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Blockchain News

Restructuring attorneys hired by Celsius to relieve financial difficulties

Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Celsius has recruited a legal team to help it restructure its firm after running into financial difficulties.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP has been retained by the company to provide legal guidance on how to deal with its escalating financial difficulties, according to reports. First and foremost, a source familiar with the situation said, the firm is looking for potential investors. Celsius is considering other options, such as financial restructuring if this strategy fails.

This is the latest development after the platform’s decision on June 12 to prohibit withdrawals, swaps, and transfers on its platform due to market circumstances. As a result of the action, most cryptocurrencies have fallen to their lowest levels since January 2021.

On June 13, CEL, the Celsius Network’s native token, traded at a low of $0.0935. For the rest of the day, it recovered some of its losses and traded over $0.30.

CEL’s price soared by 500% on June 14th, reaching a high of $2.56 on FTX. In addition to BitFinex, Gate.io, and OKEX, a number of other exchanges suffered modest pumping.

Tokens rapidly fell below $1 as these gains were short-lived. As of this writing, CEL is trading at $0.49, up 52.14 percent from the previous day’s closing price of $0.321. The token’s price has fallen by 94% from its all-time high (ATH) of $8.03 on June 4, 2021.

Nexo came in after Celsius Network’s bankruptcy concern and offered to provide a hand. According to the Nexo team, it was only in the best interest of Celsius users and the wider crypto community that it offered to buy Celsius’ assets.

Nexo said in its Letter of Intent that it was interested in purchasing Celsius Network’s qualifying assets. These include Celsius’ customer database, collateralized loan receivables, and Celsius’ brand assets.

In spite of Nexo’s persistent pestering, the company has yet to accept his offer. In the meanwhile, the business keeps telling clients that it has their best interests at heart.

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Altcoins Blockchain News

Tether clarifies USDT backing as crypto crashes

In a statement released on Wednesday, Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, scoffed at the notion that the currency is backed by subprime debt.

There are no Chinese or Asian business papers utilized to underpin the USDT, according to a press statement from the corporation.

In addition, Celsius and Three Arrows Capital, both of which have been hit hard by decreasing crypto prices, were not included.

BitFinex-owned crypto exchange Tether claims that the allegations are being spread in order to benefit from a market that is already under pressure. However, the company made no mention of how or where these reports were spreading.

At a time when both Bitcoin and Ethereum have witnessed large losses in value, Tether’s remarks are particularly poignant. The value of the USDT has likewise plummeted below $1.

According to Tether, the stablecoin’s reserves are backed by U.S. Treasuries at a ratio of 47 percent to commercial paper at a ratio of 25 percent.

Considering that commercial debt is among the most volatile forms of conventional debt, the business has been steadily reducing its holdings of the instrument. 28 percent of Tether’s cash equivalents are made up of commercial debt, according to data on the company’s website.

From $11 billion at the end of March, the company said it will cut its commercial debt to $8.4 billion by the end of June. That number will finally be zeroed out.

Coinciding with a crypto-crash in May, USDT momentarily depreciated to its lowest level since 2017. After TerraUSD, previously the fourth-largest stablecoin, dropped to zero in less than a week, suspicions about stablecoins have grown.

USDT, on the other hand, is distinct from UST in that it is completely collateralized. UST’s depegging was due to the fact that it was backed by risky assets.

Tether, the company behind USDT, claims that the stablecoin is holding up well in the face of increased redemptions. Tether’s chief technical officer, Paolo Ardoino, said that the business had handled $7 billion in redemptions in only 48 hours during the May crisis.

Currently, USDT is trading at $0.9983 and has a market capitalization of $70.8 billion.

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Bitcoin Ethereum Price Analysis

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Analysis 06/14

On Tuesday, Bitcoin saw another loss, making this the ninth straight session in which the cryptocurrency market has fallen. The price of bitcoin dropped below the $20,000 level for the first time since December 2020, while the price of ether reached $1,000, marking a multi-year low for the cryptocurrency.

BTC was trading at a lower price for the eighth day in a row, with the decrease on Monday lowering prices to their lowest position since December 2020.

Following yesterday’s low of $23,607.69, the most valuable cryptocurrency token in circulation today reached a session low of $20,950.82 before recovering some of its losses.

The most recent drop comes as market participants get ready for tomorrow’s FOMC meeting when it is widely anticipated that the Federal Reserve will announce a rise in interest rates.

As the rate of inflation in the United States continues to approach its all-time high, many people now believe that the Federal Reserve must implement further policy adjustments in order to battle growing consumer prices.

With a current value of 23.77, the 14-day relative strength index (RSI) is now tracking at its lowest position in more than five years of historical data.

Following the recent decreases in value, many people feel that we have not yet found a price floor, with some anticipating that prices may likely settle somewhere around $19,000.

On Tuesday, the price of Ethereum, which is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, continued its downward trend and dropped below $1,100.

ETH/USD reached a high of $1,269.76 to begin the week, and it then dropped to an intraday low of $1,094.70 throughout the course of the day.

Due to this decline, ETH reached its all-time low, which had not been seen since January 2021, when prices rebounded from a low of $748.

As a consequence of the most recent price decrease, Ethereum was able to break through the support level located at $1,275, and it currently seems that it will find support somewhere around $800.

The bulls are likely going to make an effort to stop this from taking place, and they will get support from the fact that the 14-day relative strength index is very oversold and there is the very little negative volume remaining.

At this time, the relative strength is tracking at 21, which is the lowest rating it has had since March 2020, which was during the initial peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Blockchain News

Coinbase Will Lay Off 1,100 Employees

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, revealed on June 13 that the business was cutting its employment by 18 percent, which amounts to around 1,100 people, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this month, Armstrong wrote on his personal blog that he’d met with business executives and the board of directors to discuss recent market developments. As a result of these conversations, he came to the conclusion that adjustments needed to be done in order to keep the business secure.

Macroeconomic trends and the beginning of a protracted recession, as well as lowering expenses and over-hiring during these times were discussed with him. He also stressed the significance of maintaining lean by decreasing costs during these times.

An extra two weeks’ compensation for each year of employment beyond the first year, four months of health insurance, mental health support, and assistance in finding work at other companies will be provided to affected employees.

He said that he is solely responsible for this choice. Coinbase’s staff morale had already hit rock bottom before the revelation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

An employee petition asking for the dismissal of key executives of the corporation was revealed by the Wall Street Journal on June 10.

The petition names Emilie Choi, chief operating officer, as well as Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer, and L.J. Brock, chief people officer.

Armstrong slammed the petition, which has since been removed, for being “very foolish” on several grounds. Moreover, he should be held accountable for the company’s bad performance, and not those identified in the press release.

If you’re going to have an impeachment hearing, you should do it against me, not the executive team. Do you know who’s in charge of this business?

Furthermore, the co-founder of Coinbase urged workers who lack faith in the firm to go for a new job.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain News

After a brief pause, Binance has restored BTC withdrawals

After a brief period of time during which the service was not available, the prominent cryptocurrency exchange Binance resumed withdrawals of Bitcoin (BTC).

The cryptocurrency exchange made the announcement earlier today that it will temporarily halt Bitcoin withdrawals because of a backlog caused by on-chain transactions that got stuck.

The decision to suspend trading was made following a spectacular sell-off that occurred in the early hours of Monday. This sell-off drove the overall market value of cryptocurrencies to a new low of $977 billion, down from the $1.10 trillion it recorded the day before.

Bitcoin’s value fell by more than 10 percent, reaching lows not seen since the year 2020’s end, as a result of the slaughter. At the time this article was written, the most prominent cryptocurrency had a market cap of 23,300 dollars.

According to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), while the suspension was meant to run for a period of thirty minutes, things did not go as planned, and it took the exchange longer than anticipated to complete the process.

After assuring its customers that their monies would be secure, CZ subsequently informed its users that the suspension would take a few hours to complete.

The cryptocurrency exchange temporarily halted BTC withdrawals and then declared, three hours later, that customers may once again make withdrawal requests over the Bitcoin network while also clarifying what caused the problem.

Previous on today, they were fixing a few minor hardware failures that had occurred on wallet consolidation nodes. Because of this, the earlier transactions that had been pending were broadcast to the network when the nodes were fixed.

In a post-mortem update, Binance explained that because these pending consolidation transactions had a low gas fee, later withdrawal transactions, which were pointing to the pending consolidation UTXO, became stuck and were unable to be processed successfully. This is because the later withdrawal transactions were pointing to the pending consolidation of UTXO.

