In an interview with Global Finance, former St. Louis Fed Chairman Brad stated: "The FOMC's last meeting and Powell's press conference were very clear that unless something dramatic happens, Fed officials are ready to act at the September meeting. I think they have expressed their intentions as central banks as clearly as possible. I think they will start cutting interest rates by 25 basis points in September. The question then is how quickly they want to reach a new monetary policy stance. Even if they slightly lower the policy rate, the rate will remain at a restrictive level. They need to continue to lower rates from that point. I think it may be a 25 basis point rate cut at each meeting, for several consecutive meetings, until the policy rate is lowered to a lower level, at which point they can decide whether inflation continues to move towards the 2% target and whether to continue normalizing policy rates. It is expected that there will be a 75 basis point interest rate cut from now until December."

Whale Alert monitoring shows that a Polygon Staking address transferred about 70 million MATIC tokens worth approximately $36,403,662 around 22:33 today.

Bitcoin L2 project Ark Labs announced the completion of a $2.5 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Tim Draper and Draper Ventures, with participation from Fulgur Ventures, Axiom Capital, and Bitcoin angel investor Stephen Cole.

Babylon announced on the X platform that the upper limit of the first stage of 1000 BTC pledges has been reached. According to Babylon's pledge platform data, the confirmed pledge TVL is currently 1000.04549438 BTC, and the number of users participating in the pledge is about 12,700.

MakerDAO announced on X platform that the Endgame plan has introduced upgraded versions of DAI and MKR called NewStable and NewGovToken. However, DAI and MKR will still be available. Unless the governance department decides otherwise, these two tokens are expected to remain unchanged in the foreseeable future. Users can continue to hold and use these two tokens as before. DAI will remain available indefinitely. Users can upgrade to NewStable and choose to switch back to DAI at any time. 1 DAI = 1 NewStable (NST). The ecosystem will ultimately explore ways to differentiate between DAI and NewStable, with DAI focusing on native crypto use cases and NewStable targeting mass adoption. MKR can still be used to vote on governance proposals.

According to Turkish media reports, Andreas Szakacs, a co-founder of OmegaPro, which is believed to be involved in a cryptocurrency scam, was arrested in Turkey in July. The reports stated that Turkish authorities confiscated cold wallets and computers and traced $160 million worth of cryptocurrency transactions. Andreas Szakacs was arrested for his alleged involvement in a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of $4 billion, according to Turkish media reports on Thursday.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, decentralized stablecoin platform Reserve has purchased 6.45 million CRV (worth $2.03 million) through market maker GSR Markets in the past six days. In addition, Reserve was also one of the buyers of Curve founder's OTC sale last August: it spent $1 million to buy 2.5 million CRVs from the founder at a price of $0.4 per CRV. Currently, Reserve holds a total of 19.41 million CRVs ($6.38 million).

AiStrat's Intelligent Quantitative Trading Investment will officially launch at 00:00 GMT-4 on August 1, 2023. This is a crucial step towards providing the most advanced and efficient trading solutions for the blockchain sector. With this launch, users will be able to customize their participation based on their preferences, presenting an excellent opportunity for increasing returns and multiplying wealth. AiStrat firmly believes in the transformative power of AI technology in the world of trading, with the goal of providing robust, efficient, and profitable trading solutions. AiStrat warmly invites all users to take part in this and looks forward to embarking on this exciting new journey together. Invest wisely, multiply your wealth, and let us redefine the future of trading together!

Over the past century, the number of American banks has significantly decreased, dropping from 30,000 banks in 1921 to 4,997 U.S. banks in 2021, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Recently, the U.S. central bank denied Custodia Bank of Wyoming, a financial institution that holds $1.08 for every dollar deposited by customers. Although there appears to be a need for such a bank after the collapse of three major U.S. banks, the Federal Reserve stated that board members have “heightened concerns” about institutions with plans to focus solely on a narrow sector. (Bitcoin.com)

Officials from the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrial countries will discuss regulations on cryptocurrencies to improve transparency and consumer protection as part of preparations for the next meeting of the group in Hiroshima, Japan, in May, Kyodo News reported on Sunday. The group aims to take the lead in setting global standards for emerging digital asset industries, the report said. Cryptocurrency-related issues will also be a part of the upcoming G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors set to take place in Washington D.C this April, according to Kyodo. (forkast)

A number of Chinese state-owned banks’ branches in Hong Kong have started offering services to local cryptocurrency companies, Bloomberg reported on Monday, as the city welcomes a growing list of cryptocurrency and digital asset firms looking to expand or relocate to the city. Local companies in the crypto industry have traditionally had difficulties setting up corporate bank accounts, and the moves of these state-owned lenders reflect China’s backing in trying to boost the digital asset industry in Hong Kong, according to the report. (forkast)

North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank is set to acquire all deposits and loans of Silicon Valley Bank, according to a statement from the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Under the agreement, 17 former branches of Silicon Valley Bank will open as First Citizens Bank and Trust Company on Monday, March 27, while all depositors of SVB will automatically become depositors of First Citizens Bank. "As of March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association, had approximately $167 billion in total assets and about $119 billion in total deposits. Today’s transaction included the purchase of about $72 billion of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association’s assets at a discount of $16.5 billion," said the FDIC in a statement. (Cointelegraph)

Optimism-based lending protocol Kokomo Finance has been suspected of a $4 million “exit scam” that has seen user funds plucked out from the platform via a smart contract loophole. Blockchain security firm CertiK alerted its followers to the “exit scam” in a March 26 Twitter post, noting that the Kokomo Finance (KOKO) token has plummeted 95% in value in a matter of minutes. CertiK also noted that Kokomo Finance removed all social media accounts immediately following the alleged rug pull too. (Cointelegraph)