1/ The European Central Bank announced an interest rate cut for the first time since 2019, lowering the deposit rate from 4% to 3.75%. ECB President Christine Lagarde stated the rate cut is based on strong economic forecasts and that further cuts would depend on continued downward inflation trends. Despite the cut, the ECB projects slightly higher inflation for 2024 and 2025 compared to previous forecasts, averaging 2.5% and 2.2% respectively.
2/ Robinhood announced the strategic acquisition of Bitstamp exchange in a US$200m deal, aiming to accelerate their global crypto expansion plans.
3/ Paxos International introduced a yield-bearing stablecoin called Lift Dollar (USDL), backed by U.S. dollar deposits, liquid U.S. government securities, and cash equivalent reserve assets. USDL is issued permissionlessly on Ethereum, with an approximate 5% yield accrued programmatically via daily rebasing.
