The News Journal

“Meltdown”, “turmoil”, “financial disaster”. It has been quite a week for the world of cryptocurrencies as markets plummeted and the value of investors' holdings in digital assets such as Bitcoin and Terra rapidly diminished. Bitcoin was set for a record losing streak while Terra, a stablecoin, collapsed to close to zero on Thursday. But what happened? Why did the crash occur and is it now over? What happened to Terra? Stablecoins, which are pegged to the value of traditional assets such as the US dollar, are usually popular in times of turmoil. They are key elements of the cryptocurrency market and traders park funds in these assets as they move in and out of other digital tokens. However, Terra slipped below its 1:1 peg to the dollar this week, as global stock markets fell amid rising interest rates and high inflation. Terra's value is derived by algorithmic processes and it is linked to another paired token called Luna. Luna fell by more than 94 per cent on Wednesday to almo...

 Fasset, a platform that enables cryptocurrency trading, raised $22 million in a Series A funding round that it will use to develop new products and expand its digital asset-driven remittance services in Asia. The new investment in the London company, which offers zero per cent trading fees, was led by New York-based Liberty City Ventures and Pakistan's Fatima Gobi Ventures. Soma Capital and MyAsiaVC also participated in the round, it said in a statement on Friday. The funding comes a day after the financial technology company said it had received authorisation to expand its operations in the EU, which will allow it to connect the remittance corridors of the global diaspora to their home markets. Fasset is focused on promoting "financial inclusion and democratising access to opportunity by enabling a new wave of digital asset owners in our target emerging markets", said Mohammad Raafi Hossain, co-founder and chief executive of Fasset. "Asset ownership is the stronges...