Uber Considers Bitcoin, DeFi Products Head to Binance Smart Chain (Feb. 12, 2021)

Good morning. Happy Chinese New Year, everyone. Here’s what Michelle Phan is doing:

Welcome to Friday Focus, part of our new series: BitPinas Daily. We will look at the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum and the major cryptocurrencies. Crypto is global, but sometimes news that matters happens while we sleep. So we bring to you what’s happening in our space here and abroad.

Market Price as of February 12, 2021:

Bitcoin	$47,816	+662.%
Ethereum	$1,782.51	+2.5%
Tether	$0.99	-1%
ADA	$0.927	+0.34%
DOT	$25.12	+6.76%
SLP	$0.0331	-1.7%

Bitcoin closed February 11, 2021, at $47,816 per BTC. We’re up 31% in the last 7 days and up 66% since the year began. This is 0.44% below the previous all-time high of $48,025 which was hit on Feb 9. 2021.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands today at $897,984,008,511 which is 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market. The entire crypto market, by the way, now has a market cap of $1,482,630,792,804 (-7.2%).

On the table above, there’s the cryptocurrency SLP. If you wonder what that is, check out this article: Playing Axie Infinity vs Minimum Basic Salary in the Philippines.

BNY Mellon

BNY Mellon Will Custody Bitcoin

BNY Mellon is the oldest bank in America, and it IS a big deal that it will begin to custody Bitcoin. The bank will store and transfer BTC and other cryptocurrencies, and crypto will flow through the same systems it uses for traditional currencies and stocks.

That means BNY Mellon will treat crypto as it does traditional assets.

Uber

Uber to Consider Bitcoin for Ride and Food Payments

"Just like we accept all kinds of local currency we are going to look at cryptocurrency and or #bitcoin in terms of currency to transact. That's good for business, that's good for our riders and our eaters," says @dkhos. "We are just not going to do it as part of a promotion." pic.twitter.com/2OSamy3yBV
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) February 11, 2021

The problem, according to Nathaniel Popper:

It’s funny that @uber seems to have gotten it exactly backwards on how people actually use Bitcoin.

While it has been a good place to park money it has been pretty widely recognized to be bad for transactions. https://t.co/DCnOQsyrIQ
— Nathaniel Popper (@nathanielpopper) February 12, 2021

Binance Smart Chain

Harvest Finance and Value Defi head to Binance Smart Chain

Harvest Finance, a yield aggregator and Value DeFi, a multi service platform are expanding to Binance Smart Chain, the smart contract platform from Binance. Here’s what Value DeFi said:

Cat is out of the bag on this one. #BSC here we come!

More details on an updated roadmap coming soon 👍 pic.twitter.com/CsTdWS6l5C
— Value DeFi (@value_defi) February 11, 2021

Bitcoin ETF

U.S. SEC Commissioner Says Market is Ready for Bitcoin ETF

Now that nobody cares about a #Bitcoin ETF, the SEC is ready to give the public one.

In terms of market effect, this will smash the $GBTC premium. https://t.co/lsKQOCSdNO
— Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay) February 11, 2021

#CryptoPH

Insights on BSP Guidelines for Virtual Asset Service Providers by Atty. Rafael Padilla

In this whitepaper, @farcovelaw, Co-Founder and Trustee of @BlockdevsA and Professor of Law at San Beda College Alabang, examines the updated guidelines for virtual asset service providers released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. https://t.co/JXQ3Lw5lON #CryptoPH
— BitPinas (@bitpinas) February 11, 2021

In an article here on BitPinas, Atty. Rafael Padilla, Co-Founder and Trustee of BlockDevs Asia and Professor of Law at San Beda Alabang, examines the updated guidelines for virtual asset service providers released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Rafael recently published the book Fintech: Law and First Principles.

Read here: Insights on BSP Guidelines for Virtual Asset Service Providers