Today in crypto, the European Central Bank has selected technology partners for its digital euro project. Plasma founder Paul Faecks denied insider selling allegations after the XPL token plunged more than 50%, and Swedish lawmakers proposed exploring a national Bitcoin reserve.
European Central Bank picks tech partners for digital euro
The European Central Bank (ECB), as part of its preparation phase for a potential digital euro launch, announced framework agreements with technology providers responsible for components of the central bank digital currency (CBDC).
In a Thursday notice, the ECB said it had reached agreements with seven entities — and at least one more expected to be announced — to provide services related to managing fraud and risk, a secure exchange of payment information, and software development for a possible digital euro. Among the companies were Feedzai, which uses AI to detect fraud and the security technology company Giesecke+Devrient.
“Following the framework agreement conclusion, G+D and other successful tenderers will work with the ECB to finalize planning and timelines,” said Dr. Ralf Wintergerst, CEO of Giesecke+Devrient. “Under the guidance of the ECB Governing Council and in line with EU legislation, this work will cover the design, integration, and development of the Digital Euro Service Platform.”
Other components and services that the technology companies will provide include “alias lookup,” allowing digital euro users to send or receive funds “without necessarily knowing the details of the Payment Service Provider of the other end-user.”
Giesecke+Devrient is also responsible for the engineering and development of allowing users to make or receive payments with digital euros while offline.
Plasma founder denies insider selling after XPL token plunges over 50%
Plasma founder Paul Faecks denied accusations of insider selling after the project’s native token, XPL, dropped by more than half its value over the weekend.
On Thursday, Faecks rejected speculation that the team offloaded tokens into the market, stressing that investor and team allocations remain locked for three years with a one-year cliff. “No team members have sold any XPL,” he said.
Plasma officially launched its mainnet beta along with its native Plasma (XPL) token on Sept. 25. The layer-1 blockchain is designed to make stablecoin payments cheaper and faster.
Following the launch, XPL spiked to almost $1.70 on Sunday before tumbling steadily to $0.83 by Wednesday, erasing more than 50% of its value, according to TradingView data.
Because of the dramatic drop, many community members suspected that the team may have engaged in time-weighted average price (TWAP) selling. In this algorithmic strategy, a large sell order is broken down into smaller, equally sized orders, each executed at regular time intervals.
Community members quickly turned to onchain analysis to investigate the flows of XPL following the dump.
Independent sleuth ManaMoon pointed to movements from the Plasma team vault. The community member said that the wallet sent more than 600 million XPL tokens to exchanges in the days leading up to the launch.
Sweden eyes entering the Bitcoin “digital arms race”
Two members of Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, have proposed that the country investigate establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve to tackle inflation and diversify its holdings.
In their proposal to the Riksdag on Wednesday, Swedish Democrats Dennis Dioukarev and David Perez said that, given other countries like the US are already in the process of creating a reserve, Sweden should “participate in this digital arms race and join the growing group of nations that have accepted and recognized the potential of Bitcoin.”
Similar to the US, Dioukarev and Perez have floated the idea of funding the reserve through seized Bitcoin, but said the decision on which authority will manage the Bitcoin (BTC) is an “open question,” for now.
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