This comes in the form of a partnership with the Bank of England (BoE), the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and other regulatory bodies.

Deputy BoE Governor Jon Cunliffe, speaking at the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance’s annual conference, said the plans have been delayed by “recent events” which could refer to the resignations of numerous government officials in the country, including Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and senior Treasury official Jon Glen.

This comes after an April consultation on the subject, when the Treasury said the government planned to regulate that sector with the 2017 Payment Service Regulations, Financial Services Act and the 2011 Electronic Money Regulations Act. There were supposed to be more details coming.

There will also likely be more plans coming outside of the U.K., Cunliffe said, as the committee on payments and market infrastructures, the international panel he chairs, will look into worldwide standards for systemic payment systems in the next few months.

Some of the issues they want to look into include determining which assets should back these stablecoins, what should the redemption or claim be and how would one ensure such a coin is safe?

See also: Department of Commerce Urged to Slow Roll CBDCs and Clarify Crypto Rules

The question of how to regulate digital assets has been a pressing one all over the globe, with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) launching a consultation to get feedback on a regulatory system. This came after President Biden’s executive order for crypto assets from March.

The results from the consultation show that respondents wanted regulatory clarity and a level playing field, and a new infusion of talent and education.

And there’s been agreement about the need for a retail CBDC, though the government says it might not be needed with other alternatives, and the banking sector said there were “serious concerns” due to risk and how the banking system will shoulder the costs for things like customer identification.

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The company had suspended them through Pix after cutting a partnership with Capitual, the local payment gateway that ran Binance’s deposits and withdrawals.

Binance will now be working through Latam Gateway, the Brazilian payments platform, instead.

Meanwhile, the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has made guidelines on classifying crypto assets as securities, investment instruments or financial instruments, after numerous questions, a press release said.

The report notes that the FSMA wants to provide clarity as it’s waiting for “a more harmonized European approach.”

Elsewhere, blockchain ecosystem Binance will be cutting out all trading fees for some bitcoin spot trading pairs, in a way to celebrate its fifth anniversary, a press release said.

Founder Changpeng Zhao said this would be in line with the firm’s “inclusivity.”

The company will be doing this as of July 8.

In other news, Bitstamp won’t be adding a new fee for inactive customers, after the company said it would do so last week, a company blog said.

The fee would’ve been charged for customers not working on the platform with account balances of under €200. But the company has decided, in the wake of backlash, not to do this.

In more news related to crypto, Genesis Global Trading CEO Michael Moro has said Three Arrows Capital had been the counterparty that didn’t make its large margin call last month and forced liquidation of collateral, Coindesk wrote.

This comes as Three Arrows Capital has been ordered by the British Virgin Islands court to liquidate. And last week Genesis said it was facing “hundreds of millions” of dollars in losses because of this case. Genesis’ parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) has been trying to curb risk, with DCG taking on some liability.

Additionally, Ethereum’s testnet Sepolia has transitioned to proof-of-stake, which brings the blockchain closer to its switch to that consensus mechanism, rather than proof-of-work, Seeking Alpha wrote.

Sepolia is the second of three public testnets to merge successfully, following Ropsten in June, with Goerli likely coming soon.

Finally, Voyager Digital’s shares have been suspended from trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as the exchange reviews whether the stock meets its requirements, Coindesk wrote.

The company filed for Chapter 11 on Tuesday (July 5) after estimates showed it had over 10,000 creditors and between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets, with the same range for liabilities.

A separate report by Bloomberg said Voyager account holders might not get all their crypto back, with the company reorganizing in the wake of the bankruptcy.

The report noted that Voyager’s bankruptcy plan “doesn’t intend to simply give users back their bitcoin, ether and other assets stored on the platform.”

See also: Reckless Crypto Lending, Opaque Operations Paved Voyager Digital’s Path to Bankruptcy

And a PYMNTS report notes that Voyager wasn’t even able to be saved by a $500 million line of credit.

