Crypto News: Recap Of All The Major Cryptocurrency News Of Last Week

The crypto industry is fast moving and major changes can happen overnight. Let’s take a look at some of the major events that unfolded over the past week in the cryptocurrency space.

Ethereum developers revealed last week on Thursday that Ethereum’s next big update or the next big hard for, which will be called Shanghai will be released sometime in March 2023. As per the Ethereum developers, this new update will include a code known as EIP 4895, that will allow, for the first time, Beacon Chain staked ether withdrawals. Ethereum developers also addressed that they would be implementing the ‘EVM Object Format’ (EOF) in the Shanghai update, which will upgrade the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Last week Starbucks a beta test of their much-anticipated Web-3-based loyalty program, called ‘Odyssey’, which will reportedly combine elements of loyalty rewards, NFTs and other gamified elements. As of now, the loyalty program ‘Odyssey’ has only been opened to a select group of waitlisted members which includes employees and customers. As rewards, the members who are part of the program will receive Polygon-based NFTs. Other benefits that could be implemented in the future include virtual coffee classes, exclusive events, and trips to Starbucks’ coffee farms.

As per reports, a number of celebrities which include Justin Beiber, Madonna, Jimmy Falon, Paris Hilton, etc have been named in a lawsuit which alleges that NFTs under the collection of ‘Yuga Labs’ were ‘misleadingly promoted’ and resulted in financial losses to the buyers. The lawsuit was filed by John T. Jasnoch of Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP on behalf of investors who purchased NFTs from Yuga Labs between April 2021 to the present time. In October, Bloomberg reported that the SEC was investigating Yuga Labs to determine whether they were breaking any federal laws in selling digital assets.

A cryptocurrency payment app ‘MoonPay’ has successfully received a registration from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which certifies that the app is now in compliance with local money laundering laws. MoonPay is one of the very few companies, including Bitpanda, Revolut and Tullett Prebon that have successfully gained registration from the FCA, as getting registered with the FCA seems to be notoriously difficult. Last week, an FTA official revealed that only 5% of all applications that the FCA received from crypto-related projects met their official standards.

One of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, Coinbase urged its customers to convert their USDT to USDC as Coinbase thinks that the quality of reserves that back USDC are secure and that USDC is less prone to collapse in case the market is destabilised. In a blog post, Coinbase said that events of the past few weeks have put some stablecoins to the test and they have seen a flight to safety. Coinbase also said that they believe that the USD coin (USDC) is a trusted and reputable stablecoin. Moreover, Coinbase is also waiving the fees for global customers to convert their Tether (USDT) to USDC.