Cracking system, Stellar shines

Some hopeless Stellar enthusiast once called XLM “a cherry on a cake everyone should stake,” teeing up endless possibilities for subsequent rejoinder stanzas – like, "after nearly reaching a buck, Stellar, wtf?" Alas, history has a way of rhyming, as Twain pointed out, and so while it's worth remembering the merry run that XLM had around Christmas of 2018, 'tis perhaps better to focus on the fast-moving developments right now helping to drive the price of the 11th-largest crypto to 110% gains over the past month. XLM has risen 12% over 24 hours, as of this morning (EST).

This week, 266-year-old Bankhaus von der Heydt (BVDH) announced the issuance of a new Euro-backed stablecoin in conjunction with digital custodian Bitbond. The latter company will handle tokenization and custody; the Munich-based bank will issue the EURB – on the Stellar blockchain. 

Animated by BVDH deposits, EURB can be leveraged by the bank’s institutional clients to settle digital asset transfers on-chain.  It’s a game-changer, BTC Manager said.

“This is a testament to the ways that traditional banking and blockchain can work together,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation.

Stellar launched in 2014 with this very aim. Since then, Stellar has partnered Deloitte, IBM and Stripe as well as a dozen financial institutions and payment processors, connecting people, payment systems and banks, lowering transaction costs.

BVDH dates back to the industrial revolution when it bankrolled investments in the unicorn sectors of that era: steel, coal, railway, and textiles.

Bitcoin fell for a third straight day, sitting at about $18,175 as of Thursday morning (EST), down 0.2% over 24 hours. On Wednesday it sank to as low as $17,630 but rebounded to, at one point, $18,355.

Andrew Tu at Efficient Frontier called this “temporary bullish exhaustion,” after BTC missed the $20K mark. Put another way, BTC is correcting.

Comfort food for a pandemic-altered economy, DoorDash shares debuted on Wednesday, ticking just over $100 as investors began to gorge on the IPO.

The shares then went 86% higher, all the way to nearly $190. DoorDash closed with a market value of $60 billion.

Airbnb's IPO is set for today. As of Tuesday, crypto traders could gain exposure to Airbnb through a pre-IPO derivatives contract available on FTX. The contract is tied to Airbnb’s market capitalization as of the end of today (Cointelegraph).

Meanwhile, Facebook shares fell 2% as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and all but four states joined together to file a suit accusing the social media titan of unlawful antitrust behavior i.e. snapping up rising rivals, such as WhatsApp, which it could be forced to sell, upending plans to integrate messaging and digital payments.

On Wednesday, Fidelity Investments, the third largest U.S. asset manager with more than $3 trillion, announced a partnership between its Digital Assets subsidiary and BlockFi to allow clients to post BTC as collateral for cash loans.

This is roughly equivalent to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange financing its customers’ 35% initial margin requirements needed to take a position in CME-traded futures.

BlockFi counts Fidelity’s venture arm, Devonshire Investors, among its backers, so it would make sense these moving parts would join together.