Check out the biggest breaking crypto market updates for today:
Solana Pay Integrates Plug-In With Shopify For USDC Payments
Solana Pay, the payment protocol built on the Solana blockchain, has reportedly integrated its plug-in with e-commerce giant Shopify. The integration will allow millions of businesses on Shopify to accept payments in USDC.
Solana Foundation Head of CommerceBusiness Development Josh Fried stated,
“Solana Pay on Shopify opens up millions of merchants to a more dynamic and efficient payment choice, while consumers get the convenience and increased utility of being able to pay for goods and services with digital dollar currencies from the vast network of merchants using Shopify.”
Going with USDC first wasn’t unintentional. Most merchants are probably more willing to accept something closely tied to the dollar. USDC is also more regulated than, say, many altcoins, and consumers in general are already used to transacting in digital dollars. But the protocol will consider adding cryptocurrencies like SOL and BONK in the future, Fried said.
Shopify accounts for 10% of total U.S. e-commerce and $444 billion worth of global economic activity, according to its website. The Solana ecosystem has over 11.5 million active accounts; Solana Pay has been adopted by big crypto names like Circle and Phantom as well as payment processors like Checkout.com and Citcon.
“Some people argue the killer app for crypto hasn’t arrived, but it has: it’s payments,” Fried said. “[Everyone] should be doubling down on this.”
Credit card processing fees usually cost a business between 1.5% and 3.5% per transaction, but using the Solana Pay option is practically “fee-free,” Fried said. The average cost per transaction on Solana’s blockchain is $0.00025, or fractions of a penny.
Of course, Solana has dealt with downtime issues in the past, which in itself has a cost. But the blockchain reported 100% uptime in Q2, so things are getting better.
It’s also worth noting that shopify also entered the credit card space in July by launching its own business credit card for merchants.
In general, Solana Labs sees its blockchain as “perfectly suited for payments,” Fried said. Because there’s no intermediaries, bank fees, chargebacks and holding times.
“You need speed at the point of sale for merchant payments. No one wants to sit on a website to wait for wallet transactions. Similarly in a point of sale in a store, can you imagine waiting three minutes for your payment to go through? No one wants to do that.”
Quantstamp Introduces Tool To Detect Protocols’ Flash Loan Attack Vulnerability
Blockchain security provider Quantstamp has announced the launch of ‘Economic Exploit Analysis’ – a new automated service that detects flash loan attack vectors in smart contracts.
The new service, which has been released in collaboration with researchers from the University of Toronto, will enhance Quantstamp’s audits and will be available on any EVM-compatible blockchain.
The service is available for both deployed and undeployed protocols, and is non-exhaustive.
In decentralized finance (DeFi), a flash loan is an unsecured loan that has to be taken out and paid back in the same transaction. Flash loans can be used to take advantage of price differences between crypto exchanges (arbitrage), debt refinancing and similar actions. A flash loan attack is the manipulation of DeFi protocols in ways developers did not foresee.
Quantstamp explained:
“Flash loan attacks can drain the entire TVL (total value locked) of a DeFi protocol, and their complicated nature combined with DeFi’s composability means these attack vectors often evade conventional audits.”
The need for greater security in DeFi markets is garnering increasing attention. The problem of flash loan largest attacks, in particular, was brought into focus when Euler Finance was attacked in March.
Last year, over $2 billion worth of crypto was stolen in hacks and exploits.
Coinbase’s new Base layer-2 is also addressing security vulnerabilities. It is developing a monitoring tool that it is calling Pessimism to “provide prompt notification of anomalies in the protocol and network, such as account balance irregularities, contract events, or disparities between L1 and L2 states,” it announced in a recent blog post.
Maple Finance Eyes Asian Expansion With $5M Investment
Blockchain-based credit marketplace Maple Finance has reportedly raised $5 million in a new strategic funding round. The round was led by BlockTower Capital and Tioga Capital and saw participation from Cherry Ventures, The Spartan Group, GSR Ventures and Veris Ventures.
CEO Sidney Powell stated,
“This funding round marks a pivotal moment in our evolution as we embark on a strategic expansion into the APAC (Asia-Pacific) region as part of a comprehensive growth plan for Maple. The network is poised to further scale its technology and forge partnerships that enable compliant and seamless lending and borrowing adoption across the APAC region, specifically in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and Korea.”
Maple’s focus on Asia showcases the region’s increasing importance for the digital asset industry. Asian countries have taken charge in setting up clear rules for crypto firms to service consumers, which is in stark contrast to the regulatory uncertainty in the U.S. Hong Kong recently handed out the first licenses to trading platforms under the new crypto regime, while last week Singapore’s central bank released a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
US-based exchange Gemini expanded in the region with a new hub in Singapore earlier this summer.
The development comes as Maple is recovering from last year’s massive crypto deleveraging after the spectacular collapse of FTX, which led to $54 million worth of distressed loan being accumulated on the platform.
The protocol debuted blockchain-based US Treasuries facility in April, which has attracted $22 million of deposits since then.
In June, the firm also set up a direct lending arm that targets web3 firms. Total value locked on Maple currently sits at $88 million, down from a peak of $938 million last May, according to DefiLlama.
Maple also announced Monday that it restarted its use of the Solana network after eight months expanding its stablecoin cash management offering to the network.
Solana-based protocols Solend, Drift and UXD Protocol committed to deposit funds at the beginning, Maple said.
The facility, only available on Ethereum before, allows accredited investors, companies, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) to park their spare stablecoin stash in one-month U.S. Treasury bills and earn a 4-5% annual yield.
It has attracted $22 million of deposits since commencing in April, according to the platform’s dashboard.
The move marks Maple’s return to Solana after it halted lending on the network last December amid a major tech overhaul following the collapse of FTX.
Tokens of Maple Finance (MPL) are up nearly 2% at 4.75 at the time of this writing.
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