Meta’s WhatsApp has launched a new pilot letting a “limited number” of people in the United States send and receive money from within a chat using the Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin. The feature is powered by Meta’s digital wallet Novi.

The Solana network was reportedly hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that failed to take it down but managed to clog the network to the point it endured a noticeable slowdown. A DDoS attack is generally caused by a number of coordinated devices or a botnet overwhelming a network with fake traffic.

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched its first yield product allowing users outside of the United States to earn interest on their cryptocurrency holdings. The product, launched in 70 jurisdictions, lets users earn interest on DAI through decentralized platform Compound.

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Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• WhatsApp Pilots Crypto Payments Feature
• Solana Hit With DDoS Attack That Clogged the Network
• Coinbase Launches DeFi Yield Product
• Crypto Market Movers – LEO, LUNA, MATIC
• Sponsored: Crypto.com - The World’s Fastest Growing Crypto App

WhatsApp Pilots Crypto Payments Feature

Meta’s WhatsApp has launched a new pilot letting a “limited number” of people in the United States send and receive money from within a chat using the Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin. The feature is powered by Meta’s digital wallet Novi.

The pilot program was announced by Novi’s incoming head Stephane Kasriel and WhatsApp’s Will Cathcart. Novi’s website details that sending a payment works much like sending any other attachment via WhatsApp. There are no fees for sending or receiving money.

Payments are transferred instantly, and there are no fees to keep a balance in a user’s Novi account or to withdraw their funds to a bank account. The pilot program is available in both English and Spanish.

Meta relies on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase as its custody partner for the funds and uses Pax Dollars, a stablecoin created by Paxos. WhatsApp, it’s worth noting, has launched fiat currency payments features in several countries including India and Brazil.

Solana Hit With DDoS Attack That Clogged the Network

The Solana network was reportedly hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that failed to take it down but managed to clog the network to the point it endured a noticeable slowdown. A DDoS attack is generally caused by a number of coordinated devices or a botnet overwhelming a network with fake traffic.

Solana notably endured a 17-hour outage back in September due to massive botting activity on one of its decentralized exchanges. Solana-focused infrastructure firm, GenesysGo, reported that the validator network was experiencing issues with processing transaction requests amid the recent DDoS attack.

The Solana Foundation is yet to publicly confirm any attacks have occurred while monitoring tools do not report any outages have occurred. However, multiple users voiced their concerns on social media and attributed the outage to an initial decentralized offering on Solana DEX Raydium.

In response, one of the moderators of Reddit’s r/Solana, pointed out there are “stop gaps” in place to keep Solana online since the DDoS attack in September.

Coinbase Launches DeFi Yield Product

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched its first yield product allowing users outside of the United States to earn interest on their cryptocurrency holdings. The product, launched in 70 jurisdictions, lets users earn interest on DAI through the decentralized platform Compound.

Earlier this year, regulators in the U.S. effectively halted Coinbase’s plans to launch an interest-generating product called Lend. In a blog post, Coinbase noted the new service lets customers access “attractive yields.”

The product differs from Lend as it does not require customers to lend their holdings to Coinbase, and instead uses Compound Finance.

In September, the SEC threatened to sue Coinbase if it launched Lend. In a recent congressional testimony, Coinbase’s Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas noted the firm still doesn’t “have clarity on why our product wasn’t allowed to proceed.”

Crypto Market Movers – LEO, LUNA, MATIC

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 7-day period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

Terra (LUNA) - Terra aims to build a new financial infrastructure that works better for everyone. The network is powered by a family of stablecoins, each pegged to major fiat currencies all algorithmically stabilized by Terra’s native token, Luna. Terra’s mission is to set money free by building open financial infrastructure.

Unus Sed Leo (LEO) - LEO Token it's a utility token designed to empower the Bitfinex community and provide utility for those seeking to maximize the output and capabilities of the Bitfinex trading platform.

Polygon (MATIC) - Matic provides scalable, secure and instant transactions using sidechains based on an adapted implementation of Plasma framework for asset security and a decentralized network of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) validators. In short, it allows anyone to create scalable DApps while ensuring a superior user experience in a secure and decentralized manner.

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