Pension funds’ interest in the cryptocurrency market hasn’t disappeared despite the months-long bearish downturn the space has experienced, although they have reportedly considered whether to double down or walk away from their crypto exposure.

Polkadot-based decentralized finance (Defi) platform Acala has seen its native stablecoin aUSD, lose its peg over the weekend and plummet 99% after hackers exploited a bug in a newly-developed liquidity pool to mint 1.28 billion tokens.

Huobi Group’s founder, Leon Li, is reportedly in talks with investors to sell his majority stake in the cryptocurrency exchange at a valuation as high as $3 billion in what could be the industry’s largest deal since this year’s rout began.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Pension Funds Remain Interested in Crypto
• Polkadot-based Stablecoin Plunges 99% After Hackers Bloat Supply
• Huobi Chief in Talks to Sell $1 Billion Stake at Crypto Exchange
• Crypto Spot Trading Volumes Reach 20-Month Low

Pension Funds Remain Interested in Crypto

Pension funds’ interest in the cryptocurrency market hasn’t disappeared despite the months-long bearish downturn the space has experienced, although they have reportedly considered whether to double down or walk away from their crypto exposure.

One pension fund for Houston-based firefighters put $25 million into bitcoin and ether last October, and has so far lost more than half of that value to the bear market. The $5 billion fund’s leadership, however, understood the nature of the investment and noted that “volatility and large swings are expected.”

Other pension funds see the bear market as an opportunity to double down on their investments, as yields are more attractive at a time when fewer people are willing to bet on crypto markets, according to the investment chief of a Virginia-based pension fund that is benefiting police in Fairfax and holds $6.6 billion.

Not every pension fund is interested in the cryptocurrency market, however, with a $300 billion fund for teachers in California choosing to avoid digital assets over the high risk.

Polkadot-based Stablecoin Plunges 99% After Hackers Bloat Supply

Polkadot-based decentralized finance (Defi) platform Acala has seen its native stablecoin aUSD, lose its peg over the weekend and plummet 99% after hackers exploited a bug in a newly-developed liquidity pool to mint 1.28 billion tokens.

The Acala team reacted to the exploit by disabling the transfer functionality of the “erroneously minted” aUSD remaining on the Acala parachain. A wallet believed to belong to the attacker, still holds 1.27 billion aUSD.

The attacker who minted 1.28 billion tokens was notably not the only person to take advantage of the bug, with other addresses stealing thousands of dollars worth of Polkadot’s DOT from the liquidity pool.

Huobi Chief in Talks to Sell $1 Billion Stake at Crypto Exchange

Huobi Group’s founder, Leon Li, is reportedly in talks with investors to sell his majority stake in the cryptocurrency exchange at a valuation as high as $3 billion in what could be the industry’s largest deal since this year’s rout began.

Li reportedly held discussions with various financiers seeking to sell a roughly 60% slice of the company he founded, with Tron founder Justin Sun and FTX’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried being among those who’ve had preliminary contact with Huobi about a potential sale.

Existing shareholders including Sequoia China and ZhenFund were informed about Li’s decision during a meeting in July, and a deal could be completed as soon as the end of August. A Huobi spokesperson was quoted saying:

“He hopes that the new shareholders will be more powerful and resourceful, and that they will value the Huobi brand and invest more capital and energy to drive the growth of Huobi.”

Huobi is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume. It’s unclear whether a deal would involve Hong Kong-listed Huobi Technology Holdings, an affiliate that manages digital assets for professional investors.

Crypto Spot Trading Volumes Reach 20-Month Low

Spot trading volumes across all centralized cryptocurrency exchanges dropped 1.34% in July to $1.39 trillion, the lowest monthly trading volume recorded in 20 months, since December 2020, when Bitcoin moved up from $19,000 to surpass the high it established in 2017 near $20,000.

Derivatives trading volumes have meanwhile surged 13.4% in July to $3.12 trillion, which means that the derivatives market now represents 69.1% of the total cryptocurrency market, up from 66.1% in June.

Bitcoin trading into fiat currency and stablecoins increased as investors seemingly continue to prefer safety under uncertain macroeconomic conditions. Meanwhile, digital asset exchange AAX saw its volume rise 26.5% to $57.2 billion, an all-time high for the platform.

Binance, FTX, OKX and Coinbase all saw declines in their trading volumes since the start of the year, falling 12.9%, 15.5%, 57.6%, and 57.2%, respectively. AAX was the only exchange in the top 15 that saw its volume grow since the beginning of 2022.

Find out more via CryptoCompare’s July 2022 Exchange Review.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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