DeFi platform Raft suffered a hacker attack early this morning, resulting in a loss of about 3.3 million US dollars worth of ETH. Coinmarketcap data shows that Raft's stablecoin R, which is pegged to the US dollar, immediately dropped by 50%, but later rebounded to around 70 cents and is currently trading at 0.89 US dollars, with a 24-hour decline of 10.64%. Raft co-founder David Garai confirmed the attack on X platform, stating that the hacker minted R tokens and then sold them to exhaust the liquidity of the automated market maker, while extracting collateral from Raft.

Stablecoin Midas, which is backed by US Treasury bonds, plans to issue its stUSD token on DeFi platforms such as MakerDAO, Uniswap, and Aave in the coming weeks, according to an internal document obtained by CoinDesk. The platform claims that Midas stUSD is 100% backed by US Treasury bonds and is issued as a debt security under German law. The Midas stablecoin project reportedly plans to purchase US Treasury bonds through BlackRock and use Circle Internet Financial's USDC stablecoin as a funding channel, with custody technology provider Fireblocks and blockchain analytics firm Coinfirm also listed as institutional partners. The Midas team includes Fabrice Grinda, founder and executive chairman of blank check company Global Technology Acquisition Corp. (GTAC); and Dennis Dinkelmeyer, vice president of GTAC.

Circle, the stablecoin issuer, has launched an upgrade for its USDC and EURC stablecoins, which includes decreased gas costs, improved support for account abstraction, and increased security for transactions on EVM blockchains. The upgrade is fully backwards-compatible and does not require any action from developers or users. The blockchain security firm Halborn audited all the code changes, and Circle plans to roll out the upgrades starting on November 9th and completing them over the next few months. The upgrades will also include improvements to checking blocklists, better resilience against forks, and a one-time rename for the EURC symbol from EUROC.

As highlighted in the PwC Global Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Index and Stablecoin Overview for 2023, stablecoins, a critical component of the digital asset space, reached a market valuation of $180 billion in 2022. Their cumulative trading volume since the beginning of 2023 has exceeded $7 trillion, accounting for about 10% of the entire digital asset market. By merging the benefits of fiat with the programmability of blockchain, stablecoins provide key solutions for the global digital economy​​.

Progmat Coin, in partnership with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and wallet provider Ginco, is conducting a study to issue two stablecoins - a yen-denominated XJPY stablecoin and a dollar-denominated XUSD stablecoin - with the aim of improving settlement efficiencies among players in the crypto asset market. The stablecoins will be launched in the summer of 2024 and will be used for settlements between crypto asset exchanges, with XUSD intended for cross-border settlements. Progmat Coin is also working with liquidity provider Cumberland and crypto exchanges Bitbank and Mercoin, and other crypto asset-related businesses are invited to join. The platform was introduced by MUFG in February 2022 and is regulated under the revised Payment Services Act.

Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet is reportedly considering an IPO in 2024.

Stablecoin startup StablR announced today that it has raised €3.3 million ($3.5 million) in seed funding to establish its euro-based stablecoin business. Deribit, Maven 11, Theta Capital, Folkvang, and Blocktech all participated in this round of financing. StablR began issuing euro-backed stablecoins on October 12th, with the stock code EurR, and stated that it minted over 10 million tokens in the first month alone. The startup has been in operation for over a year (since August 2022).

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England (BOE) have released a suite of documents concerning stablecoin regulation in the UK. The FCA's discussion paper explores potential retail and wholesale stablecoin use cases, proposing the use of existing client assets regime as the basis of rules on redemption and custodianship. The BOE's Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) has released a letter advising deposit-taking institutions to maintain a clear difference between e-money or regulated stablecoins and other types of deposit. The BOE roadmap includes a timeline for implementation of stablecoin regulation by 2025.

According to James Butterfill, head of research at crypto asset management company CoinShares, investors' appetite for stablecoins is closely related to the US dollar because their face value is always calculated in US dollars. The main reason for the surge in stablecoin trading volume last year was the significant increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which stimulated a sharp rise in the US dollar. In fact, not all stablecoins have performed poorly, and USDT, which is linked to the US dollar, is a rare exception. The market value of USDT reached a historical high of $83.8 billion in August last year. However, due to the decoupling of Terra USD and Binance's BUSD last year, the world's largest and second-largest stablecoins, USDT and USDC, fell below the $1 exchange rate. At the same time, several small and medium-sized banks in the United States, including SVB, collapsed at the beginning of this year, and market risk aversion increased, causing investors to stay away from virtual currency assets. Dante Disparte, global strategy chief and chief strategist of Circle, said that the global risk of de-dollarization is due to the impact of the crisis of small and medium-sized banks in the United States, and it is estimated that the stablecoin adjustment period will continue. 

Prisma Finance, the LSD stablecoin protocol, announced on X platform that the first improvement proposal PIP 001, which previously increased the wstETH debt ceiling to 200 million mkUSD, has been deployed. Currently, users can use wstETH to mint an additional 100 million mkUSD.