Coinbase provides Canadians with its services.

Coinbase enthusiastically embraced its northern neighbors, flinging open its doors to the citizens of Canada. The San Francisco-based exchange extended its services to Canadians beginning August 14.

A partnership with People's Trust Company to integrate Interac e-Transfers accompanied the decision. This strategic step is anticipated to improve transaction efficacy for Canadian users.

In a further step, the exchange introduced the exclusive "Coinbase One" membership for new Canadian sign-ups, granting them a 30-day trial period to explore the platform's features.

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Days after entering Canada, Coinbase disclosed its future intentions for certain stablecoins in the Canadian market. Starting in September 2023, Canadian Coinbase users will no longer be able to trade USDT, DAI, and RAI.

It appears the crypto platform’s expansion came with a fine print, catching some enthusiasts off guard. According to Coinbase, an evaluation of assets is routine in order to ensure that all listings satisfy the requirements.

However, although the trading entrances are gradually closing, Canadian users still have until September to make deposits and withdrawals of these stablecoins.

Now offering crypto futures, Coinbase

Coinbase received an endorsement from the National Futures Association (NFA) to offer futures trading to U.S. clients just days after expanding to Canada.

Now, Coinbase Financial Markets Inc., a subsidiary of Coinbase, will serve as a futures commission merchant (FCM), allowing U.S. consumers to engage in crypto futures trading on America's largest exchange.

Greg Tusar, vice president of institutional product at Coinbase, described this as a "major milestone." This permission from the NFA enables Coinbase to offer both traditional spot crypto trading and a well-behaved selection of crypto futures.

Shibarium's introduction faces post-launch obstacles.

This week, the dense Shiba Inu community witnessed the release of the long-awaited Shibarium layer-2 scaling solution. However, the launch, which occurred on August 16 during the Blockchain Futurist Conference, was plagued by problems hours later.

After the inauguration, investors utilized the Shibarium bridge to transmit their Ethereum-based assets to Shibarium. However, they were shocked to discover that they could no longer access their Shibarium purchases.

The funds, totaling $1.7 million worth of Ether (ETH) at the time the issue came to light, were apparently trapped on the Shibarium bridge contract. According to the crypto-analytical resource Beosin, the transactions remained in a pending state.

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Additional investigation revealed that the Shibarium Remote Control Protocol (RPC) also failed. In addition, block production on the Shibarium blockchain was halted for over seven hours. Even the Shibarium website itself experienced a decline.

"Everything is well"

Shytoshi Kusama, the pseudonymous main developer of Shiba Inu, addressed the community's concerns in an official blog post published hours after the issue first surfaced.

"Everything is fine," said the developer. According to him, the escalating issue originated from a scalability issue encountered by the Shibarium development team at commencement. Kusama remarked that the rate of adoption observed upon introduction was unexpected.

He was pleased that the layer-2 network was experiencing a large influx of users and reassured investors that the team is working to scale the system to meet the growing demand.

Two days later, another Shiba Inu developer, Kaal Dhairyya, offered strategies for managing the increased volume of traffic on Shibarium.

According to him, in response to the unanticipated increase in user activity, the platform entered failsafe mode to protect user funds. To address the current issues, Dhairya has enlisted the assistance of a number of partners.

In addition, the team has devised a series of action plans to overcome these obstacles. They have committed to sharing regular updates with the community in the spirit of openness.

In addition, they've taken the additional step of offering up to $2 million in insurance coverage should complications arise after the Shibarium network is restarted.

Adoption continues to gain ground

In recent weeks, public and private sector crypto adoption has continued to make headlines, and this week was no exception.

Last week, PayPal quietly introduced its PYUSD stablecoin, according to reports from this week. Coincidentally, PayPal reportedly sneaked in a Crypto Hub this week.

The 7th of August marked the unveiling of PayPal's new crypto center, allowing users to engage in a variety of crypto-related activities.

