Decentral Block Post

Multinational banking firm JP Morgan has successfully executed its first ever cross-border transaction using decentralized finance (DeFi) on a public blockchain.

The trade was facilitated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian on Nov. 2 — which was established as part of a pilot program to “explore potential decentralized finance (DeFi) applications in wholesale funding markets.”

In other words, the pilot was another step into examining how traditional financial institutions can use tokenized assets and DeFi protocols to conduct financial transactions, among other use cases. 

Singapore’s largest bank — DBS Bank, Tokyo-based banking firm SBI Digital Asset Holdings and business leadership platform Oliver Wyman Forum also took part in the pilot program. 

The trade was executed on Ethereum layer-2 network Polygon, using a modified version of AAVE protocol's smart contract code.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw instant volatility on Nov. 2 as the United States Federal Reserve enacted a fourth consecutive 0.75% interest rate hike.

Fed hints more hikes to com

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD initially dropping to $20,200 before momentarily rebounding to $20,800.

The Fed confirmed the 0.75% hike, which marks its most intensive hiking schedule in forty years, in a statement.

“The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. In support of these goals, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 3-3/4 to 4 percent,” it stated.

“The Committee anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time.”

The past few months have been painful for Bitcoin (BTC) bulls, but they are not alone. The United States Federal Reserve’s tightening economic policy has led investors to seek protection in cash positions and inflation-protected bonds. 

Surging inflation and recession signals have caused the S&P 500 stock market index to retreat 19% year-to-date. Even gold — previously considered a safe asset — is suffering the consequences, trading down 20% from its all-time high.

The increasing costs of a home mortgage added fear that a housing crisis might be underway. Since the Fed started raising interest rates in March, borrowing costs have gone up and up, and mortgage rates have reached multi-decade highs.

Regardless of the prevailing bearish sentiment, Bitcoin bulls could still profit by $270 million on Friday's options expiry.

$640 million in options expire on Nov. 4

According to the Nov. 4 options expiry open interest, Bitcoin bears concentrated their bets between $16,000 and $20,000. These levels might seem gloomy right now, but Bitcoin was trading below $19,500 two weeks ago.