Qrafty heard that the SEC is using AI to detect and track fraud, PayPal + Metamask = ❤️ and Today is Video Games Day!

***Qrafty smiling the biggest smile*** Aloha, crypto curious! I am Qrafty - the crypto lovin’ honey badger 🦡 !

Welcome to Coinqraft – the daily crypto newsletter for busy but curious people who don’t have time for the crypto drama!🌟

🦡   Qrafty has fresh bits from the crypto jungle, so let’s dive in: 📰 🌟

1. Franklin Templeton In ETF Race

2. Top Play to Earn and NFT Collections This Week

3. PayPal Integrates With Metamask

Bonus: The SEC is Using AI to Track You!

PayPal Moving Fast: Metamask Integration

If you’re going through Hell, keep going. This is a famous saying.

PayPal is going full throttle through stock price hell right now, as their stock is so bad, that the chart started laughing when it showed the price. But they saw a light at the end of the tunnel by making a brave pivot in crypto for their customers.

So they’re building and integrating with the biggest players in the crypto ecosystem and shipping fast! Now that looks like a sheetcoin if you didn’t know better. 👇️ Over 80% value lost in 2 and a half years.

You already knew about the Ledger integration from Qrafty. But they also integrated Metamask now, which is pretty damn huge! And Metamask integrated crypto to bank service.

Congratulations! We’ve now gone full banking circle!

Metamask is a digital wallet where you can store your coins, send and receive from and to different blockchains and applications. Basically the gateway drug for the whole crypto ecosystem. The key with which you open up the Land of Magical Internet Coins and Decentralized Applications (DAPPS), living on Ethereum!

The big boo boo that Metamask has is that you cannot store your Bitcoin directly in it, because it is built on Ethereum. Only Wrapped Bitcoin can be stored, but that’s a different topic Qrafty will share with you in a story.

This move makes perfect sense for PayPal, as crypto is their only way out. In digital payments there are smaller but much more nimble startups and companies that know how to do customer service, aside from payment solutions. And these competitors have been swift in implementing features for customers that a giant like PayPal can’t do, due to it’s sheer size as a company.

But wait, there’s more! Less than a month ago, PayPal appointed Alex Chriss as President and CEO, starting September 27th, 2023. He is a previous Intuit executive, a company that owns MailChimp and QuickBooks.

In his 19 years at Intuit, he focused on Small Business and Self Employed Division. That’s small and mid market businesses. And guess what target is PayPal focusing its crypto strategy? Youuuuu got it! PayPal wants to be the one stop shop for crypto SMB’s, along with other more ambitious plans. So the new CEO has the experience required to steer PayPal into the new era of digital payments.

It’s a bold plan and it’s crazy enough that it might just work big time! It only depends on PayPal’s ability to shed dead weight and execute, and offering stellar treatment to their customers while changing their marketing strategy. That is IF they have a marketing strategy at all…

This is obviously not an easy feat, but PayPal has digital payments in their DNA as an organization. Also, considering the atrocious customer quality offered by crypto businesses, PayPal is actually doing good! So software and strategy wise, they’re doing great!

Even more on that, PayPal has built an on/off ramp solution. This means that their software allows merchants/businesses to buy/sell crypto. It’s basically the software for payments developed by PayPal with KYC, AML, fraud prevention included. Which, in turn, opens up commerce denominated in crypto currencies. Which means that users will also need a wallet. Well, PayPal already has a wallet. So it will be more trustworthy for the average Joe to make a PayPal wallet (if it’s not already available) than make a new one with an semi-known issuer. The power of brand recognition!

What is this for, Qrafty? Why not build your own solution?

Well.. cost and compliance are the most important two elements that come to mind. Merchants prefer to integrate with payment software providers for fiat as well. It’s like outsourcing your digital payments department, for a % fee out of your transactions. It’s just the natural evolution into crypto for PayPal.

And aside from Metamask and Ledger, they are also showing Phantom and Magic as partners. This is just the beginning. PayPal is building its own network of merchants it intends to service through their PYUSD coin.

At the same time, they are positioning themselves as a player in the cross border transactions world. Thanks to PYUSD and integrations with wallets and blockchains, companies and individuals using PayPal will be able to send money all over the world fast and with reduced costs.

Just to put the cherry on top of the cake, PayPal just announced today that they signed a new multi-year with Uber “deepening PayPal's role as a critical strategic partner as Uber continues to expand and scale in markets worldwide.“

Qrafty will talk more about this in the tomorrow edition.

In a sentence, PayPal is building a network of merchants around their crypto payment and wallet solutions. With that, they are also building huge liquidity pools. That is what PYUSD is for, for the long term.

🙃 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! 😇 👇️

1. MetaMask Adds Solana Support

Finally, after years of not playing nice together, there's a brand-new bridge that lets you manage your Solana portfolios right from your favorite Web3 wallet.

Until now, Solana and MetaMask just didn't get along, which meant if you were into crypto, you had to set up a whole new wallet just for SOL and NFTs on Solana's network. But with this new feature from Solflare, they're breaking down those barriers. Now, Ethereum enthusiasts can easily dive into Solana without any extra hassle.

After years of incompatibility, a new bridge allows Solana portfolios to be managed directly from the popular Web3 wallet.

Solana wallet Solflare has launched a new feature enabling MetaMask users to manage their Solana portfolios directly from their existing MetaMask wallet.

2. Franklin Templeton Gets in ETF Race

As Qrafty keeps mentioning, TradFi is coming to crypto bigtime. Today, Qrafty heard that another huge player, Franklin Templeton, has filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF with the SEC. These guys manage just $1.5 trillion (yes, with a T) in assets.

