Flexa announces layer 2 compatibility via Transformers; Lightning and Bancoagrícola payments go live in El Salvador
The Amp Community Digest for Friday, September 10, 2021
We hope that members of the Amp community had a restful end-of-summer holiday, because there are certainly a lot of updates! Read on to learn about Flexa’s expansion to El Salvador, new integrations with the Lightning Network, payments compatibility with layer 2 (L2) scaling networks, and cryptocurrency news from around the world.
For new community members, check out previous issues on Substack and subscribe to stay up to date. For additional, more frequent updates, make sure to join the Amp community on Discord and Twitter.
In case you missed it…
Flexa announces Transformers, Lightning payments in El Salvador
With this week’s announcement of Transformers in Flexa Capacity, Flexa has expanded the universe of Flexa-compatible payments to include any layer 2 (L2) scaling solution—such as the Lightning Network or Polygon—enabling instant, fraud-proof payments for even more users. The first transformer connecting the Lightning Network to Flexa Capacity is now live and supports seamless, fully compliant Lightning payments for merchants in El Salvador as part of the country’s efforts to incorporate bitcoin into their economy. By helping L2 scaling solutions like Lightning connect to Flexa—thus “transforming” them into spending capacity—Amp offers merchants access to more consumers and wallet apps than ever before.
Bancoagrícola partners with Flexa to enable BTC payments in El Salvador
Following Bitcoin’s introduction as legal tender in El Salvador, Flexa has partnered with Bancoagrícola, the largest financial institution in El Salvador, to enable bitcoin payments across Bancagrícola’s network of more than 1,000 points of service across the country. With this partnership, Bancoagrícola customers will now be able to use bitcoin to make instant payments for loans, credit cards, and merchant goods and services.
In conversation with Paul Barron, Andy Boyan, and Steffy Barbaglio
The Paul Barron Network interviewed Flexa CEO Tyler Spalding, and the two discussed Flexa’s compatibility with the Lightning Network, the value of unlocking loyalty points natively in-app, and the capabilities enabled by Amp’s token partition technology in conjunction with future iterations of the Flexa capacity contracts. Andy Boyan of Chainlink and Tyler had an in-depth discussion about the process of collateralizing payments, why it’s important to collateralize L2 networks as they write the state of the chain back to the base layer, and how Chainlink helps enable Flexa payments. Finally, Tyler spoke with Steffy Barbaglio of the Financial Fox, in which the two discussed the lack of progress within payments, the challenges in the industry, and how Flexa improves the security and privacy of the financial ecosystem.
Amp now available on LBank; new trading pair on Bittrex Global
LBank, a Hong Kong–based exchange, has enabled the AMP–USDT trading pair, and Bittrex Global has added the AMP–USD pair for international users.
Amp in the Makara Universe Basket
Makara, a crypto robo-advisor, has added Amp to the Makara Universe Basket, enabling users to gain exposure to Amp as part of a broad crypto market index.
Metrics update
Current TVL of Flexa Capacity — $1.27 billion
Earn rewards for staking your Amp on the Flexa network toward the apps below:
Did you know?
Flexa recently increased its weekly spending limit to $750 per week.
DeFi and payments news
Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa to trial CBDCs for cross-border payments
The Innovation Hub of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is working in collaboration with the central banks of four nations—Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa—to explore central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). “Project Dunbar” will serve as a test of cross-border payments using CBDCs: “These multi-CBDC platforms will allow financial institutions to transact directly with each other in the digital currencies issued by participating central banks, eliminating the need for intermediaries and cutting the time and cost of transactions.”
Merchants struggle to offset credit card fees
The Wall Street Journal reports that a growing number of small businesses are charging customers to offset the increasing burden of credit card fees as they feel the impact of sales lost in the pandemic. Meanwhile, large retailers avoid enacting explicit surcharges, passing along fees to customers through increased prices.
C.R.E.A.M. Finance exploited, customer funds covered by platform
DeFi lending platform C.R.E.A.M. Finance recently suffered an exploit in which a hacker stole user funds, including Amp and ETH. In their comprehensive postmortem report, the Cream Finance team committed to fully covering any lost funds.
DeFi makes a splash in the New York Times
In a sign of DeFi’s growing impact in the world, the New York Times published a broad overview of lending platforms, stablecoins, CBDCs, Ethereum and more. The article also highlights regulatory perspectives and the concerns of legacy bank institutions.
From the community
Amp community member Lumi (@Valuemancer) hosted an AMA in the Decentralized Club Telegram group this past Thursday.
Looking for a one stop shop for all your Amp conversation, news, metrics and more? Visit the unofficial Amp Linktree, which has been aesthetically organized and carefully maintained by community member u/OJ3D.
Post of the week
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