Confidence in Stablecoins Shaken; Universal Music Group Partners with LimeWire

Chart of the Day





On Tuesday, the U.S. markets climbed on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's reiteration of the central bank's non-negotiable resolve to curb inflation. However, the broader crypto market stagnated as market sentiment remained bearish. BTC struggles to hold the $30k psychological support after posting a 1.38% loss in the last 24 hours. As of the time of writing, the key overhead resistance for the largest cryptocurrency by market cap is sitting in the $31.5k region, where a clear break-out above this level may usher in a momentum that could be more than just a temporary reprieve. 

In a similar vein to BTC, ETH has defended the $2,000 handle well despite falling by 1.36% in the same period. Most major altcoins have flipped red with the exception of LTC and TRX, as both coins are up by 2% in a similar time frame. 

The impact of Terra's brutal collapse has been reverberating throughout the broader crypto space in the past few days. Metrics reveal an extant crisis of confidence with regard to stablecoins, the dominant means of exchange in crypto markets. Tether, the largest stablecoin by market cap, saw over $3.3 billion worth of redemptions on May 12, the largest record in its history. Further, USDT's free-float supply also dropped by another $2.8 billion the next day, and a further $961 million over the weekend. Similarly, there has been a sharp decline in stablecoin liquidity within DeFi contracts. The amount of USDC in smart contracts has fallen by a substantial $5 billion since its peak in March, while the supply of DAI has dropped by $2 billion. 





Talk of the Town





In some good news, major music label Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced an official partnership with LimeWire, an up-and-coming music platform that only recently unveiled its own Algorand-based marketplace in March. This deal will let artists under the UMP label release tokenized digital collectibles on the LimeWire marketplace. However, this is not Universal's first attempt to venture into the web3 world. Its foray into the burgeoning space can be traced back to as early as November of 2021, when it launched Kingship, a virtual band inspired by a series of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.