Decentral Block Post

The developers of bridging platform Ren protocol have warned users to unwrap their tokens and bridge them back to their native chains “ASAP,” or risk losing them, according to a Twitter thread from the team.

The team stated that mints on Ren will be disabled “shortly,” meaning that it will be impossible to deposit any assets onto the platform to bridge to other networks. In 30 days, “burns” or withdrawals will also be disabled.

The company behind the project, RenVM, had previously stated on Nov. 18 that they would be releasing a new version of the protocol, Ren 2.0, “in parallel” with the shutdown of the current one. This implied that the current bridged assets might still be usable after the shutdown of Ren 1.0.

However, this new announcement makes clear that current assets may not be usable in the newer version of the platform, so users may get these assets stuck in the platform if they don’t withdraw them soon.

Ren protocol users have relied on it to bridge assets since 2017. But in February, 2021, RenVM was acquired by Alameda Research. This led to a funding shortfall after Alameda filed for bankruptcy in November.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped 1.5% in the past seven days to rest at $840 billion. The slightly negative movement did not break the ascending channel initiated on Nov. 12, although the overall sentiment remains bearish and year-to-date losses amount to 64%.

Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped 0.8% on the week, stabilizing near the $16,800 level at 10:00 UTC on Dec. 8 — even though it eventually broke above $17,200 later on the day. Discussions related to regulating crypto markets pressured markets and the FTX exchange collapse limited traders' appetites, causing lawmakers to turn their attention to the potential impact on financial institutions and the retail investors' lack of protection.

On Dec. 6, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said it is "looking carefully" at decentralized finance (DeFi), while the agency's acting director, Himamauli Das, said the digital asset ecosystem and digital currencies are a "key priority area" for the agency. In particular, the regulator was concerned with DeFi's "potential to reduce or eliminate the role of financial intermediaries" that are critical to its AML and CFT efforts.

Hong Kong's legislative council approved a new licensing regime for virtual asset service providers. From June 2023, cryptocurrency exchanges will be subject to the same legislation followed by traditional financial institutions. The change will require stricter anti-money laundering and investor protection measures before being guaranteed a license of operation.

Meanwhile, Australian financial regulators are actively working on methods for incorporating payment stablecoins into the regulatory framework for the financial sector. On Dec. 8, the Reserve Bank of Australia published a report on stablecoins citing risks of disruptions to funding markets, increasing bank exposure and liquidity. The analysis highlighted the particular fragility of algorithmic stablecoins, noting the Terra-Luna ecosystem collapse.

Algorithmic stablecoins have had a rough year, starting with UST de-pegging to zero and the subsequent blow-up of Terra’s LUNA token which was used for the asset’s backing. Algorithmic stablecoins are not fully collateralized and rely on different mechanisms to maintain the peg, making them inherently fragile to market conditions. 

The UST implosion created a domino effect that caused another stablecoin, Magic Internet Money (MIM) to de-peg. Despite the fragility of algorithmic stablecoins, new projects like Djed by Cardano (ADA) are still planning on launching, but that doesn’t mean that the concept has improved since the crises seen earlier in the year.

Let’s look at the latest de-peg event in the cryptocurrency space.

On Dec. 8, the Digital Asset eXchange Association (DAXA), which consists of the five major crypto exchanges in Korea issued a warning for Waves and its (WAVES) token.

The warning comes after the stablecoin, USDN which is backed by WAVES, de-pegged and has thus far failed to re-establish the $1 peg in more than 180 days. This means that the USDN protocol may liquidate WAVES through the automatic arbitrage process in an attempt to regain the peg. On Dec. 8, USDN was 16% below the peg.

Algorithmic stablecoins have had a rough year, starting with UST de-pegging to zero and the subsequent blow-up of Terra’s LUNA token which was used for the asset’s backing. Algorithmic stablecoins are not fully collateralized and rely on different mechanisms to maintain the peg, making them inherently fragile to market conditions. 

The UST implosion created a domino effect that caused another stablecoin, Magic Internet Money (MIM) to de-peg. Despite the fragility of algorithmic stablecoins, new projects like Djed by Cardano (ADA) are still planning on launching, but that doesn’t mean that the concept has improved since the crises seen earlier in the year.

Let’s look at the latest de-peg event in the cryptocurrency space.

On Dec. 8, the Digital Asset eXchange Association (DAXA), which consists of the five major crypto exchanges in Korea issued a warning for Waves and its (WAVES) token.

The warning comes after the stablecoin, USDN which is backed by WAVES, de-pegged and has thus far failed to re-establish the $1 peg in more than 180 days. This means that the USDN protocol may liquidate WAVES through the automatic arbitrage process in an attempt to regain the peg. On Dec. 8, USDN was 16% below the peg.

Bitcoin (BTC) ranged below $17,000 at the Dec. 8 Wall Street open as the U.S. dollar threatened further weakness.

Dollar dips as stocks see modest upt

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD practically flat over the 24 hours to the time of writing.

With macro cues lacking, analysts eyed a potential breakdown in U.S. dollar strength as the next volatility catalyst for crypto and risk assets.

The U.S. dollar index (DXY) looked set to challenge multi-day support, wicking below 105 multiple times on the day.

“$DXY’s first time under the 100 day MA since June of ‘21,” Joe Cariasare, co-host of the Inside Bitcoin podcast, noted.