The exchange said that it needed to modify its algorithm so that it would only accept successful UTXO from successful consolidation transactions or successful withdrawal transactions in order to resolve the problem. In addition, the organization said that the problem will not occur again now that it has been resolved.

Categories
News NFT

OpenSea Increases Security to Prevent NFT Fraud and Scams

New features have been added to OpenSea to combat the increasing amount of NFT scams, fraud, and hacks on OpenSea, according to the biggest NFT marketplace OpenSea. With this new functionality, OpenSea’s fundamental trust and safety problems will be addressed.

Increased trust and security are top priorities for OpenSea. Trust and safety expenditures will be made in a few important areas by the NFT marketplace in 2022, including theft and fraud prevention, IP infringement throughout the Internet, scaling review and moderation, and lowering essential reaction times in high-touch areas.

There is now a new function that hides questionable NFT transactions from display on the marketplace, according to OpenSea’s website. As a result, Ethereum’s open and flexible blockchain ecosystem leads to unexpected NFT transactions from strangers. To trick people into visiting a harmful website, scammers utilize NFT transfers to attract them to read an NFT listing.

OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer remarked in a tweet on June 14 that getting NFT transfers from individuals you don’t know is similar to receiving an unwelcome email. To lure consumers to click on dangerous third-party links, fraudsters have recently been using these transfers. This new fraud can be prevented thanks to their newest Trust & Safety release.

NFT transfers that seem to be suspicious will be automatically moved to a hidden folder, users will get frequent notifications of suspicious transfers, and new filter options “Hidden by you” and “Auto-hidden” will be added to the functionality.

Over the coming several weeks and months, OpenSea will begin distributing the new capability to its users. After the upgrade, the business has requested users to report any unusual behavior. Customers may contact the company’s support staff if they have questions.

The amount of NFT trading on OpenSea has decreased owing to a rise in scams, fraud, and hacking. The proprietors of the BAYC NFT have sued OpenSea for stealing their NFTs. OpenSea’s former boss Nathaniel Chastain was arrested last week on wire fraud and money laundering charges, which exacerbated the company’s woes. As a result, the business has set out to improve consumer confidence and safety in the marketplace.

Categories
Blockchain News

Binance U.S. was sued over Terra

A class action complaint has been filed against the United States branch of the global exchange Binance, Binance U.S., and as a result, the company is coming under further scrutiny. The complaint alleges that the exchange was complicit in deceiving investors about LUNA by playing a role in the scheme. Over two thousand individuals who have invested their life savings have said that fraudulent marketing was the key factor that led to their financial ruin.

In a class-action case that was filed on Monday in North California, Binance U.S. has been accused of deceiving investors over the Terra blockchain ecosystem.

The lawsuit was the first time that LUNA, Terra, and the whole Do Kwon ecosystem had any kind of legal representation in a court in the United States. When LUNA reached zero, it wiped away almost $40 billion worth of investments held by people who watched the currency collapse.

The decline in Terra’s price has been detrimental to retail and small investors such as Hashed and Paradigm. A significant number of individuals took their own deaths as a result of the devastating collapse of Terra since they had lost all of their money and possessions. In the action that was brought by the legal firm Roche Freedman, it is alleged that Binance misrepresented the stability of UST in its marketing.

When UST and its sibling token LUNA plummeted to zero in May, thousands of naive retail investors were taken aback by the suddenness of the event. The lawsuit asserts that the damages were caused by deceptive advertising on the defendant’s part.

Additionally, the complaint asserts that Binance U.S. is not registered with the appropriate authorities to do business either as an exchange or a broker. According to the allegations made in the case, this is a violation of the law governing securities. The complaint represents a new development in the Terra case, in which the listed exchange, rather than the corporation that was responsible for launching the currency, is being sued.

Categories
Blockchain News

Celsius Network Suspends Services

Following a notice that the network has suspended withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between clients, users of the crypto lending site Celsius are left biting their nails. So that “Celsius can better fulfill over time its withdrawal commitments,” this was done. “As part of our risk management system, we have triggered a section in our Terms of Use that allows this procedure to take place.”

On June 13, only seven days after the whole crypto market lost more than $250 billion in value, Bitcoin announced that it would be shutting down.

Our goal is to safeguard and maintain our assets so that we can satisfy our customers’ commitments,” the notification stated in part.

Recall that in May, Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky was forced to blame “shadowy Wall Street opportunists” for the platform’s financial woes.

Within the span of 24 hours Celsius (CEL) has plummeted by almost 55% and is presently trading at $0.19.

Rumors of a cash problem and impending collapse had been swirling around the project prior to the announcement. When Celsius seemed to be dealing with this situation on June 12, it looked that they were transferring $247 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin to FTX.

As a result of the project’s huge ETH and wrapped Bitcoin transfers, and other crypto-asset transfers, there have been rumors that things are not going well inside the company. Additionally, users’ withdrawals and transfers have been halted.

Many Celsius users and critics have taken issue with the company’s handling of its cash after the demise of the Anchor protocol. Numerous others have already raised the alarm, warning that another crypto market crisis within one month after Terra’s demise might have catastrophic consequences.

Celsius’s DeFi wallet started moving extraordinary amounts of tokens at about 6:00 p.m. E.T. on June 12th, according to a number of tweets. In order to collect interest on deposits, Celsius started pulling its Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) from the Aave lending and staking platform. For an unknown reason, almost $247 million in wrapped Bitcoin has been transferred to the FTX exchange after a series of transactions.

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Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain Ethereum Price Analysis

Crypto Market Analysis 06/13

Just a few hours before the time of this writing, the global crypto market had dropped below one trillion dollars. First time in more than a year the industry’s worth has fallen below this figure.

Although the industry is now in a negative market, this proves that it is. The inability of most cryptocurrencies to rise has had a significant influence on the value of the industry under discussion.

One surge is the most valuable coin in terms of market capitalization. More than 11% of the value of a single Bitcoin was lost when it fell below $23k. As a result of the decline, the company’s market share also fell. Ethereum is the latest project to be hit by a negative trend.

Over the previous seven days, the asset’s value has dropped by more than 20%. There is a ripple effect in the derivative market as more traders are gaining REKT every second. The liquidation data is a strong indicator of this impact.

As of this writing, more than $982 million has been recouped from investors. More than 40% of REKT’s capital comes from the sale of BTC. Investors in Ether lost more than $370 million as a result of Ether’s demise.

More than 60% of the lost money comes from long positions, which is a noteworthy fact to keep in mind. As the market continues to move downward, these numbers will rise. More people are afraid as a consequence of this.

The crypto market mood is understandably pessimistic, which comes as no surprise. The Fear and Greed Index has fallen to its lowest level in the previous 30 days as a result of this emotion. Fear, mistrust, and uncertainty are clearly on the rise in the market as a result of this development.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain News

MicroStrategy Bitcoin Holding At A $713 Million Loss

Bitcoin (BTC) holdings of Microstrategy have fallen by 18% in the past day to $713 million, a loss of 18% in the company’s BTC holdings. To now, Michael Saylor’s firm has not sold any of its Bitcoin, but if the BTC price goes below $21k, it will be forced to sell.

When a margin call was issued, MicroStrategy’s CFO Phone Le had previously said that the business would either have to put up additional collateral or sell part of its bitcoin assets.

MicroStrategy possesses 129,218 BTCs at an estimated $3.97 billion at an average price of $30,700 each. Since Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $25k today, its value has fallen to $3.25 billion. A number of variables point to a drop to $21k as a likely outcome. Because to the stETH-ETH depeg and other variables, the BTC price is slipping. Inflation is on the rise, and the market as a whole is selling down.

For the purpose of purchasing Bitcoin, MicroStrategy has borrowed billions of dollars. A $205 million loan from Silvergate Bank, which is backed by bitcoin, was recently obtained by the corporation in order to purchase more of the digital currency. To put it another way, the firm is doomed if Bitcoin hits $21,000. The company’s billions of dollars in debt, slowing software sales, and exposure to a risky asset have investors nervous.

The company’s stock price has dropped by 64% in 2022, and it is presently trading at $203.36. So MicroStrategy’s core software company is not lucrative enough to cover the debt that it accrues.

As a result, Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, has expressed optimism about the future of Bitcoin. No, Saylor has no plans to sell the Bitcoins he currently has.

As of this writing, the price of bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $24,200 per coin. The previous seven days have seen a 25% decline. The fact that institutional investors and whales are continuing to liquidate their Bitcoin holdings suggests that the chances of the price falling anymore are fairly strong.

Investors in MicroStrategy may already be anticipating a margin call as the company’s financial risk increases. MicroStrategy’s decision to sell its Bitcoin assets will have a significant influence on the crypto market.

