tl;dr
• Rumors of Western Union exploring XRP technology in response to Stellar's MoneyGram investment signal shifts in the money transfer industry.
• Wells Fargo to pay SEC over alleged customer overcharging and improper advisory fees, spanning 2014-2022.
• PEPE project's $16M asset drain sparks question...
It looks like PEPE is strife with controversy and this is why I do not play with projects I do believe have a use case. Here is what is on my mind today.
1. There are new rumors swirling around Western Union exploring XRP technology. This would be in direct response to Stellar's investment in MoneyGram that I told you about on 8/6. I think we can all agree that the current money transfer business model of Western Union and MoneyGram are done.
2. Well, it looks like Wells Fargo is about to cut a fat check to the SEC over alleged overcharging of millions of customers. The SEC says the bank also snatched an additional $26.8M in advisory fees after overcharging 10.9K customers. The SEC went on to say the bank did not make the appropriate changes in its billing systems and did not implement policies and measures that could have prevented this problem which took place from 2014 - 2022.
3. The PEPE scandal continues with a lot of swirl around exactly what happened with the $16M drain of assets from the project. Remember I told you how the multi-signature wallet went from 8 signatures down to 2. Well, would that move have taken all 8 to change? That was my first question. It also sounds like someone may have doxed one of the developers and seems to have gone on a buying spree. The person that supposedly doxed the lead developer says the development team had a massive short position on their own project. Any way you slice this story up PEPE is looking like a massive scheme.
4. This brings me to Friend,Tech. What does it do? Why should I invest? What are they doing that I should buy into their tech? From what I see, absolutely nothing. Daily trading volume is down 94%. The number of daily traders is down 83%. The number of new traders seems to have plummeted 80%, too. I am going to quote Public Enemy and tell you "Don't believe the hype"!
5. It looks like Shibarium is finally ready for prime time. I am expecting the hype machine to restart and start getting into the dApps on the Layer 2 platform. Even with the misstep for the launch I am still expecting big things from the team and community.