The company’s biggest problem, more than other lenders, is that it loaned out a huge amount of money, $650 million in a loan, to one borrower. That came as Voyager Earn, which offered 12% interest rates for crypto owners for depositing digital assets, which would be lent to borrowers, was highly popular with the user base.

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If May came in like a lion and out like a lamb for the non-fungible token (NFT) market, June went out like a lambchop.

After a statistics-warping spike on May 1 that nearly shut down the Ethereum blockchain, sales volume, prices and buyers have all plummeted.

Read more: Bored Apes NFT Rampage Spikes Transaction Fees to $200M for 55,000 Sales

One reason is likely the shock to the system crypto took in early May, when the Terra/LUNA stablecoin ecosystem collapsed, wiping out $48 billion in value and triggering a wave of panic and insolvencies in the crypto lending market.

But NFT sales numbers have been dropping all year. And anecdotally at least, the “cool” factor has been slipping as celebrities who once hyped them — particularly the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) cartoon avatars that sell for six and seven figures — have been quietly changing their social media portraits.

“The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon — who talked Bored Apes with Paris Hilton in January, leading Mashable to declare that the pair “pumping their NFTs is beyond cringe” — deleted his in late June while a big industry tradeshow, NFT NYC, was in town. Tennis superstar Serena Williams and actress-turned-lifestyle maven Reese Witherspoon are among those who’ve done the same.

While NFTs have many potential uses — they are unique tokens that can hold any type of media, including documents, images, video and music — the vast majority of the market has been limited to the NFT “collectables” market, which is actually useful for very little other than staking claim on your Twitter profile to be a part of the trendy Bored Ape Yacht Club club, and speculation.

“Without question, the NFT market has fallen off the cliff this June,” Pedro Herrera, head of research at crypto tracker DappRadar, told Bloomberg at the end of the month. “It is fair to say that in recent weeks, investors were looking for safer places to put their money amid the Terra collapse and the rumors surrounding potential liquidations.”

During the first half of 2022, the number of NFT buyers dropped more than 46% since the beginning of the year, the average sale price is down about 70% and total sales are down 84% — the latter falling below $1 billion for the first time since last June, according to NFT tracking site CryptoSlam.

Culling the Herd?

There have been plenty of declarations in the last six months that the NFT bubble has popped — The Wall Street Journal called it in early May, days before the Terra/LUNA collapse sent crypto running for cover.

See also: NFT Weekly: The Popping of the NFT Bubble Has Been Declared Again, but Investments Keep Coming

But this time, the drop in the crypto market — the vast majority of NFTs are priced in ether — is not only steeper, investors are running scared. Several crypto lenders that are in or close to bankruptcy this month were damaged by losses suffered in the fallout of the Terra/LUNA collapse, but even huge lines of credit have been able to stem what Voyager Digital called a “run” of clients pulling assets in its Chapter 11 filing on Wednesday (July 6).

Related: Voyager’s Digital Bankruptcy Hints at Crypto’s Shaky Foundations

A bigger question, however, is whether that’s a bad thing.

If it is a Beanie Baby moment in the NFT collectable world, there are still plenty of uses for NFTs — even collectables — beyond the ludicrously priced BAYC and Crypto Punk images. Professional baseball, football and hockey organizations all embraced NFTs as the evolution of trading cards this year, joining the NBA, which brought basketball into the NFT space early.

Read more: Topps Releases New NFT Collection for MLB

The “non-fungible” part means no two NFTs are alike and all transactions are traceable on an immutable blockchain, making them useful for everything from event ticketing to transferring financial instruments. It also means they could have substantial utility in tracing digital rights of all kinds and bringing planned scarcity to types of media that are easily reproduced, such as artwork and songs.

See also: Goldman’s Interest in NFTs Could Speed the Tokenization of Real Assets

Much like the broader cryptocurrency industry itself, NFTs projects are due for a thinning of the herd, much like the dot-com industry went through in 2001 — from which it emerged stronger and with solid, sustainable use cases.

