Fund management giant State Street has taken a 9.32% stake in the troubled cryptocurrency bank, Silvergate Capital, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Ethereum layer-2 scaling system Optimism (OP) has proposed a major upgrade that would boost its performance and functionality called BedRock. The proposal offers a “new level of modularity, simplicity, and Ethereum equivalence for layer 2 solutions, providing unprecedented performance and functionality.”

Finnish firm Membrane Finance has released a Euro-backed stablecoin that it claims is the “first and only EU-regulated crypto stablecoin.” The company itself is licensed by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (Fin-FSA).

 Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• State Street Takes 9.32% Stake in Crypto Bank Silvergate
• Optimism Foundation Proposes Major Network Upgrade
• Finnish Firm Releases Euro-Backed Stablecoin it Says is EU-Approved
• Crypto Market Movers – APT, T, RNDR

State Street Takes 9.32% Stake in Crypto Bank Silvergate

Fund management giant State Street has taken a 9.32% stake in the troubled cryptocurrency bank, Silvergate Capital, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The disclosure comes at a time in which Silvergate is looking to ease investor concerns over its future, as it reported a $1 billion loss in the fourth quarter of the year over FTX’s collapse.

State Street was reported to hold a 5.3% stake in the crypto bank earlier in the month, whilethe world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, disclosed a boosted holding in Silvergate as of the end of 2022, taking its 6.3% stake in the crypto bank to 7.2%.

Fund manager Vanguard also has a sizable portion of the company, revealing an 8.59% holding in the company as of December 31, 2021, according to a filing from this month.

Optimism Foundation Proposes Major Network Upgrade

Ethereum layer-2 scaling system Optimism (OP) has proposed a major upgrade that would boost its performance and functionality called BedRock. The proposal offers a “new level of modularity, simplicity, and Ethereum equivalence for layer 2 solutions, providing unprecedented performance and functionality.”

The upgrade is reportedly going to enable improvements in transaction costs, speeds, and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. In addition to these, it would create a foundation for future improvements such as decentralized sequencing, which allows the network to derive security from Ethereum.

The team behind Optimism said most users won't feel the effects of the upgrade, but those running full nodes must take steps to ready themselves.

Optimism estimates that the transition to Bedrock will take less than 4 hours and won't requirea network reset, with all historical chain data remaining accessible, avoiding any data loss. The Goerli testnet of Optimism has already upgraded successfully to BedRock.

Optimism (OP) is a layer-two platform built on top of the Ethereum blockchain that aims to improve the scalability and accessibility of decentralized applications (dApps). It does this by using a technique called "optimistic rollups," which allow dApps to offload some of their computation and data storage onto a separate layer, while still remaining secure and decentralized.

Finnish Firm Releases Euro-Backed Stablecoin it Says is EU-Approved

Finnish firm Membrane Finance has released a Euro-backed stablecoin that it claims is the “first and only EU-regulated crypto stablecoin.” The company itself is licensed by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (Fin-FSA).

The firm’s stablecoin, EUROe, is set to have each token backed by “at least one fiat euro” in a “European financial institution or bank, ring-fenced from Membrane Finance.” Membrane Finance believes the stablecoin will allow for “near-instant payments” at close to zero cost.

Other euro-backed stablecoins have been launched in the past. U.S.-based Circle released its own euro-backed stablecoin, Euro Coin (EUROC), in June. The stablecoin was initially custodied by Silvergate Bank, a U.S.-regulated entity.

Initially, the EUROe will be accessible on the Ethereum blockchain, with plans for support on additional blockchain networks in the future.

Crypto Market Movers – APT, T, RNDR

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.

Aptos (APT) - Aptos is a Layer 1 Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that employs a novel smart contract programming language called Move, a Rust-based programming language that was independently developed by Meta (formerly Facebook)’s Diem blockchain engineers, envisioning a blockchain that brings mainstream adoption to web3 and empowers an ecosystem of DApps to solve real-world user problems.

Threshold Network (T) – The Threshold Network is an on-chain merger between two existing networks, NU and KEEP. It is the only decentralized bridging protocol and has been audited by reputable companies in the field. The platform is designed to safeguard privacy on public blockchains.

Render token (RNDR) - Render Token is an Ethereum-based distributed GPU rendering network and marketplace. RNDR is a utility token that powers and serves as currency on Render Token's ecosystem.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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