Stellar and Moneygram Team Up 💵

Ripple won't be impressed by Stellar and MoneyGram's partnership. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [CoinMarketCap Earn]( Market Activity Total Market Cap $2.32T (+0.79%) 24 Hour Volume $124.05B (-14.86%) Notable Movers[(ONE) $0.2128]( (+20.21%) Notable Movers (DeFi)[(FTM) $2.26]( (+24.47%) Bitcoin Dominance 44.82%[(+0.42%)]( Bitcoin Price[(BTC) $55,274.62 (1.70%)]( Ethereum Price[(ETH) $3,619.70 (+1.04%)]( Cardano[(ADA) $2,27 (-2.26%)]( How Hard Is It to Play-to-Earn? Pretty hard, according to the co-founder of Axie Infinity. If you’ve been living under a rock (and not the NFT-kind), you might now know that Axie Infinity is one of the most popular play-to-earn games out there right now, with over $2.2 billion worth of NFTs created in its Pokémon-like world. However, co-founder Aleksander Leonard yesterday said during a conference that about 50% of Axie’s 2 million players a day have never used any crypto application before —of the 500 support emails to Axie a day, 25% are from users that have never had a bank account before, while others have unknowingly sent their private key along with their request for help. In Larsen’s own words, getting players to understand how to set up the game is like swimming to an island: and "a lot of people are drowning" — so what do we do about it? Crypto education, NFT education, and giving people free "starter" Axies to ease them into the metaverse: these are Larson’s ideas. (My own would be: make your game a bit easier to play, and maybe improve the graphics so that the Axies could, I don’t know, move around more? This is 2021, and the most popular play-to-earn game looks similar to Neopets.com.) Regardless of my own thoughts on Axie’s design, there is no getting around the fact that the game is wildly popular in parts of the world where it’s often hard to get access to regular banking services. Cryptocurrency has long had the motto of "banking the unbanked" — did anyone think that what would finally "bank" some of those unbanked millions would be a 2-D trading game of inanimate (cute) cartoon monsters? SPONSORED AD The Most Popular Way to Trade Crypto Low fees, 80+ trading pairs. Trusted by millions of users across 200 countries. Trade with the fastest matching engine in crypto. [Trade Crypto]( Low fees, 80+ trading pairs. Trusted by millions of users across 200 countries. Trade with the fastest matching engine in crypto. [Trade Crypto]( Today’s Top Stories 📰 Check out [CoinMarketCap Alexandria]( for tech deep dives, analysis, daily news and easy-to-understand guides on how crypto works! [Today’s Top Stories ]( Tether Attacks Bloomberg Article 😡 Tether has responded furiously to a Bloomberg feature that cast doubt over its finances. The stablecoin issuer accused the news outlet of "misinformation and innuendo" after suggesting billions of dollars supposedly held in reserve are unaccounted for. Tether dismissed the "false and aging story" and insists all its tokens are fully backed. [Read more.]( What Did Bloomberg Say? 👀 One damning line in Zeke Faux's article says: "It was hard to believe that people had sent $69 billion in real U.S. dollars to a company that seemed to be practically quilted out of red flags." The overarching point of the article is that — if Tether ends up collapsing — there are fears this could strike a fatal blow to the whole ecosystem. [Our summary of the piece.]( Compound's $150M Bug Fixed 😶 Seven days and many millions of dollars later, a patch to fix a bug in the Compound lending protocol has been approved. However, the community still faces a two-day wait before Proposal 64 fixes the problem. It's hoped this will end a sorry saga that began after a missing = in a line of code put 490,000 COMP tokens at risk of being drained. [Here's the latest.]( Stellar Teams Up with Moneygram 🚨 MoneyGram is working with the Stellar Development Foundation to use its blockchain to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper. Circle’s USD Coin stablecoin — USDC — will be used for consumer transactions between different countries and currencies. It's hoped the partnership will "revolutionize" settlements… but Ripple might not be impressed. [Here's why.]( Thanks for reading! Have a great day — more news tomorrow! 👋 [Read More]( [App Store]( [Google Play]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Telegram]( © 2021 CoinMarketCap [Update Settings]( | [Unsubscribe]( [coinmarketcap.com]( CoinMarketCap OpCo LLC, 8 The Green, STE 6703, Dover, Delaware 19901, United States