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Amazon Could Earn Grubhub Stake in New Prime Perk Deal

Amazon could take a 2% to 15% stake in food delivery service Grubhub as part of a deal with parent company Just Eat Takeaway.com that gives Amazon Prime customers a free membership to the service and no-fee delivery from certain restaurants. Just Eat Takeaway will increase Amazon’s ownership stake depending on performance terms focused on adding new Grubhub users.

Revolut Teams With Stripe to Power International Growth

FinTech firm Revolut has joined forces with financial infrastructure platform Stripe to power its global expansion plans and support payments in Europe and the United Kingdom. “Revolut builds seamless solutions for its customers. That means access to quick and easy payments, and our collaboration with Stripe facilitates that,” said Revolut Vice President of Business Development David Tirado.

Forever 21 Owner Authentic Brands, Bolt Settle Lawsuit, Make Peace

Forever 21 owner Authentic Brands Group (ABG) and checkout technology company Bolt are looking to expand on their partnership after settling a lawsuit filed by ABG against Bolt. ABG sued Bolt in April, alleging the payments company failed to deliver on its technology, which meant $150 million in sales for ABG. But with the suit dismissed, the two companies are more complimentary, talking about expanding Bolt’s technology to more of ABG’s 50-plus brands.

MoneyGram, Stellar Integrate Wyre With Crypto-to-Cash Conversion Service

Cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Wyre has announced an integration with MoneyGram’s on- and off-ramp service for digital wallets. The on- and off-ramp service offers support from the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a nonprofit that supports the development and growth of Stellar, while also closing the gap between physical and digital currencies. Wyre can help its partners transition between cash and cryptocurrency across the Stellar blockchain and MoneyGram’s global retail partner network.

Envestnet Acquires Revenue and Billing Management Platform Redi2 Technologies

Wealth management technology company Envestnet has acquired revenue management and global financial services industry fee-billing solution Redi2 Technologies. The acquisition will help Envestnet build more connections across its financial wellness ecosystem for asset managers, wealth managers and registered investment advisers.

C2B Payments Firm Sionic Unveils Nonprofit Tools

Consumer-to-business payments firm Sionic has launched online and mobile widgets designed to accept real-time, bank-to-bank digital donations. The Atlanta company said the move will set the stage for instant, lower-cost cash deposits to nonprofits from donors. It will also let nonprofits receive direct deposit and one-time or recurring donations while avoiding steep credit card swipe fees.

Crypto Lender Voyager Seeks Chapter 11 Protection

Crypto lender Voyager is planning to restructure and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday (July 6).

The company said it has approximately $1.3 billion of crypto assets on the platform and more than $350 million of cash held in a For Benefit Of (FBO) account for customers. It also has more than $650 million in claims against Singapore-based cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which is in liquidation. 

Revolut Teams With Stripe to Power International Growth

Revolut is expanding its FinTech business into Mexico and Brazil and is partnering with Stripe to leverage its infrastructure and expertise as well as support payments in the U.K. and Europe.

“Revolut and Stripe share an ambition to upgrade financial services globally. We’re thrilled to be powering Revolut as it builds, scales and helps people around the world get more from their money,” said Eileen O’Mara, EMEA revenue and growth lead at Stripe.

Law Firm Probes Zelle’s Fraud Reimbursement

The San Francisco law firm Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP said it’s investigating several banks regarding their fraud reimbursement practices and peer-to-peer payment system Zelle.

Last week, a class action suit against Zelle and Wells Fargo was withdrawn in federal court. Zelle is operated by FinTech Early Warning Services, LLC, owned by Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Truist (formerly BBT), Capital One, J.P. Morgan Chase, PNC Bank and U.S. Bank. 

MoneyGram, Stellar Integrate Wyre With Crypto-to-Cash Conversion Service

Cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Wyre is integrating with MoneyGram’s global on- and off-ramp service for digital wallets that debuted last month on the Stellar Network.

