issuing shares for your own personality and you can sell them. If you are loved by the people and get more followers and attention on you, obviously your value increases.

Of course, since the blockchain is a public space, already the data has been scraped and about 100,000 friend.tech users have been linked to their addresses. The initial news launched by a bigger crypto site was that the network was hacked, but that’s really just poorly understanding what’s going on.

While it’s true that most of those users probably didn’t want their wallets associated to their names and placed in a public database, but that is the nature of blockchain, the wallets and transactions are public. So no, they weren’t hacked.

As per the most recent statistics from DeFiLlama, friend.tech has accumulated $4.22 million in fees and $2.11 million in revenue to date, including a notable $1.42 million in fees and $709,739 in revenue within the last 24 hours alone. Notably, in terms of fee generation, friend.tech currently surpasses leading protocols such as Tron, Uniswap, Bitcoin, Aave, MetaMask, and Solana.

Finally, the influencers using the app report that the concept is very interesting and they actually made money by interacting and chatting with the people interested in getting their opinion. It’s a new use case and it is being developed as we speak. Interesting times ahead!

2. Coinbase buys a stake in Circle, responds to PayPal

Coinbase is set to secure a partial minority stake in Circle and adding USDC to 6 blockchains and they will maintain a commercial relationship. The Centre Consortium, previously responsible for overseeing the USDC stablecoin, will be dissolved, and Circle will assume full control of the stablecoin, issuing and governing in-house.

This move will see the integration of USDC with six additional blockchains, bringing the total to 15. While specific details aren't disclosed, Circle has previously mentioned plans to incorporate chains like Polkadot, Near, Optimism, and Cosmos in 2023.

But the real play behind this move is an answer to what PayPal is doing. Qrafty has been talking left and right about what PayPal is doing and no one else is really thinking about this.

Well… Coinbase is. Why is Qrafty saying that? Because PayPal is taking on the WHOLE market and because there is a void left in terms of quality services for the cryptocurrency market. Coinbase is US, Binance is in trouble, Bitstamp is still small, Bitfinex and the rest are either too complex or small for the average user.

Finally, there’s also an interesting development for Coinbase, as its attempt to repurchase bonds worth $150 million has encountered only modest interest so far, indicating that a substantial number of investors believe there is still greater potential for appreciation in these notes.

3. Bitget will require mandatory ID. Yeah….

Bitget drops the fun time and will require mandatory level 1 ID verification starting September 1. Level 1 KYC means that it requires providing an official identification document, such as a passport, and successfully completing facial authentication.

Slowly, but surely, the anonymous or, at least, pseudonymous part of crypto is going away. All exchanges need access to the traditional banking system, they need access to capital, regardless how revolutionary they would like to be.

Not really, they just want to make money. So yeah, exchanges are basically the banks of the crypto ecosystem.

4. China’s social credit system in metaverse

Qrafty wrote about China’s push for the metaverse. China aims to implement its social credit system in the metaverse, proposing digital IDs and real-world consequences for actions within it.

That’s pretty freaky and dangerous af, if you ask Qrafty, just to put it mildly… to reach a point where every moment and second of your life is monitored by a communistic/totalitarian regime is not only dystopian, but it’s also becoming damn real. And what’s more dangerous is that Western governments are drooling at this level of control over their people… and their control fetish is only getting stronger.

With all its troubles and stupid crap they’ve done over time, western governments have at least maintained a reasonable distance from the private lives of individuals.

But with the advancement of AI and surveillance technology, we seem to be slowly but surely inching closer to a 1984 style of rhetoric and demonization of all aspects that deal with privacy and intimacy which are being sacrificed on the bloody altar of national security and safekeeping from terrorists… Qrafty doesn’t like politics, but Qrafty also doesn’t like people and governments who overstep their legal (or moral) boundaries.

5. US credit card balances reaches 1 trillion

Americans are taking on more credit and this isn’t really happy news to be honest. Although only a small fraction of plan holders are resorting to hardship withdrawals, it serves as another indicator that vulnerabilities might be emerging in household finances.

The most recent New York Fed report notes a continuous increase in new delinquencies, despite having been at historically low levels. Transition rates into early delinquency for credit cards, auto loans, and home mortgages have risen for the quarter, as indicated by New York Fed data smoothed over a four-quarter moving average.