Categories
Altcoins Blockchain News

Controversial behavior by new LUNA validators has been detected

Without informing their delegators, LUNA validators PFC, Lavender.Five, and Red Herring have solicited new validators to increase commission levels from 0% to 20%. Larry, a Delphi Digital developer, claims that LUNA validators can earn up to $192,000 annually after receiving the genesis delegator attribution of 2.5 million LUNA.m

Red Herring highlighted two validators, KingSuper and Autism Staking, whose commission rates have recently increased. On June 4, they tweeted that KingSuper had 0% commission, which attracted a large number of redelegators. They decided a few days ago to increase their commission from 0% to 10% without informing the community or their delegators.

In addition to validators increasing their commission without informing their communities, Red Herring identified three other validators for unethical behavior: Luna Whale, Lunatic Validator, and Long Live Luna. Red Herring described the configuration of each of the three validators and identified similarities:

  • No logo
  • Generic Luna-related names
  • 20% commission
  • Maximum 20% commission change rate
  • No website/social media presence/email contact

They took advantage of the large genesis delegation in order to earn enormous commissions without contributing to the community.

The final wallet was identified as belonging to Kraken, which suggests that the validator is exerting sustained selling pressure on the price of LUNA using tokens arbitrarily allocated to them during the rebirth of LUNA.

King Super refuted the allegations, stating that it “strongly opposed the 0% commission argument and wanted to begin the chain with non-0% floor commission so that there would be no commission wars.” King Super also claimed that it was “only set to 0% to compete with other 0% validators.”

King Super responded: “I validate other cosmos networks and terra was re-launching, so I decided to try to add value there as well.”

Currently, it is unknown what value King Super has added. He has since recanted some of his statements, stating that perhaps he should have never set it to 20 percent, but it was evident that after the recent LUNA collapse, they were unable to run our validator at 0 percent and it had to be increased.

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Bitcoin News Price Analysis

Peter Schiff says rising inflation will cause more Bitcoin sales

Immediately with the announcement of the U.S.’s May 2022 inflation report with CPI at 8.6 percent, the crypto market was hit hard. Bitcoin and other cryptos have fallen by another 5% today, bringing the whole market closer to $1 trillion.

Bitcoin (BTC) is now trading at a price of $28,109 with a market capitalization of $613 billion at the time of this writing. There has been a rise in selling pressure in crypto as the likelihood of a US recession grows. In light of recent events, Bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff is issuing a dire warning to investors. In the next weeks, he expects a large drop in the number of Bitcoin HODLers. Schiff stated:

Many Bitcoin HODLers will be compelled to sell because of rising food and energy costs. For example, you cannot use Bitcoin to pay for anything in a grocery shop or petrol station. No one needed to sell when Bitcoin plummeted during #Covid. #HODLers received stimulus cheques as a result of decreasing consumer costs.

For the last month of May 2022, the United States reported higher-than-expected jobless claims. Schiff predicts that as the recession tightens its hold on the market, the demand for BTC will only grow. He added that when the crisis worsens and more #HODLers lose their jobs, particularly those working for soon-to-be bankrupt #blockchain firms, the necessity to sell Bitcoin to pay the bills will only become worse. Long-term purchasers who don’t have a steady source of income will be obliged to sell if the situation changes.

One of Schiff’s Twitter followers said that in the event of a personal financial disaster, he would not sell gold or liquidate any other asset. Schiff predicts that only a small percentage of Gold investors will find themselves in such a predicament.

According to him, even if some stores decide to sell their gold, there will be enough demand from other investors as well as industry and central banks to cover the losses. Schiff, on the other hand, isn’t exactly correct in his prediction that Bitcoin won’t find enough purchasers. Amidst the fall in BTC price this year, Bitcoin whales have been steadily increasing their holdings.

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Blockchain News

Crypto Scammers Have Invaded Dating Apps

Some crypto scammers reportedly use dating apps like Tinder to build online relationships with their victims.

According to The San Francisco Examiner, crypto fraudsters have targeted Silicon Valley techies. Cy, a Bay Area real estate analyst, lost $1.2 million to crypto fraud. Cy said the criminal ended their two-month correspondence with “Now kill yourself.”

Cy, a psychiatric patient, said of the scam,

More than money was lost. Lost confidence. I’ve destroyed my family.

The report claims Cy was the victim of an online crypto scam known as “pig slaughtering” or “pig butchering” — “sha zhu pan” () in Chinese– where the victim is “fattened up” over time as the criminal builds an online relationship with the target. The victim is tricked into giving cryptoassets or money.

FBI spokeswoman:

FBI San Francisco has seen a rise in romance scammers persuading people to invest or trade cryptocurrency.

FBI estimates 24,000 Americans lost $1 billion to romance fraud in 2021. One in 20 dating app messages are scams, according to a San Francisco cybersecurity firm.

Cy’s online relationship wasn’t romantic, but he fell for romance fraudsters’ prolonged engagement. Grace Yuen of Singapore’s Global Anti-Scam Organization called the fraud “psychologically dark” Her organization has helped 1,400 victims, many from the Bay Area.

According to CoinDesk, crypto romance scammers don’t just target Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge users.

The report said “crypto dating scams aren’t obvious at first” because “scammers invest a lot of time in their victims, maintaining a relationship until they feel trust has been established” Scammers “flatter and make their victim feel good before conning them, like a farmer fattens a pig before slaughter.”

CoinDesk reported that “victims of crypto dating scams consistently report that their online partner refuses to meet them in person or video call them because they’re shy” and that “scammers use photos of other people to create realistic online profiles.”

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Ethereum

Ethereum (ETH) Price Analysis 06/12

In July 2021, in response to an increase in crypto market-wide selling pressures, the price of Ethereum (ETH) dropped below $1,700. This time, however, it appears that ETH is responding to macroeconomic conditions and a possible delay in its transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain.

According to CoinMarketCap, ETH fell to $1,544, representing a loss of 11 percent over the past 24 hours and a loss of 10 percent over the past week. ETH’s price has performed the worst among the top 10 cryptocurrencies over the past week, followed by Polkadot (DOT), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Ripple (XRP).

Ropsten, the Ethereum network’s oldest testnet, went live with the merge upgrade three days ago. The ETH community lauded this achievement, noting that a mainnet launch could be possible in August or September of this year. The Merge encountered obstacles, however. But Tim Beiko, a core developer at ETH, claimed they were addressed and resolved.

The Difficulty Bomb, a mechanism to gradually increase mining difficulty, is also a component of the mechanisms for the transition to a PoS consensus. The bomb’s purpose is to persuade miners to abandon proof-of-work (PoW).

The ETH core developers agreed that the difficulty bomb should remain in place for two to four months in order to provide sufficient time for the migration to a PoS consensus. Ben Edgington, the lead product manager for Teku, an Eth2 client created by ConsenSys, argued otherwise. He said:

Therefore, we’ll delay the Ethereum difficulty bomb. We assert that it will not cause the Merge to be delayed. I very much hope not. Approximately 1 million tonnes of CO2 are emitted for each additional week of POW.

The Ethereum merge is the eagerly awaited transition from its current proof-of-work mechanism to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. The PoS mechanism will allow the Ethereum network to scale and process transactions more quickly. Currently, only 15 to 45 transactions per second can be processed on the ETH network.

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Blockchain News

The Crypto Economy Value Falls Below the Lows Recorded in July

There is currently less value in the $1.19 trillion crypto economy compared to what it was worth in July 2021. Cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and XRP have all dropped precipitously in value versus the dollar in the previous week, with the top ten losing anywhere from 50% to over 80% of their value from their all-time highs.

On a week-to-week basis, all of the top 10 crypto assets have fallen by between 4% and 15% during the previous seven days. Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) have both lost more than 14 percent of their value in the last week, respectively.

This week, BNB shares are down 9.7%, while ADA shares are down only 0.7%. This week, XRP is down 7.4%, SOL is down 11.6%, and dogecoin (DOGE), the tenth-largest market cap, is down 13.6%.

Today, the crypto market is worth $1.19 trillion, down 6.1% from yesterday’s close. During the month of July 2021, the market cap fell to a low of $1.32 trillion, a record low. The first week of February 2021 was the last time the whole crypto-economy was valued at this low.

Bitcoin traded for $39.405 per unit on February 6, 2021, ETH was selling for $1.665 per unit, and XRP was trading at $0.43. The value of these coins is now lower than it was in the first week of the month of February.

The value of other major coins was lesser than it is now. On February 6, 2021, avalanche (AVAX) traded at $16.42 per share. AVAX is now selling at $20.04 per share.

