It looked to be a slow news week (for what was the first time I could remember in crypto history) but then of course, more details leaked about Facebook’s stablecoin.

Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Uber, Stripe and MercadoLibre will be some of the firms to pony up the $10 million to help develop the stablecoin. More news will come out next week, when Facebook releases its white paper for its stablecoin.

Meanwhile, the discussion I moderated at the Oslo Freedom Forum about finances and freedom became especially relevant this week due to the protests in Hong Kong. A journalist posted a photo on Twitter of people lined up to pay for their metrocards with cash rather than using the digital cards that could be used to track their whereabouts.

And this week’s Unconfirmed with Edgeware is interesting not only because it features a new way of distributing tokens but also because the project has also figured out a way for people with funds frozen in the Parity multi-sig wallet that self-destructed to get tokens as well.

For fun, if you want to hear what it’s like when I’m the podcast guest, check out this interview I did with the Mission Daily.

And finally, in case you missed it, Unchained is doing a survey! Please help us out and let us know your thoughts on how Unchained and Unconfirmed could improve. Plus, you can enter to win one of five free Casa Bitcoin Lightning nodes, plus a free year of Casa’s Gold membership — including a multisig security app for iPhone and Android, a Trezor hardware wallet, a Casa faraday bag, and 24/7 support! Those of you interested in learning more about Casa, or about protecting your Bitcoin investment generally, should check out my interview with CEO Jeremy Welch. Thank you to Casa for donating! And to take the survey and enter to win the Casa node, go here.

This Week’s Crypto News…

Facebook Gets Visa, Mastercard, Paypal As Its $10 Million Apiece Backers

However, even some of the members of the consortium, called the Libra Association still aren’t sure “how the coin will work or what their roles will be,” according to the WSJ. And, as expected, regulatory questions hang over the project. On this score, Caitlin Long has one particularly spot-on prediction in this Forbes piece: “Discussions about Facebook’s data privacy and corporate power are about to extend to money. Grab the popcorn!”

Binance to Enter US Market

Binance intends to launch Binance U.S. — a trading platform specifically targeting U.S. customers. The world’s highest-volume crypto exchange is launching it in partnership with BAM Trading Services. Starting September 12, users not in compliance will no longer be able to trade or deposit on Binance.com.

USDC Opens to New Members

Surely this news has nothing to do with Facebook’s stable coin. The USDC stablecoin, Centre, which previously was operated by Coinbase and Circle, is now open to other potential members, who would then have the right to issue or redeem USDC.

Bakkt Sets Launch Date

On July 22 will “initiate user acceptance testing” for its bitcoin futures. The blog post is worth checking out for the 10 identified market risks and the 10 solutions Bakkt has to address those.

Still Almost 30 Illegal Online Drug Markets

Silk Road was just the start of a years-long game of whac-a-mole, reports Nathaniel Popper of the NYT. “Data from Chainalysis suggests that before the latest crackdown, overall transactions on the dark net had recovered to nearly 70 percent of the previous peak, right before AlphaBay went down, and were growing each month.”

Ted Livingston Sentenced to DEATH by SEC ‘Executioner’ Jay Clayton

Coin Jazeera, FTW: “‘What the hell am I going to do with $3,000,000 in sticker packs? I’m not an underage girl actually trying to use Kik!’ yelled a frustrated Joey Krug.” And another gem: “Jay Clayton ordered Ted Livingston to pay the standard SEC fine of $250k per $100 million stolen — all proceeds going to the SEC Chestahedron Softball League.”