While new mortgage delinquency rates remain lower than pre-pandemic levels, the moving averages for auto and credit card delinquencies are the highest since the first quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2012, respectively.

Hey hey 🙃 Qrafty hopes you are enjoying the experience here and would like to regularly get Qrafty’s letters!

If so, please click on the button below. Qrafty is really really grateful to have you here, thank you for reading!

Why did the crypto investor bring a ladder to the blockchain? To check his balance!" 🤣

Qrafty’s haiku of the day

Other stories from today worth noting

Capital is leaving the market again

Bitcoin took the lead in the outflow parade, witnessing a stark turnaround from the previous week's $27 million influx, with $42 million heading out the door. This marks the 17th week in a row that short bitcoin investment products have shown the door to incoming funds that wanted to stay in the system and play crypto.

XRP was the only positive surprise: XRP products put on their dancing shoes and went against the current, adding $1.2 million to their 17-week streak of incoming funds, tallying up to a year-to-date total of $12 million. To be fair… that’s really a small amount for the only coin except Bitcoin that hasn’t been declared a security, but hey… it’s coming in, so that’s good!

Altcoins joined the not-so-fun ride too. Ether investment products waved goodbye to $9 million, while the funds for Polygon, Litecoin, and Polkadot saw respective departures of $0.9 million, $0.6 million, and $0.5 million.

Gemini tries to get the SEC case dismissed

Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange, Gemini, is being sued by the SEC for offering unregistered securities through their Gemini Earn program. Their lawyers argue that the SEC has failed to provide clear evidence that Gemini has offer securities to their customers.

From the court motion: “[…]Even assuming for the sake of argument that SEC has somehow described a security (under either of its inconsistent theories), it has not plausibly alleged that such security was ever sold or offered for sale […]”

Another crypto scammer jailed

Slowly but surely, scammers and ruggers find their meeting with the law. 26 year old SIM-swapper from Pennsylvania, Anthony Faulk, who stole $20m in crypto - jailed. Anthony Francis Faulk received a 36-month prison sentence and was directed to pay almost $3 million in restitution due to his involvement in a scheme aimed at defrauding over a dozen cryptocurrency holders.

Wall Street backed crypto startup wants to tokenize stocks

In a world where cryptocurrency startups often skirt regulatory approval, a quite novel project (if novel means following the law…) is striving to tokenize stocks without violating securities laws.

Dinari, a company headquartered in Los Altos, California, has gained support from Susquehanna International Group, a prominent Wall Street trading firm. This endeavor aims to transform equities into crypto tokens while adhering to regulatory guidelines, setting it apart from previous blockchain-based efforts. Dinari's efforts also attracted investment from Balaji Srinivasan, a former executive at Coinbase Global Inc.

So yeah… Wall Street saw that crypto is good money and sent the regulatory dogs to clear the path. Now, since there aren’t many crypto companies who aren’t facing legal problems, it’s pretty easy to break into the market, isn’t it?

NFT platform shuts down

Recur, a startup specializing in NFTs, has announced the discontinuation of its Web3 platform, citing the difficulties posed by the cryptocurrency market's challenging conditions often referred to as the "crypto winter", less than 2 years after they launched. Tough for everyone all around.

Market Whispers

Bitcoin is still in the same range from Friday. It’s like BTC’s objective is to teach all “the art of being patient”.

Today is Poet’s Day, so here’s Qrafty’s artistic side coming to light (hopefully we don’t have to kill it) 🎢🚀📉

In the realm of crypto, oh so wild and strange, where values soar and values change,

Trading's like a circus, a carnival ride, with ups and downs, you can't really hide.

Crypto's a riddle, a puzzle to solve, with coins that evolve, and problems to resolve,

The market's a beast, it roars and it rants, leaving you wondering if you've got a chance.

They say, "Buy the dip," and "HODL" with might, but when it crashes hard, it's a scary sight,

Experts and gurus, they all claim to know, yet one tweet can send prices a-tumble and low.

It's a world where FOMO and FUD both play, and memes and emojis have so much to say,

But through all the chaos, the hype, and the strife, we're in it together in this crazy crypto-life.

So here's to the crazy, the absurd, and the odd, in this crypto world, where we all play the fraud,

With lies and with rumors, it's a wild, crazy pit,

But we love it all, 'cause crypto's the shit!

That’s all from Qrafty 🦡 for today! Qrafty thanks you and wishes you to live each moment as if you are listening to the music you love most!

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