Solana (SOL) was trading for $6.05 per unit in February 2021, but currently, it is trading at $33.84. While Terra (LUNA) was trading at $2.74 in the first week of February 2021 and is now selling at only $0.00006805 per unit, this represents an 86% increase in value.

“Extreme dread” is in the air today as far as crypto mood is concerned, according to the Crypto Fear and Greed Index (CFGI). According to the CFGI, the “severe dread” score has dropped from 13 to 12 as of this writing.

According to Google Trends (GT), global interest in the phrase “bitcoin” has decreased by almost half since its peak. This is even worse since interest in “cryptocurrency” has dropped to a new low of 3 out of 100.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain News

Jack Dorsey to Launch New Web5 Platform Based on Bitcoin

To build a new decentralized platform called Web5, Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter and founder of Block Inc., plans to use the Bitcoin network to build it. TBD, Block’s bitcoin-focused company, is leading the development of the new platform.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of TBD, is clearly unhappy with the present Web3 environment, as seen by the company’s decision to rebrand its protocols as Web5. Dorsey has openly denounced the burgeoning business, describing it as a centralized movement that benefits venture capital companies.

In the words of TBD, Web5 is a collection of protocols designed to fill a void in the web’s identification system. Identity and personal data are held by third parties on today’s web. They are creating web5 so that consumers may manage their own data and identities.

Using Web5, your apps will benefit from the decentralization of identification and data storage. Developers will be able to concentrate on developing beautiful user experiences while giving control of data and identity to users, according to the firm.

In order to accomplish this goal, TBD is using Bitcoin as a hub and four critical components. They include:

Identifications that are not held in a single location (DIDs)
To put it another way, a decentralized web node (DWNs)
Authentication Service for Self-Determination (SSIS)
The SDK for Self-Sovereign ID (ssi-sdk)

There are a number of things that each user or institution would require in order to take use of this new protocol: a wallet, a DWN, and decentralized web applications (DWAs).

An example of how a user may manage their identity was provided by the corporation using these provisions:

For Alice, a digital wallet is a safe place where she may save all of her personal information and provide access to third-party applications and connections. New decentralized social networking app: Alice logs in with her money.

This means that Alice doesn’t have to establish a profile, and all of the connections she makes using this app are saved in her decentralized web node, so she doesn’t have to worry about losing them. Alice’s social profile is now with her as she switches between applications.

There will be no way for a governance token to be issued using the new system, unlike Web3. According to Mike Brock, the TBD Team Lead, there are no web5 tokens to invest in. Until now, there has been no formal announcement of a debut date.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain News Regulation

Lithuania government will ban anonymous crypto wallets

The European Union’s authorities have been stepping up their efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies in the face of geopolitical concerns. There are more and more crypto asset and service providers all throughout Europe, and the Lithuania government believes this is due to the rising money laundering and possibly terrorist funding linked with virtual currencies.

To combat money laundering and to prevent sanctioned firms from getting around financial penalties, the Lithuanian government is taking a hard look at cryptocurrencies and how they are exchanged, according to the finance ministry.

Efforts to crack down on cryptocurrency exchanges and outlaw anonymous wallets were slated to begin on Thursday, June 9, according to the Finance Ministry. There has been an increase in money laundering charges and convictions in the Baltic nation recently.

The Ministry’s new rules have been forwarded to parliament, where they are now being debated. Users’ identification criteria would be tightened, and anonymous accounts will be banned if the proposed legislation is approved. Legislators say this action was made to anticipate European Union rules on crypto and financial regulation.

Among other things, Lithuanian legislation mandates that crypto exchanges operating in the country need their managers to be Lithuanian citizens. Additionally, users would be required to be identified through Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures. Public access is likely to be granted to the Lithuanian Register of Legal Entities as well.

Increased legal criteria for exchange registration are also part of the proposed legislation. A minimum nominal capital of €125,000 will be required for these exchanges beginning on January 1, 2023.

Governments throughout the globe have taken a variety of steps to regulate cryptocurrencies, like this one in Lithuania. As the European Union prepares to enshrine complex restrictions surrounding crypto service providers, the demand for regulation is being boosted in Lithuania.

The number of crypto exchanges in Lithuania has expanded considerably after Estonia passed similar legislation earlier this year.

The Financial Crime Investigation Service (FCIS) is likely to step up its scrutiny of crypto asset providers in light of geoeconomic initiatives to reduce the dangers presented by such services.

According to the European Parliament, anonymity in the bitcoin business is no longer permitted. Cryptocurrency service providers and non-custodial wallets are anticipated to be impacted by this new rule.

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Blockchain News Regulation

EU To Complete Crypto Regulation Soon

By this month, a recent report suggests, the European Union will have finalized its Markets in Crypto Asset (MiCA) bill.

Legislation establishing uniform crypto regulations across the EU was passed by parliament earlier this year.

When it goes into effect in 2020, MiCA will be the EU’s first attempt at comprehensive crypto regulation.

Euro-politicians will meet twice this month to resolve any remaining issues with the bill, according to a report from Bloomberg.

In the wake of the Terra crash, which sparked calls for greater investor protection in crypto, the bill has been expedited.

Insiders told Bloomberg that lawmakers were still divided over some aspects of the bill, despite calls for a quicker regulatory process.

Stablecoin regulation is a hot topic right now, especially in light of Terra’s demise. Stablecoins are being discussed by lawmakers as a way to reduce their use, particularly outside of Euro transactions. This also includes a limit on how many stablecoins a transaction can include.

As Patrick Hansen noted on Twitter, limiting stablecoin use is an effort to keep the euro and other fiat currencies from being substituted in the EU.

NFTs are also dividing lawmakers, with some favoring their inclusion, while others opposing it.
In spite of the MiCA bill’s decision to drop an environmental impact provision earlier this year, the Bloomberg report shows that lawmakers remain concerned about the space’s environmental impact.

Miners must now provide parliament with additional information about the amount of crypto energy they use. According to a recent poll, more and more governments are taking a closer look at the amount of energy needed to mine cryptocurrency.

Additionally, anti-money laundering laws are expected to be included in the European Parliament’s bill. Token-based businesses will be required to comply with new reporting requirements, which were approved earlier this year.

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Altcoins Blockchain News People

Do Kwon Was Withdrawing $80 Million in Monthly Cash Flow Before Terra Crash

In a shocking turn of events, it has been reported that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has discovered evidence that shows Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon was withdrawing $80 million worth of LUNA (now called Luna Classic) and TerraUSD every month in the lead-up to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May. The event took place before the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.

Terraform Labs (TFL) was responsible for the loss of billions of dollars to investors one month ago, when the value of UST and its sibling token LUNA plummeted. The crypto market, which is worth a total of one trillion dollars, was thrown into utter turmoil as prices dropped across the board.

The catastrophic failure of the Terra network was brought to the attention of regulatory agencies all across the globe, and these agencies pledged to take action. The Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States is investigating whether or not Do Kwon was the mastermind behind a conspiracy to launder money.

According to a media outlet based in South Korea called JBTC, the government agency carried out remote video surveillance on a select group of Terra’s senior designers in order to investigate the problematic architectural structure of the network.

According to reports, the SEC obtained records confirming that Do Kwon had been paying out $80 million every month from corporate money and placing it into dozens of his cryptocurrency wallets. It is thought that these money were utilized to pay operational expenditures in the few months before to the breakdown of Terra. As a consequence of this, the regulator of securities judged this to be suspicious and sufficient evidence of money laundering.

Kwon did not get any formal compensation, as was made clear by a senior Terra employee who wished to stay nameless and intended to remain unknown.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now conducting an investigation to see if TFL and Kwon violated any federal laws protecting investors in the process of promoting their tokens to clients.

The announcement of the investigation’s expansion came not long after a court of appeals for the United States District Court determined that Kwon was had to reply to the subpoenas that were issued by the commission. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was already making assumptions that he had broken securities laws when he sold unregistered securities to consumers located within its jurisdiction.

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Bitcoin Blockchain News

Bitcoin of America expands ATMs by 30%

Since May, Bitcoin of America, a virtual currency exchange, has grown the number of its ATMs by more than 30%.

Approximately 1,800 Bitcoin ATMs were operated by Bitcoin of America in March. More than 2,500 BTMs have been installed in more than 250 places throughout the United States in the last two months.

To acquire Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin ATMs were available until March. Bitcoin of America’s ecosystem has grown in terms of the number of coins it now includes as a result of the network’s development. Dogecoin (DOGE) was introduced in March, while Shiba Inu (SHIB) was added in April. Using a debit card or PayPal account, consumers may now purchase all five currencies from Bitcoin ATMs.

Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, two currencies that were recently introduced to the Bitcoin ATM network, have seen an increase in their payment usefulness. Dogecoin and Shiba Inu payments were accepted by AMC in April, the American movie theater chain.

Dogecoin
After announcing its 2022 plan in April, the Dogecoin team established a goal of making Dogecoin the internet’s money.

They claimed they will concentrate more on the utility side and make Dogecoin a legitimate way of payment for everyone around the globe, rather than just being another popular joke currency. In order to enhance Dogecoin’s technology and payment usability, the group drew forth a detailed plan.

In the past, Elon Musk has been promoting Dogecoin and taking Dogecoin payments as payment for Tesla. The price of Dogecoin surged 5% when he stated that he would take Dogecoin payments for SpaceX products.

Dogecoin became legal money in California on June 3, thanks to U.S. Senate candidate Timothy Ursrich. His initiative relied on the cooperation of Elon Musk and Billy Markus, the co-founder of Dogecoin.

The Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu released an update in May, announcing the launch of the SHI Stablecoin. Before coming live, the SHI stablecoin is undergoing one more round of testing.

According to the unknown creator of Shiba Inu, Ryoshi, SHI (running on both ETH and Shibarium) is intended to become a worldwide stable currency that ordinary people in all nations may use as both a store of wealth and a means of payment.

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Bitcoin News

Lightning Network Capacity Exceeds 4,000 Bitcoin

With over 4000 Bitcoin (worth around $116 million at current rates) locked in channels, the Bitcoin lightning network’s capacity reached a new milestone this week. In the previous several months, user interaction has increased significantly, which has contributed to this newest milestone.

In 2018, the Bitcoin Lightning Network became live. For the sake of speeding up and lowering the cost of transactions, a new protocol has been designed to help the Bitcoin blockchain process a portion of them.

There was doubt about the technology’s ability to scale since it was the first of its type. But the network has grown enormously in the previous four years. Despite this. In 2020, the network broke the 1000 BTC (worth $9.5 million at the time) capacity threshold, with 13,185 nodes and 37,480 active channels engaging the network.

Almost immediately after that, there was a twofold increase in the number of nodes, and that number is expected to rise much more over the next year. As much as 80,000 new channels were added to the protocol in 2021.

About 4000 BTC is now stored in lightning channels, with about 85,396 channels and 17,659 active nodes. The protocol’s worth has doubled since the middle of last year, and the number of channels has increased by 6.25 percent.

A greater number of users have been drawn to the alternative payment method as seen by recent statistics compared to previous ones.

Bitfinex, one of the world’s top cryptocurrency exchanges, implemented the Bitcoin Lightning Network on its platform a year after it was launched. More than six million Paxful users now have the ability to send and receive bitcoins via the protocol after the leading peer-to-peer crypto exchange Paxful followed suit in September of this year.

OKCoin, a well-known cryptocurrency exchange, also implemented the Lightning Network last year, only a few months after announcing its ambitions. Significantly, the adoption of the bitcoin lightning network by crypto exchanges has contributed to its expansion.

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Blockchain News

Binance and TripleA team up to provide cryptocurrency payment services

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, announced on Friday that it has teamed up with crypto payment gateway TripleA for Binance Pay. Binance Pay, the company’s contactless, borderless, and secure cryptocurrency payment service, will benefit from the strategic payment partnership.

TripleA adheres to international standards for Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer (KYC). With the help of millions of customers across 60+ countries, more than 900 businesses have increased their revenue by at least 20%.

According to a press release published on June 10 by Binance, the company has chosen TripleA as the gateway provider for Binance Pay, a cryptocurrency payment service. In addition, Binance Pay’s expansion strategy would not be complete without this collaboration. It will broaden its global reach and attract more businesses and consumers.

One of Binance Pay’s regional heads of business development, Pakning Luk, said the company couldn’t be more excited to announce TripleA as a strategic partner. A contactless, borderless, and secure cryptocurrency payment experience for businesses and consumers is now a reality thanks to Binance Pay.

It is TripleA’s CEO Eric Barbier’s belief that the acceptance of crypto payments is on the rise because of the rapid adoption of crypto. Merchants such as Novelship, Asia’s fastest-growing online marketplace for limited-edition sneakers, streetwear, and collectibles, can take advantage of this collaboration in the crypto and blockchain space.

By using TripleA and Binance Pay, Richard Xia, CEO of Novelship, is able to keep up with the latest payment technologies and meet the needs of their customers quickly.

Binance Pay has recently expanded its global footprint in a number of retail markets. It facilitates the transmission and receipt of cryptocurrency payments between users and merchants all over the world. The UAE’s malls and hotels are now accepting Binance Pay, as well.

A number of crypto exchanges and companies have teamed up with Binance to help it expand its global reach. As a matter of fact, Binance Pay services have been rolled out in the UAE, France, Italy, and Bahrain, as well as in the United Arab Emirates.

“CZ” Binance’s CEO travels to many Southeast Asian countries to promote cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption and establish the company’s leadership.

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Blockchain News Technology

Mastercard and Mercado Libre will boost Brazil’s crypto security

A partnership between Mastercard and the Latin American (LATAM) e-commerce giant Mercado Libre will use Mastercard’s CipherTrace technology to enhance the security and transparency of its crypto program in Brazil.

As of 2021, Mastercard has purchased crypto intelligence and analytics business CipherTrace. According to a press statement dated June 8, Mercado Libre will employ CipherTrace to monitor, analyze, and comprehend cryptographic issues.

As an added benefit, the technology provided by CipherTrace would assist the e-commerce firm in meeting regulatory and compliance obligations.

CIO of Mastercard, Ajay Bhalla, spoke highly of the CipherTrace technology and said that the potential for cryptocurrencies to transform our daily lives is enormous. A safe space must be provided for every encounter.

Cryptocurrencies are becoming more secure and transparent thanks to Mastercard’s CipherTrace technology which uses powerful crypto intelligence.

SVP and COO Paula Arregui said the relationship is in line with the company’s mission of democratizing commerce and financial services. “

News of this development comes as Brazil continues to warm up to the concept of digital currency. According to statistics from Brazil’s central bank, the country’s citizens spent $4.27 billion on digital currency in 2017. After hitting $65,000 in May 2021, Bitcoin (BTC) became the most popular cryptocurrency. Brazilians bought $756 million worth of cryptocurrency this month, setting a new record for the trading volume.

Brazil’s stock exchange, B3, has announced intentions to issue BTC futures over the next six months as a result of the country’s fast adoption of cryptos.

The Brazilian government is also interested in recognizing cryptocurrencies, in addition to their use by Brazilian individuals. An initiative to set laws for the country’s cryptocurrency sector was recently given Senate approval by the Economic Affairs Commission (CAE).

House Bill 4401/21, which calls for the establishment of an agency to supervise Brazil’s crypto economy, is being pushed by lawmakers. Taxes on the processing, mining and conservation of cryptos are excluded under the legislation.

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Blockchain News

BlockFi to raise $100M at $1B valuation

According to a story by Bloomberg on Wednesday, which cited individuals with knowledge of the subject, the cryptocurrency lending platform BlockFi is reportedly preparing to attract additional capital at a reduced $1 billion value.

It is important to keep in mind that the firm had a valuation of $3 billion in March 2021 after raising $350 million in a Series D round of funding.

According to the source, the company’s planned fundraising may bring in over one hundred million dollars. However, the specific amount of financing that it will be able to get is not yet known at this time. It is anticipated that investors such as Bain Capital Ventures, DST Global, Castle Island Ventures, and Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures would join in the round of funding.

The decrease in value comes at a time when the cryptocurrency market is transitioning into a new period of volatility. After reaching over $3 trillion in November, the entire market value has since fallen to around $1.2 trillion.

The alleged increase is also a response to the regulatory problems that BlockFi has been facing with United States authorities. In February, BlockFi reached an agreement to settle the matter by paying a fine of one hundred million dollars to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and thirty-two states.

The firm was accused by the SEC with failing to register their loan product, which was given the name “BlockFi Interest Accounts” (BIAs). In addition to this, the cryptocurrency company was accused of breaking the terms of the Investment Company Act of 1940 that dealt with registration.

Despite the poor circumstances in the market, investors have continued to place significant bets on cryptocurrency companies. During the month of May, the cryptocurrency exchange known as Elwood was successful in raising a total of $70 million in funding from significant financial organizations including as Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Dawn Capital, Digital Currency Group, and Galaxy Digital Ventures.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), an American venture capital company, recently made the announcement that it has successfully collected $4.5 billion to fund the Web3 ecosystems.