Wyre can now offer its partners a way to transition between cash and cryptocurrency across the Stellar blockchain and MoneyGram’s global retail partner network.

Trucking Management Firm CloudTrucks Debuts Visa Card

Trucking business management solution CloudTrucks introduced a Visa business card to help small fleets and owner-operators track and pay expenses.

CT Credit was launched for those that might not qualify for traditional credit cards, and the CT Credit Visa aims to give businesses the funding they need to move goods, build their credit and manage cash flow.

It’s taken four years and more than a few fights to reach an agreement on the legislation. While it’s missing a few major areas of the digital asset industry, most notably decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which will be covered by separate legislation, MiCA covers a great deal.

See also: EU Agreement on Crypto Regulation Limits Stablecoins, Leaves Out NFTs and DeFi

“Today, we put order in the Wild West of crypto assets and set clear rules for a harmonized market that will provide legal certainty for crypto asset issuers, guarantee equal rights for service providers and ensure high standards for consumers and investors,” said Stefan Berger, the European Parliament’s (EP) lead negotiator, on June 30.

But it’s worth noting that the text of the bill has not been released, and an agreement among negotiators is not necessarily the final word in the EU’s complex legislative process.

One key point empowers the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to supervise and regulate the crypto trading market, including “intervention power” over crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) if they fail to provide sufficient investor protections, threaten market integrity or threaten financial stability.

Crypto issuers will also be required to produce a whitepaper, providing investors with transparency and sufficient warning about potential losses, an important thread running throughout the discussions. Stablecoin issuers will be required to back their tokens one-to-one with euros and follow stringent auditing rules.

Wallet custodians, including exchanges, will be liable for hack losses or damages “to customers because of hacks or operational failures that they could have prevented,” according to global law firm Clifford Chance. “Cryptoassets will be protected in case of insolvency of the exchange.”

While a ban on bitcoin’s energy-intensive proof-of-work mining mechanism was beaten back, firms will have to publicize their energy use and environmental impact.

Last-minute surprises included a tough cap on stablecoins, banning the issuance of any more tokens if the stablecoin surpasses a daily spending limit of 200 million euro. The European Banking Authority (EBA) will supervise stablecoins with more than 10 million users or 5 billion euros in circulation.

A big loss for crypto industry lobbyists was the last-minute addition of a regulation requiring the collection of anti-money laundering (AML) personal data in any transaction of more than 1,000 euros between private unhosted digital wallets, and any transactions to or from an exchange-hosted wallet. Opponents say the latter is not only impractical but may violate EU privacy laws.

The European Central Bank (ECB) advised national regulators to harmonize their rules until MiCA comes into effect in 18 months.

See more: ECB Says Patchy EU Crypto Regulations Raise Risks

Basel Backs 1%

Banks should be forced to cap their holdings of unbacked (by fiat or fiat-backed stablecoins) crypto assets at 1% of its capital reserves, the Bank of International Settlements’ (BIS) Basel Committee on Banking Supervision recommended on June 30.

Also read: Basel Committee Hands Down Crypto Guidance for Banks

Advocating a conservative approach, the committee opened its proposal for public comments until Sept. 1.

The policy follows an earlier attempt a year ago, when the BIS recommended requiring banks to maintain enough capital to cover losses on cryptocurrency holdings in full.

UK Seeks Stricter Rules

The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee recommended the adoption of “enhanced regulation” of the cryptocurrency market.

The recent turmoil caused by the $48 billion collapse of a stablecoin “underscored the need for enhanced regulatory and law enforcement frameworks to address developments in crypto asset markets and activities,” the bank said in its latest Financial Stability Report.

It follows an earlier proposal to regulate stablecoins with the potential to cause systemic risks at the end of May, weeks after the terraUSD algorithmic stablecoin collapsed.

