Celo, a decentralized payments protocol, has closed a $20 million fundraise from investors including Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), Greenfield One, and Electric Capital.

The latest investment brings Celo’s total fundraising to $65 million, with past backers including Jack Dorsey and Coinbase Ventures.

February 10 also marks the official launch of Valora, the first peer-to-peer payments and mobile remittance app built on the Celo platform.

After the news, CELO increased by more than 50%.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/94288/celo-defi-payments-platform-20-million-raise-a16z

Pangolin, a community-driven decentralized exchange (DEX) running on Avalanche that supports all Avalanche and Ethereum tokens, has been launched.
https://twitter.com/avalancheavax/status/1359201504016691201

Prior to that, the Avalanche-Ethereum Bridge was launched.
https://twitter.com/avalancheavax/status/1358824632464334850

AVAX increased by 86% in 24 hours.
The market cap now exceeds $4 billion.

1 billion USDT minted on Tron.

Paolo Ardoino (CTO Bitfinex and CTO Tether) tweeted that "this is a authorized but not issued transaction, meaning that this amount will be used as inventory for next period issuance requests and chain swaps."

https://twitter.com/whale_alert/status/1359587927291011080
https://twitter.com/paoloardoino/status/1359527667180134401

"This year Mastercard will start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on our network."

https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2021/why-mastercard-is-bringing-crypto-onto-our-network/

Amazon's Digital and Emerging Payments (DEP) division is hiring developers and engineers for a digital currency project to be launched in Mexico.

https://decrypt.co/57372/amazon-is-hiring-developers-for-a-digital-currency-project

⚡️Bitcoin hits new all-time high of $ 48,399

Elrond has announced that OpenDAO stable coins will be available for DeFi products on the Elrond Network.

https://elrond.com/blog/elrond-egold-stable-coin-opendao/

Waves has published an article on how to maximize the profitability of stablecoins through staking and liquidity providing.

https://medium.com/wavesprotocol/how-to-get-an-apy-of-100-on-a-usd-deposit-45d5ac7a05bf

"Just like we accept all kinds of local currency we are going to look at cryptocurrency and or #bitcoin in terms of currency to transact. That's good for business, that's good for our riders and our eaters," says
Uber CEO. "We are just not going to do it as part of a promotion."

https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1359864577878609922

Bitcoin to Come to America’s Oldest Bank, BNY Mellon.
The custody bank plans to eventually treat digital currencies like any other asset.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-to-come-to-america-s-oldest-bank-bny-mellon-11613044810

Radix has announced that they are launching GoodFi, a non-profit initiative alongside Aave, Chainlink, Messari, mStable & more.

GoodFi was created with a clear mission: get 100m people to put at least $1 into DeFi by 2025.

https://www.radixdlt.com/post/radix-launches-goodfi-alliance-with-chainlink-aave-messari-mstable-more/
https://www.goodfi.com/

The HydraDX auction on Balancer has been completed.
Listings on exchanges are unlikely before the launch of the mainnet.
The team plans to launch the mainnet at the end of Q2.

https://lbp.hydradx.io/
https://hydradx.substack.com/p/hydradx-faq

SUSHI is now on Coinbase Custody.

After the news, SUSHI increased by 10%.

https://custody.coinbase.com/assets

Mainframe has been rebranded to Hifi.

https://blog.mainframe.com/mainframerebrand-5cb034c26e42

PayPal’s Crypto Products Coming to the UK in Months

https://www.coindesk.com/paypals-crypto-products-coming-to-the-uk-in-months

Injective Partners with Marlin to Enable Unmatched Trading Speeds

https://blog.injectiveprotocol.com/injective-partners-with-marlin-to-enable-unmatched-trading-speeds/

Coinbase Custody now supports deposits and withdrawals for Utrust ($UTK)

https://twitter.com/CoinbaseInsto/status/1359970577927315459

First Bitcoin ETF in North America Approved.

The Purpose Bitcoin ETF gained regulatory approval in Canada.
It will debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange, where it can be used for retirement and education savings accounts.

https://decrypt.co/57515/first-bitcoin-etf-in-mainland-north-america-approved

In upcoming AMA series:
My Neighbor Alice🚀
https://www.myneighboralice.com/

Blockchain-based game, where users get to build, create and play together. It’s a game which aims to make blockchain features simple and fun even for non-crypto players who have no idea what NFTs are.

Today 12 Feb 1 p.m. UTC
ICO Drops Eng Chat

⚡️Miami council supports mayor’s move to offer city worker salaries in Bitcoin.

The resolution would also put a proposition before the state legislature that, if successful, would see Bitcoin as an acceptable investment for municipal funds.

https://twitter.com/FrancisSuarez/status/1360069847971954690
https://cointelegraph.com/news/miami-council-supports-mayor-s-move-to-offer-city-worker-salaries-in-bitcoin

1inch Foundation provided another distribution of the 1INCH token.

The distribution scheme applied to Mooniswap (revamped to 1inch Liquidity Protocol in December, 2020), some wallets with transaction relayers and limit order users, as well as to some providers of liquidity to 1inch pools who did not receive tokens they were entitled to in the initial Christmas distribution.

In addition, the 1inch Foundation distributed 6 mln 1INCH tokens to Uniswap’s non-relayed traders who have never swapped tokens on 1inch nor on Mooniswap.

https://1inch-exchange.medium.com/1inch-foundation-distributes-more-1inch-tokens-82d1ffbff7e2