InfStones, a supplier of blockchain infrastructure, has raised a total of $66 million in investment, the majority of which came from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and GGV Capital.

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Bitcoin Blockchain News

Jack Dorsey Crypto Adoption Acceleration Venture Is Launched

In an industry where fraud is on the rise, education platforms are proving to be the genuine thing. The adoption of Bitcoin is being aided by a number of specialized Bitcoin teaching sites. Bitcoin and the blockchain ecosystem might help minimize antagonism in the aftermath of the crypto crisis in the long run.

The Bitcoin Association has opened an online Bitcoin school that specializes in university-style crypto courses. Various degrees of difficulty are available for each of the three courses: Bitcoin Theory, Bitcoin Development, and Bitcoin Infrastructure.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has just revealed that he would be entering the Bitcoin education market in the near future. Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and a few other crypto firms are involved in this project. In a tweet sent out on Thursday, he announced the news about The Bitcoin Academy.

Bitcoin, according to Dorsey, might play a key role in American society, just as it has in Africa, Central America, and South America. He stated that the project’s purpose is to demonstrate the benefits of making strong tools more widely accessible.

Education, in his opinion, is where we should begin. This isn’t only a Bitcoin-related issue. Think long-term and be confident in your own abilities. All Marcy residents, including children, are welcome to take advantage of these free classes. Our gadgets and data plans are also available to everyone who needs them.

The curriculum of the Academy strives to educate and empower the community. Aims for citizens to learn more about Bitcoin and money in general by eliminating obstacles.

There are plans to extend the Bitcoin school’s reach beyond Marcy Houses to other areas of New York City. As of the 22nd of June, all New Yorkers will be able to enroll in the Bitcoin school program taught by Jack Dorsey.

A one-year data plan and MiFi devices are provided to those who sign up for the initiative, and cellphones are available if required.

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Blockchain News Regulation

India is considering introducing thorough crypto tax guidelines

The India government intends to release detailed tax rules for the crypto industry before July 1, following the tax suggestions made in the Union Budget 2022-23. Authorities reportedly requested rules be drafted by India’s central tax board, according to media sources.

Taxation of virtual digital assets (VDA) transactions would be taxed at 30% and all other transactions involving digital assets will be exempt from a 1 percent tax deduction at source (TDS) under the tax policy outlined in the annual budget for the time being. According to reports, the administration will not be lowering tax rates. However, certain businesses, like healthcare, may be free from crypto capital gains tax.

This is a developing debate. Every new product brought forth by technological advancement should be included in virtual digital assets. According to a media claim citing an anonymous Finance Ministry source, we may also be able to exclude specific items.

The taxes on digital asset gifts will also be clarified by the government, according to the government. More and more individuals are giving cryptocurrencies and NFTs as presents, especially during festivals and weddings, as they grow in popularity. Gifting digital assets may now trigger tax regulations that aren’t specifically designed with cryptocurrency in mind.

Industry leaders have requested a decrease in TDS, but the government seems to be resolute in its opposition. In order to keep track of potentially taxable crypto transactions, the TDS is considered required. There may be attempts to disguise these transactions in the absence of TDS with a very low threshold.

In spite of the fact that the Indian government has put taxes on digital assets firms and plans to create the CBDC this year, there is little clarity on when the government would propose regulations to control crypto activity. Officials in the Finance Ministry said last week that a consultation document on digital currencies was almost finished and would be distributed soon for the public’s input and recommendations.

On the other hand, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has repeatedly said that the government would wait for a global agreement on how to deal with the issues brought by these new technologies before making any decisions.

Experts, on the other hand, feel that India’s CBDC ambitions might be hampered by a lack of regulation since official digital currencies of different nations are expected to interact for international payments and remittances. Stablecoins and cryptocurrencies may also be interfacing with some of these CBDCs It doesn’t seem possible for CBDC to keep aloof from cryptocurrencies in current context. It’s also impossible without extensive and comprehensive rules, they believe.

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Blockchain

Solana Invest $100 Million In South Korean Web3 Startups

According to a report released on Wednesday, Solana Ventures and Foundation have announced a $100 million investment and grant fund to support the development of South Korean web3 firms built on the Solana ecosystem.

The investment fund is sponsored by Solana Ventures and the project’s community treasury and aims to assist the expansion of game studios, GameFi, NFTs, and decentralized finance (Defi).

Johnny Lee, Solana Labs’ Head of Games Business News, remarked on the development, adding that the majority of contacts South Koreans have with the network’s blockchain are via games and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

A significant section of Korea’s gaming business is shifting to web3. They want to be adaptable; there are a variety of project sizes and team sizes, so some of their contributions will be venture-sized checks, according to Lee.

He went on to explain how the gaming sector would be linked further into the mainnet, stating that high-quality and entertaining titles will be released in the second part of this year.

While there have been some unfavorable responses from users and game creators over the adoption of blockchain applications in gaming, the Games CEO said that he is long-term positive on web3 gaming acceptance, saying:

Free-to-play acceptance probably took eight years, therefore I’m very certain that it will take four years for web3 games to be the main business model. This is not the first time Solana Labs will investigate the blockchain gaming sector.

According to a March article, Solana Labs teamed with Krafton, the game developer behind the famous online battle royale game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). The collaboration sought to facilitate the introduction, creation, and marketing of play-to-earn (P2E) NFT games and services based on the Solana ecosystem.

Meanwhile, other enterprises built on the Solana blockchain have prospered as well. A recent example is STEPN, a Solana-based move-to-earn platform that has 2.3 million members since its introduction in December 2021.

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Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain News

PayPal Allows Crypto Transfers to Third-Party Wallets and Exchanges

In response to several customer requests, PayPal, the world’s largest payments processor, is now allowing users to move their cryptocurrency holdings from their PayPal accounts to external wallets and exchanges.

This technology has long been touted as an alternative to traditional payment systems since it eliminates the need for intermediaries.

This is despite the fact that conventional businesses like banks and credit unions have been hopping on the bitcoin bandwagon in recent months.

Now, PayPal customers may transfer their cryptocurrency holdings to other accounts and hardware devices. According to a blog post, PayPal will now facilitate the native transfer of cryptocurrencies between PayPal and other wallets and exchanges.

All qualified U.S. clients will soon be allowed to transfer bitcoin, starting with a small group of chosen consumers today.
For a global firm, PayPal has jumped into the cryptocurrency pool quite a bit.

Users will be able to purchase and trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash as of October 2020. Customer payments may now be made using “Checkout with Crypto,” a new function offered by the company’s Venmo subsidiary in San Jose, California.

As a result of this news, the cryptocurrency markets went on a bull run at the time, with many believing it was a significant step toward mainstream acceptance and adoption of the emerging asset class. PayPal’s action, however, was not well received by all crypto enthusiasts. Transferring crypto from one wallet to another was not an option with the company’s service, thus your funds remained locked up until you were ready to part with them.

Since the platform is utilized by hundreds of millions of individuals across the world to transfer payments, the fact that clients may now transfer their crypto outside of the site is significant

PayPay doesn’t seem ready to follow Tesla, MicroStrategy, and other publicly listed firms in adding bitcoin to their corporate coffers despite the introduction of additional crypto-related features

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Bitcoin Blockchain News

Justin Sun Transfers 100 Million USDT to Accumulate BTC and TRX

In one of the most recent tweets, the sophisticated blockchain monitoring company Whale Alert informed the public about the transfer of 100,000,000 USDT from an unknown wallet to Binance. This transaction took place recently.

Justin Sun, the creator of TRON and the CEO of BitTorrent, reposted Whale Alerts’ tweet over an hour later, saying that Tron DAO Reserve was the one responsible for making the transfer.

He said in a tweet that he had shifted one hundred million USDT to acquire more BTC and TRX in order to bolster its reserves. However, a number of individuals responded to his tweet by inquiring as to the reason why he was adding additional TRX to the reserve. Some people have even poked fun at LUNA by stating that they recall what occurred the last time someone began purchasing Bitcoin for their reserve. These people are referring to the last time someone did this.

In a similar development, the bear market has seen a significant increase in the number of institutional investors purchasing bitcoin. According to data provided by CoinShares, investments in bitcoin are on the rise, while money dedicated to ether seem to be decreasing.

It would seem that investors are taking advantage of the chance to stockpile as much Bitcoin as they can at the price of Ether and other alternative cryptocurrencies. The amount of $32 million that was withdrawn from Ether funds was the fourth consecutive week of negative returns. In 2018, there was a total of $357.4 million worth of withdrawals from ether investment products.