Read more: UK Government Wants Bank of England to Regulate at-Risk Stablecoins 

And whether stablecoins are the most logical alternative.

As reported here, the firm, with  3.5 million active customers, faced what was termed a “short-term run on the bank” after a borrower defaulted on a $650 million loan.

Though the company focused on crypto brokerage service, enabling its customers to buy and sell more than 100 cryptocurrencies, Voyager also had a lending arm, which, as has been reported, offered crypto holders double-digit percentage point interest paid on their crypto deposits. Those deposits were in turn lent out to other borrowers.

We described some of the mechanics of the run itself, which had much to do with levels of collateralization and investor worries about the same.

We posit that thinking this is simply about retail investors and about trading platforms might be a bit short-sighted.

Because at the root of it all — at the heart of crypto trading and lending — is a continuum of banking, or banking-like, activities, where the platforms take in deposits and lend out money (or cryptos) against those deposits. Stablecoins are in the mix, too, as Voyager had listed in its asset disclosures that it had access to about $200 million in cash and USDC stablecoins.

Stablecoins might be thought of, broadly, as a “bridge” between traditional fiat and cryptos, as they enable traders to buy and sell those cryptos without traditional financial intermediaries.

Companies like Voyager (and a range of other companies) might be an on-ramp toward using cryptos in a more generalized, commerce-focused setting. Think of it this way: the same investors/speculators who hang on to bitcoin and its brethren are the ones who would ostensibly spend their gains at merchants, buying goods and services with their winnings.

Ready for Prime Time? 

Indeed, PYMNTS research, done in collaboration with BitPay, shows that 85% of merchants say the ability to gain new customers is a reason for their interest in accepting crypto at the checkout.

Read also: 85% of Merchants See Crypto as Path to Gain New Customers

But with the volatility that is now universal in crypto land with swings seen in platform economics, and withdrawals and redemptions “frozen” time and again … panic is a regular feature here. And panic is never a good thing when trying to establish new ecosystems of commerce. To quote an old boxing aphorism, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the nose.

Without any of the backstops of traditional finance, even the stablecoins have been known to break the buck, so there are no real “acid tests” that can give holders true assurance that what they’ve got in their digital wallets will be there tomorrow. Regulation is still relatively nascent, but is surely on the horizon.

How it all evolves — at least for bitcoin and altcoins as they strive to be fully in the mainstream — is anybody’s guess. But Voyager proves that getting there will be a bit … messy.

The on- and off-ramp service includes support from the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a nonprofit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, and it bridges the gap between physical and digital currencies, the release stated.

Wyre can now offer its partners that are building FinTech apps and platforms the ability to enable those apps’ users to transition between cash and cryptocurrency across the Stellar blockchain and MoneyGram’s global retail partner network, according to the release.

The company has more than 15 million end users, who now have the capability to either use fiat to load digital currencies into their digital wallets or cash out their digital currencies, the release stated.

“Wyre’s vision has always been to bring cryptocurrency to the masses regardless of location, financial means, or economic literacy,” said Wyre Co-Founder and CEO Ioannis Giannaros in the release. “This new integration with the MoneyGram service on Stellar creates a seamless and accessible experience for our users to make the most out of their assets in the least amount of steps.”

MoneyGram is offering the cash-to-crypto transition service for no fees for the first 12 months, according to the release.

In April, payments FinTech Bolt Financial announced it is buying crypto startup Wyre Payments in a deal worth around $1.5 billion.

Read more: Bolt to Purchase Crypto Startup Wyre for $1.5B

The deal is set to close later this year and will see Wyre help Bolt develop its application programming interface (API) offering by integrating its crypto stack. The companies said this will let developers “use the top blockchain protocols to build financial products that can scale to millions of users across the globe quickly and securely.”

Last year, Wyre teamed with Canadian payment service provider Mobilum Technologies to help accelerate Mobilum’s U.S. expansion, integrating Wyre’s API and giving Mobilum the ability to process automated clearing house (ACH) transactions for American customers by using Wyre’s ACH payment rails.

