USDC Co-Creator ‘Circle’ Wants to Become a Traditional Bank

Circle, along with Coinbase, operates USD Coin (USDC) a cryptocurrency that has its valued pegged to the US dollar. Coins of this nature are known as stablecoins. Circle has announced its intentions to become a traditional, FDIC-insured bank. Could this pave the way for USDC to become the de facto digital currency of the U.S.? Axios has a good summary.

Circle chief strategy officer Dante Disparte tells Axios that the company hasn’t yet even properly initiated the process of applying to become a bank; it’s just announced its intention to do so. Disparte says they’re willing to do “whatever the policymakers want.”

Top 10 Services That Hackers Target the Most

Software system provider Intact collected data and analyzed it to see which brands hackers are searching for as their next potential hacking targets.

We analysed search intent by digging out the number of searches for terms including ‘how to hack [xyz]’. Although career cybercriminals are likely to use more nefarious means to research and test their hacking processes, Google search data provides an insight into global intent and changing trends.

‘Weedmaps’ Adds In-App Purchases for Cannabis Products

An app called Weedmaps was updated to let customers purchase products directly within the app. It’s a notable move because Apple’s restrictions previously forbade in-app purchases for cannabis.

The change comes after Apple opened up the App Store for some cannabis apps. Under the new guidance, licensed cannabis operators fall under the same restrictions (to Apple) as licensed pharmacies allowing apps like Weedmaps, which lists licensed cannabis operators, to offer such services.

DeFi Platform ‘Poly Network’ Hacked, $600 Million in Crypto Stolen

Poly Network is a cross-chain decentralized finance platform and operates on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. It suffered a hack recently in which approximately US$600 million in crypto was stolen.

About one hour after Poly announced the hack on Twitter, the hacker tried to move assets including USDT through the Ethereum address into liquidity pool Curve.fi, records show. The transaction was rejected. Meanwhile, close to $100 million has been moved out of the Binance Smart Chain address in the past 30 minutes and deposited into liquidity pool Ellipsis Finance.