Analysis Today TheBitTimes.com

Circle’s USDC stablecoin has dropped from $45 billion in circulation at the start of 2023 to just $26 billion as the summer winds down. Stablecoin issuer Circle has a $1 billion cash reserve pegged as insurance against a declining market capitalization and fresh competition from the traditional finance and technology industries, said CEO Jeremy Allaire.  In an interview with Bloomberg, Allaire revealed the war chest and shared his views on the uptick in competition from organizations such as PayPal that are new to the stablecoin space: “I expect you will see many many, not just internet payments firms, but also all kinds of financial services companies and others begin to get more involved in this. It’s great to have this new competition. I do think it’s going to drive more and more companies into the field.” Related: PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin for payment Circle is best known for its USDC (USDC) stablecoin, a digital token similar in design to regular cryptocurrency but backe...

According to Circle, USDC liquidity operations will "resume as normal when banks open on Monday morning in the United States," enabling USDC redemption at 1:1 with the U.S. dollar. USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to use " corporate resources" to cover the shortfall on its reserves following Silicon Valley Bank's shutdown, said the company in a statement on March 11.  According to Circle, USDC liquidity operations will "resume as normal when banks open on Monday morning in the United States," enabling USDC redemption at 1:1 with the U.S. dollar. The announcement came after the stablecoin lost its $1 peg on March 11 to trade as low as $0.87 before slowly re-pegging at $0.97 at the time of publication. The stablecoin lost its peg after the disclosure of $3.3 billion of Circle's reserve at Silicon Valley Bank. Sharing an Update on USDC and Silicon Valley Bank. https://t.co/Ug3qpot8sJ — Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) March 11, 2023 Silicon Vall...

The majority of the funds stolen were from a single wallet which had $751,321.80 USDC drained from the malicious link. Azuki, a popular nonfungible token (NFT) project, had its Twitter account compromised on Jan. 27 leading to hackers stealing over $750,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC) by posting a malicious “wallet drainer link” posed as a virtual land mint. Hackers stole $751,321.80 USDC from a single wallet within half an hour of the malicious links being tweeted, according to Etherscan data provided to Cointelegraph by crypto wallet security firm Wallet Guard. The data also revealed that Hackers stole a further $6,752.62 worth of USDC from various wallets holding 11 NFTs and over 3.9 Ether (ETH). Wallet Guard stated that the total amount stolen was $758,074.42. Emily Rose, community manager for the anime-inspired NFT project confirmed via Twitter on Jan. 27 that the Azuki account was hacked, warning users not to click any links from Azuki’s Twitter account . AZUKI OFFICIAL TWITTER AC...