It would seem that the cryptocurrency market is unable to break free of the gravitational pull of the regular financial sector. Additionally, the price of bitcoin has been falling for the last nine weeks in a row. During the month of May, a Canadian Bitcoin ETF was able to amass 6,900 BTC, in addition to the purchases made by institutional investors.

Despite the fact that bitcoin is not in its greatest state right now, investors are scrambling to get their hands on as much of the cryptocurrency as they can and store it away.

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Altcoins Blockchain News

Update on the Ripple vs. SEC Case

A fresh letter from Ripple to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was submitted on Wednesday. There’s a criticism in the letter that Ripple’s latest Admission Request for Admission used a limited knowledge of some market concepts (RFA).

In the letter, Ripple claimed that the SEC’s response to their request was inadequate. The vast majority of the RFA’s queries went unanswered. Because they don’t comprehend terminology like “market participant,” “OIEA Request,” or “FinHub Request,” the commission is unable to respond to the request.

The SEC notified the court in the most recent opposition that they react fairly to sought problems as necessary. After doing the necessary investigation, the commission either accepts or rejects any submitted appeal. While mentioning that it previously declined to respond to 16 requests filed by the defendants in September 2021. 2021. 2021.

That authority is well aware of what they are being required to confess, according to the defendant’s letter Before December 22, 2020, several individuals inquired with OIEA and FinHub about whether or not XRP was a kind of investment. In this case, the SEC has taken a “hyper-technical” approach. Additionally, anybody who contacted the authorities listed above for help with XRP should be regarded an active player in the XRP market.

Rule 36 compels the SEC to reply to its RFAs rather than evade them, as the letter points out. Moreover, it requested that the court offer them some kind of redress. There is no opposition from the defendants to the court’s alternative order for a response from an agency to the request.

As a result, the long-awaited hearing between the SEC and Ripple has been put off until a later date. For the purpose of discussing the commission’s assertions on Hinman’s notorious remarks, the conference has been set up. This stalemate might be solved with the help of the speech’s accompanying papers. Efforts have been made by the authorities to stall the litigation.

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Bitcoin Business

Can Crypto Bear Markets Be Good for the Crypto Community?

Recently, cryptocurrency has been causing quite a ruckus in the world of finance and investment. Back in 2009, nobody could have predicted that, this humble internet experiment, would one day grow into a global phenomenon, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Polls suggest that close to half of the American population invests in some form of cryptocurrency, with the most popular choices being Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple, and more recently, Dogecoin.

In the past month, the topic of a crypto bear market has been brought up. Long-time investors are used to this kind of rapid decline in price. However, as crypto is a relatively recent phenomenon, many crypto investors simply were not ready for such a dip in prices. So, let us talk about a bear market, and how, in certain cases, it might even yield an overall positive for the community.

Just What is a Bear Market?

To understand how a bear market might be a good thing, we first must define it. So, just what is a bear market? The term refers to a market, in which the prices have been declining in value for a prolonged period of time. It is usually used to talk about a market where the prices have fallen 20%, especially after they’ve seen a high, just before the sudden spike.

Many people who have opted to buy crypto in recent months, are now scared, and regretting their decisions. But, this may not be necessary at all. You see, in certain cases, a bear market can result in an overall net positive, not just for investors, but for the entire community in general. In this article, we are going to take a look at a few of the reasons as to why a bear market is beneficial for the community.

The Benefits of a Bear Market

The first reason, as espoused by many crypto analysts on the internet, is that a bear market works wonders for getting rid of “the deadweight” in the community. When prices drop, the activity on the market decreases. This leads to scammers and forgers to look for a new ground. Better yet, fewer new participants enter the market during this time, meaning that the competition is drastically decreased.

Another reason for why a bear market might be good, is that it allows the community to build a better base. The price of Bitcoin (and crypto in general) is very volatile, so a spike today might be followed by a surge tomorrow. As they say, the winners of the bull market are those that toiled in the bear market.

Which leads us to our final point. A bear market is when most of the successful crypto investors do a bulk of their investing. Buying up assets when the market is cold, results in higher withdrawals when it gets hot again. If one were to take a look at the price of Bitcoin, throughout the crypto’s history, one would notice that, this is not the first (and very likely won’t be the last) time that the market has experienced a serious dip.

Conclusion

Most long-time investors will tell you, that the important thing to do, during a bear market, is retain a cool head. It is understandable that people who’ve invested in Bitcoin might get nervous, when they see the price drop. However, remember that, there have been times in the history of crypto, that a price drop has been followed up by a serious surge. Naturally, you should always do what you feel is right with your assets, but before you make a decision, inform yourself on the history of finance and investment, and think about all of the possibilities that are available to you.

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Blockchain News Technology

Binance denies claims of laundering $2.4 billion in stolen crypto

The biggest cryptocurrency exchange platform in the world, Binance, has been helping criminals launder millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies between 2017 and 2021 according to a report from Reuters on Monday.

Blockchain analytics companies Crystal Blockchain and Chainalysis worked with Reuters to track down ill-gotten gains from cryptocurrency wallets all the way to Binance. Binance was used by criminals to launder money, according to the investigation, which included interviews with law enforcement authorities and a review of court papers.

At least $5.4 million was taken from Eterbase, a lesser-known cryptocurrency exchange in Slovakia, by the North Korean cybercrime gang Lazarus group, according to Reuters. So, Binance had no idea what was going on since they were using anonymous accounts, according to reports. Eterbase subsequently went out of business and went into bankruptcy protection.

This isn’t the first time the exchange has been mentioned in connection with a drug-fueled scam. Media from Hydra found that Binance was the preferred destination to accept payments because of the little information necessary to open an account.

Since 2017, Binance has handled an estimated total of 2,358 million dollars worth of transactions that were affected by contaminated crypto.

The state-sponsored Lazarus Group was also found to be responsible for the $625 million robberies on Sky Mavis’ Ethereum sidechain Ronin, which authorities in the United States uncovered earlier this year. In late April, Binance was able to retrieve some of these monies.

Patrick Hillmann, the exchange’s Chief Communications Officer, claimed the numbers were erroneous and exaggerated. Furthermore, according to Hillmann, Binance employs systems for transaction monitoring and risk assessment to ensure that any fraudulently obtained cryptocurrency is promptly recovered and restored to its rightful owners.

As far as anti-money laundering regulations go, the company has the most stringent. This worldwide exchange will assist law enforcement to remove criminal organizations employing crypto, according to Hillmann.

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Blockchain News

Unknown Amount Invested by Binance Labs in PancakeSwap (CAKE)

Binance Labs, the investment and incubation arm of leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, announced on Monday that it had made a strategic investment in leading BNB Chain-based decentralized exchange PancakeSwap.

Binance Labs is a subsidiary of Binance, which is a market leader in the cryptocurrency industry. A few days before to the investment, Binance Labs successfully raised $500 million in financing to boost blockchain and web3 ecosystems.

According to the official statement, Binance Labs made an investment in PancakeSwap for a value that was not revealed in order to promote the platform’s native cryptocurrency, which is known as CAKE.

The investment company said that providing financial help to potential blockchain and web3 initiatives in their development stage, early-stage growth, or late-stage growth was one of its missions, and that providing support to PancakeSwap was a part of that purpose.

PancakeSwap, with its big user base, has contributed to the increased acceptance of the BNB chain, according to a spokeswoman for Binance Labs who commented on the latest development.

PancakeSwap is a popular BNB Chain platform that has more than 40,000 active daily users. It offers its customers a complex ecosystem in which they can access various Defi services, such as a decentralized exchange and several staking pools.

CAKE achieved its high point earlier in April 2021, when it sold for $44. However, at the time of this writing, the token is trading at a price that is 90% lower than its ATH. CAKE’s share price increased by 8% in response to the most recent statement, and it is now trading at $4.7.

Up until this point, the supply of CAKE was infinite, and the platform relied on a burn mechanism to control the amount of the token that was in circulation.

However, in May, the PancakeSwap team came to the conclusion that the overall quantity of CAKE tokens should be capped at 750 million, and they made the observation that the new supply restriction corresponds with the project’s objective and also provides improved support for the BNB chain.

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Blockchain News

More On Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition

A letter from Tesla CEO Elon Musk outlining his concerns about a Twitter transaction might spell the end of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover plan. Musk brought up Twitter’s treatment of phony accounts once again in an SEC filing, this time expressing his displeasure with the company’s approach.

Regarding data on user accounts, Musk believed that Twitter was openly refusing to comply with its commitments under the merger agreement. That information was not available, he said since Twitter declined to provide it to him. In a letter to him, his legal team explains:

Tweeting new information about the testing methods used by Twitter is equal to denying Mr. Musk’s data demands, regardless of how they are presented. In an effort to obscure and confound the problem, Twitter has attempted to portray itself in a different way.