They chose Coinbase as their custodian and will list on the CBOE BZX exchange. This is one of the largest U.S. equities market operators on any given day. They operate four U.S. equities exchanges – the BZX Exchange, BYX Exchange, EDGA Exchange, and EDGX Exchange.

3. SEC’s Gary Gensler: We’re Using AI for Crypto

Chairman Gary Gensler mentioned at the hearing today that the SEC is now using AI to keep an eye on the financial market and catch any fishy business. It's like their secret spy tool to watch market patterns and make sure everything's on the up and up.

He also mentioned that because they're using AI more and more, the SEC is asking Congress for more money. They want to invest in this tech to keep a close eye on market trends that could be tied to shady stuff. Cool to see the SEC in the 21st century with tech they use, but not with the way they see and approach said tech.

4. Top NFT Collections and Games this Week

It seems that the hatred for NFT’s is flowing strong in online communities, considering the huge debacle with the Creator League project. Can’t blame them… most still have PTSD from the raging scams and rugs. The idea was interesting, there were cool names involved.

Although the company clearly stated that there are no NFT’s. It's like accidentally hitting the "send" button on your cringe-worthy message to the entire office instead of just your best friend!

Even though Mr. Beast endorsed the project, the recent pains of cheated former NFT enthusiasts still echo strongly in the lightbeams in the fibre connections of the WWW.

But games are still fun and the development is booming, despite the bear market. Below, you have the top 5 Play to Earn games by active users and top NFT collections by trading volume. The beautiful minds at PlayToEarn.online put it together and Qrafty just looooves games and cool jpegs! 👇️ 

5. Standard Chartered Opens Crypto Shop in Singapore

A month ago, their CEO was all smiles at Bloomberg TV. He mentioned that they’re happy with beating financial expectations, aggressively digitizing the bank’s operations and how China and Asia are great for business, despite slowish recovery.

It also seems that they have an eye for crypto, as they’re opening up shop in Singapore via their institutional crypto custody subsidiary, Zodia Custody. This is the first bank owned entity in Singapore to offer crypto services for other institutions. Zodia is also registered in UK, Ireland and Luxembourg.

Don’t mind the noise and bs. Banks are deep in crypto business. They have been for a while and expanding their offer now, because of clearer regulations. Just because there wasn’t regulatory clarity until now it doesn’t mean that they weren’t playing in the background. Banks are in. Bigtime!

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, so thank you!

Tomorrow is like Schrödinger's cat: full of endless possibilities until we open the box and see which one pounces out, ready to surprise us!

Qrafty’s thougt of the day

Other stories 

Formal impeachment inquiry for Presiden Biden

During a press conference held today, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy revealed the initiation of a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

He explicitly outlined his directive to the House Committee, emphasizing the need to investigate the extent of the President's awareness regarding his family's interactions with foreign governments. Circus mode on! It’s not like it was ever off…

Inflation tomorrow

If the inflation data released this week falls below the projected figures, it may indicate to traders that the Federal Reserve has reached its highest interest rate and is unlikely to raise it any further.

US Federal Government shuts down in October?

Ah, the usual political dance of Congress approving the spending bill by the 30th of September, because that’s the last day of the year when Congress can allocate the fund. Or, more humanely put: there are people from 438 government agencies each fiscal year that need to get paid and feed their families.

And, of course, the politicians fighting among themselves in the usual circus, using this as an opportunity to advance their interests. Qrafty is wondering how much drama will this year bring… 🍿

Russia and Saudi Arabia say: higher oil prices!

At the time of writing, Brent Crude is $92 and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is $88. Russia and Saudi Arabia are the world’s top crude oil exporters. And they decided that they want to cut production for at least three months more.

This comes in a context where the price of gas in the US is already high. Guess what that means! Although analysts say that these were already priced in…

A higher oil price is undesirable for central banks because it makes inflation rise. For the US, this would mean that inflation will go back up and the Fed will have to keep rates high or even increase them further. Which, obviously, is a disaster for small and medium businesses. Time will tell.

Coinbase is frozen in India

Coinbase’s operations have been suspended for over a year in India and it looks like they sent email to customers, asking them to withdraw their funds by September 25. New signups have been blocked since June 2023.

But the exchange mentioned that it’s just for some customers who didn’t meet the update standards. The company’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, traveled last year to India at the inauguration of their exchange in India. They integrated India’s UPI, the most popular payments software in the world’s second biggest internet market.

The NPC of India (National Payments Corporation) refused to validate Coinbase’s exchange launch which made them stop support for the UPI payment system.

In India, cryptocurrencies are viewed as Ponzi schemes by authorities and banks don’t dare working with these businesses. But they are not illegal! Brian Armostrong, the CEO of Coinbase, mentioned an informal crypto ban and veiled pressures from RBI and NPC, after his trip to India.

It’s also worth knowing that Coinbase is an investor in two of the top exchanges in India: CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber. But the Coinbase exchange in India has less than 50,000 MAU’s (monthly active users).

And if all this drama wasn’t enough, Coinbase stated that they are still deeply interested in India and want to continue to do business there.

Market Whispers

Bitcoin found the strength to hold 25k and rose to 26560$.

It got rejected there, of course, but it didn't make a full retrace of the pump, yet... It’s holding 26k, which is good for a continuation to 27,5k, where will meet again the 200 moving average.

Their "last date" was pretty short lived and Bitcoin left crying down to 25.3k. Qrafty will pay attention to that level, it might be a good short play, unless God, Buddha, Allah or any other Divine Power decides to approve an ETF.

Qrafty ends channeling his inner trader.

Today is NATIONAL VIDEO GAMES DAY!

Obviously, Qrafty is joking and no piece of information in this email should be regarded as financial advice, okay? Don’t take financial advice from a badger you met online, regardless of how cute and brave he might seem!

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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