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The hub enables PayPal customers to purchase, sell, transmit, and receive supported cryptocurrencies. It also facilitates the conversion of crypto assets to and from the PYUSD stablecoin.

Coca-Cola and McDonald's embrace NFTs in Singapore.

The soft drink behemoth Coca-Cola entered the NFT arena. The company entered the digital art market with a brand-new NFT collection housed within the layer-2 Base network of Coinbase.

Coca-Cola's inaugural NFT collection aimed to make a statement in the spirit of Coinbase's "Onchain Summer" event. The Masterpiece collection is a symphony of revered classics and contemporary miracles, all interwoven with the iconic Coca-Cola bottle shape.

This week, Coca-Cola was not the only well-known brand to enter the NFT scene. McDonald's Singapore has incorporated non-fungible tokens. Grimace, a large, purple character that was prominently featured in McDonald's advertising and branding throughout the 1980s and 1990s, was the focus of this digital party.

McDonald's Singapore, in collaboration with NFT artist The Hidden Walls and the crypto virtuosos at Bandwagon Labs, will offer an exclusive series of 2,000 one-of-a-kind digital artworks that pay tribute to the mysterious Grimace.

The Singapore Red Cross accepts cryptocurrency donations

In the meantime, the Singaporean branch of the venerable humanitarian organization Red Cross entered the realm of crypto-philanthropy. The organization formed a partnership with Triple-A, a cryptocurrency payment gateway, allowing individuals to contribute using their digital assets.

The Singapore Red Cross now accepts donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), US Dollar Coins (USDC), and US Dollar Coins (USDT). Due to Triple-A's clever payment gateway, it is effortless to send these digital tokens their way. What about wallet compatibility? Check out. Additionally, Triple-A locked in exchange rates for security.

Fed considers DLT

The Federal Reserve of the United States made a discreet foray into Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

FedNow, the Federal Reserve's digital solution for facilitating digital payments between financial institutions, enterprises, and service providers, has named Dropp as its newest partner.

Dropp is a pay-per-use platform powered by the Hedera blockchain that enables consumers to easily pay for small-scale products and services.

Reports indicate that as part of the collaboration with the Fed, Dropp will undertake multiple roles for FedNow, including facilitating cost-effective payments and administering customer credit transfers.

Mastercard investigates CBDCs

Mastercard seized the spotlight with a strategic partnership involving seven payment and blockchain technology companies, all of which have made significant contributions to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

Mastercard is adamant that central banks contemplating the introduction of digital currencies must have a comprehensive comprehension of the complexities and difficulties inherent to these assets.

The alliance with these payment institutions is intended to promote this awareness. Ripple, Consensys, Consult Hyperion, Fluency, Fireblocks, Giesecke+Devrient, and Idemia form this partnership.

A market massacre

In the meantime, this slew of adoption reports was unable to prevent this week's crypto market carnage.

The problems began on August 15, when Bitcoin's value began to decline significantly, falling to the lower end of the $29,000 range. The Bitcoin price dropped below $29,000 on August 16 for the first time in over a week as concerns grew.

According to reports, the decline below $29,000 brought Bitcoin close to retesting the price realized by short-term holders. A CryptoQuant analysis revealed that BTC was trading at a critical juncture, as a decline below the realized price of short-term holders could result in further retracement.

The adverse sentiment gathered steam on August 17, when BTC experienced an intraday loss of 7.33 percent. This was its largest single-day loss since November 9, 2022, when it dropped by 14%.

Bitcoin retested the $25,000 area before recovering to conclude the day on August 17 at $26,623, recovering some of the day's losses. This decline reverberated throughout the entire cryptocurrency market, with ETH falling 6.99% and XRP falling a tremendous 14%.

Interestingly, this market decline coincided with the August 17 petition for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection by China's property behemoth Evergrande.

Multiple crypto assets were subject to enormous liquidations as a consequence of the market collapse. According to Coinglass data, the cryptocurrency market experienced $1 billion in liquidations on August 17, the largest amount since the FTX collapse in November.