See more: PSP Mobilum Partners With Crypto Payments Firm Wyre to Enter US Market 

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Crypto has a long — but not always proud — history of turning to celebrity endorsers to pitch everything, from shady cryptocurrencies to, more recently, top-of-the-line exchanges.

While some ads are merely strange — such as FTX ambassador and football legend Tom Brady’s Fourth of July flamethrower ad — there has long been pushback from crypto’s skeptics, who said actors, musicians and athletes shouldn’t be using their fame to push risky investments.

And while those investments aren’t nearly as questionable as they were in the first crypto boom of 2017, when some minor celebrities put their names behind fraudulent initial coin offerings (ICOs), the latest round, coming when bitcoin is down more than 70% and others far more, there’s still plenty of controversy to go around.

The Biggest Names Around

As recently as February, the crypto industry was recruiting top name celebrities like quarterback Brady and actor Matt Damon to pitch the virtues of investing in cryptocurrencies around the SuperBowl, despite a bear market that had taken almost 50% off the price of bitcoin since November.

However, celebrity endorsements do work, which could be why bitcoin sprang from being down about half its value to down about one third in the weeks leading up to the biggest sporting event in television.

FTX, which had already given Brady and his wife Gisele Bundchen equity stake — and $20 million — to become global ambassadors for the fast-growing crypto exchange, added baseball MVP Shohei Ohtani, who also got equity. Like a number of other athletes, including Block Cash App spokesman and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., Ohtani also took part of his professional salary in crypto.

It hasn’t all been taken well, most notably when Crypto.com exchange spokesman Damon compared the creation of cryptocurrencies to aviation and spaceflight, a message that was received with loud criticism by crypto skeptics.

“This is real money that people are investing,” Giovanni Compiani, a University of Chicago marketing professor, told the New York Times in May. “Those who promote it should be more upfront about the potential downsides.”

He also noted that his research had “has found that younger, lower-income investors tend to be overly optimistic about crypto’s trajectory.”

Brady and Bundchen’s “Are You In?” commercials for FTX that saw Brady calling regular, working class “friends” ended with the tagline “FTX: The most trusted way to buy and sell _________.” The ad cycled through five potential investments: Bitcoin, ethereum, dogecoin, NFTs and crypto.

Dogecoin was the most interesting choice there: While it does have a strong enough following to see it making inroads as a payments currency as well as top 10 cryptocurrency by market capitalization, it has far less actual utility than any other major cryptocurrency, having literally been designed to be as useless as possible.

And then, of course there was Brady’s Fourth of July flamethrower ad.

I’m around if anyone needs me for their 4th of July barbecue. Fire it up @FTX_Official 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/Gd27fcN5fx

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) July 4, 2022

Sketchy Beginnings

Still, arguments about whether cryptocurrencies are a good investment to pitch for millions of dollars is a far cry from crypto’s inauspicious celebrity endorsement roots, which saw D-list celebrities like actors Steven Seagal, boxer Floyd Mayweather and rapper DJ Khaled making six-figure settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission for touting cryptocurrency initial coin offerings (ICOs) in in 2017 and 2018 without disclosing they were paid endorsers.

At the time, crypto was struggling to shake off its reputation as a currency for tax cheats and drug smugglers.

In February 2020, Seagal disgorged $157,000 after the SEC sued him for failing “to disclose he was promised $250,000 in cash and $750,000 worth of [Bitcoiin2Gen] tokens in exchange for his promotions, which included posts on his public social media accounts encouraging the public not to “miss out” on Bitcoiin2Gen’s ICO, and a press release titled ‘Zen Master Steven Seagal Has Become the Brand Ambassador of Bitcoiin2Gen.’”

A year later, the Department of Justice and SEC charged three of Bitcoiin2Gen’s founders with fraud, charging that the ICO was a scam.