Last month, Musk raised the problem of spam accounts on Twitter and his concerns about their composition. Tesla’s CEO put a stop to the Twitter acquisition on May 13 because of information supporting the account composition calculation. As a result, the purchase was essentially put on hold until the issue of spam and false accounts was resolved.

Added to that, Twitter was obligated under its Elon Musk Twitter partnership to give data, according to a new letter from the company.

Mr. Musk has a legitimate claim to the sought information since he is a potential buyer of the social media platform’s assets. This is so that he may begin the process of taking over Twitter’s company. For the sake of making his deal more financially feasible. Twitter’s active user base is at the heart of the company’s economic model, and he has to know it through and out if he is to succeed in both roles.

Twitter’s reluctance to provide information to Musk’s staff has fueled more skepticism, according to the company. Concerns about what Tesla CEO Elon Musk may discover prompted the business to withhold the required information.

As Musk argues in his letter, Twitter is attempting to obstruct his access to information protected by the merger agreement. A clear and serious violation of Twitter’s responsibilities under the merger agreement has occurred in this instance.

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Bitcoin News

What does the fact that Bitcoin miners sell during a slump indicate?

Bitcoin miners are liquidating their holdings against the background of fiscal consolidation and sluggish crypto sector development. Lark Davies, a crypto YouTuber, said that this has been occurring since the beginning of the crypto market meltdown.

Typically, miners retain tokens during down markets and sell them after the bear market has gone. Consequently, miners may maximize their profits.

However, selling during a decline shows that miners anticipate additional Bitcoin price declines.

Davies published a Glassnode graph depicting the Bitcoin miner’s net change position, which refers to the 30-day rate of change in miners’ unspent supply, or the change in supply stored in miners’ addresses.

Recent behavior reveals a substantial decline in miner distribution during the last few weeks, ranging from -5,000 to -8,000 BTC each month.

Since then, the figures have decreased to a current net change position of -3,300 BTC/month, indicating that the trend may reverse in the next weeks.

Prior to this, a negative net position move of this magnitude happened between January and April of 2021. This period reached a maximum of -26,000 BTC/mo.

Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of $65,000 between January 2021 and mid-April 2021. This phase was marked by euphoric disbelief and red-hot overbought Relative Strength Index (RSI) values.

Typically, miners sell Bitcoin during times of market strength, such as January to April 2021, and keep tokens during market declines.

The recent negative shift in net position, however, is contrary to expectations.

Will Foxley, a director at Compass Mining, said that the decision is only a precautionary response to the macro environment, as opposed to a clear indication of miner pessimism. He stated that selling Bitcoin at this time is a wise decision for maintaining mining operations throughout the uncertainties.

He believes that miners are only discussing the macro climate and that it would be good to sell Bitcoin at current prices in order to maintain operations secure.

The result will maintain selling pressure on the dominant cryptocurrency until miners have adequate liquidity to continue operations.

In the meanwhile, Bitcoin reversed its weekly slump of nine straight weekly losses. Despite the fact that it’s too early to proclaim a bottom, particularly in light of macroeconomic uncertainties, the news is a welcome respite for investors.

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Bitcoin Opinion People Price Analysis

Bloomberg analyst predicts Bitcoin will exceed $100K by 2025

Mike McGlone, Bloomberg’s Senior Commodity Strategist, was recently a guest on Kitco News. A thorough examination of the present market conditions led him to the conclusion that Bitcoin will beat all other forms of investment and reach a value of $100,000 by the year 2025.

McGlone believes that the big reversal has just begun. The present market exhibits the first big inflation in the lifespan of the majority of people in 40 years. It’s possible that Bitcoin may rise and become the finest asset in the world once this era is finished, though.

Both Bitcoin and the S&P 500 have returned to their 100-week mean for the first time in two years, according to McGlone. The $30,000 support level for Bitcoin was broken by Nasdaq, causing a significant drop in the stock market. It’s now a matter of who will emerge first and when, according to McGlone.

While he didn’t provide a specific amount, he did say that for the time being, he anticipates Bitcoin’s price will fall, maybe as low as $20,000, but he doubts it would. It doesn’t matter what happens, he expects it to reach $100,000 in two years.

McGlone cited the adoption rate of all crypto assets, particularly Bitcoin, to illustrate the reasons for his claim.

He provided the following data to drive home the importance of adoption:

According to the overall market value of all stocks on the earth, crypto represents just approximately 1% of that. Only 0.01 percent of the population used to have access to the Internet. Prior to it, there were fewer of them.

In an increasingly digital world, he said, Bitcoin is the equivalent of physical gold. Additionally, as its use grows, so does the available supply owing to the nature of its coding. This means that Bitcoin prices will only continue to rise over the next several years.

As a platform that revolutionizes the financial business and has a very high acceptance rate, he briefly discussed Ethereum. As soon as the bad market ends and the correct supports are established, Bitcoin and Ethereum will outperform all other assets since their desire for adoption is considerably stronger than the others.

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News NFT

Soulja Boy stokes Cardano NFT craze

Charles Hoskinson, the developer of Cardano, said that by the year 2020, the Cardano ecosystem would have thousands of decentralized applications (DApps), hundreds of assets, loads of intriguing initiatives, and a great deal of originality and usefulness.

Hoskinson also said that there was a significant increase in Cardano’s 24-hour transaction volumes across all of the different blockchains on May 29. Hoskinson’s findings were supported by data obtained from Messari, which indicated that the 24-hour transaction volume for Cardano was $9.57 billion. In addition to this, the transaction volume was more than that of Ethereum and was only surpassed by that of Bitcoin. Since the beginning of the previous month, this has been the situation.

Up from 943 at the beginning of the year, there are currently 986 projects based on Cardano. Recent activity on Cardano has resulted in the launch of 88 new projects in total. Over the course of the last week, IOHK reports that 3,028 new connections were created on Github.

In addition, Cardano observed some optimistic data in the NFT zone as a result of the minting of more over five million native assets. The data that were supplied by pool.pm indicate that the total amount of native assets that have been minted on the Cardano blockchain has reached 5,019,030, and there have been 54,831 distinct minting operations used.

Astarter, a Defi infrastructure center dedicated to offering “fair, secure, and accessible open finance services on Cardano, producing decentralized finance apps for the Cardano ecosystem,” has also developed a new NFT comic studio that is hosted on Cardano.

According to the statement made by the platform, it made the decision to embrace Cardano because “hundreds of projects are built on Cardano and they want to be one of them.” They went on to say that since Cardano introduced smart contracts, the demand for decentralized applications (dapps) has skyrocketed. They are of the opinion that Cardano exceeds the competition and is the most promising blockchain for the future generation.

In addition to these factors, interest in Cardano NFTs is continuing to increase as a result of a statement that was recently published on Twitter by the rapper Soulja Boy, who said that “#Cardano NFTs looking really spicy right now! What should I get?”

The total value of Cardano NFT transactions for the month of April was $27 million. After the news was made public, ADA was trading at $0.52, down 1.64 percent from its previous price.

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Ethereum

Ethereum (ETH) Price Prediction For June 2022

While losing value versus Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), the native currency of Ethereum, has shed more than half its value in dollar terms in 2022, it has remained anchored below $2,000 for a variety of reasons at this point.

A number of other variables, some of which we’ll address in more detail below, might cause the ETH price to plummet even more in June.

According to CoinShares’ weekly market report, investors have withdrew $250 million from Ethereum-based investment funds in 2022.

Other cryptocurrencies are not seeing such a large outflow. For example, in 2022, Bitcoin-based investment vehicles attracted $369 million from investors.

Meanwhile, layer-one blockchain protocols such as Solana and Cardano, which compete with Ethereum, have each received $104 million in funding.

As TerraUSD (UST) and Terra (LUNA), two tokens in Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem, recently crashed, investors’ enthusiasm for decentralized finance (DeFi) has waned, as seen by the withdrawals from Ethereum funds.

As long as the DeFi market continues to grow, the optimistic outlook for Ethereum (ETH) will stay anchored on expectations of an increase in the number of financial apps running on Ethereum’s blockchain. Entire TVL (TVL) in Ethereum-based applications was $68.71 million on June 5, which is about two-thirds of the total TVL in DeFi.

Even still, Ethereum’s DeFi pools, which had been hovering above $100 billion until the May 9 collapse of Luna Classic (LUNC) and TerraUSD Classic (USTC), are still reflected in the TVL.

According to Tagus Capital partner Ilan Solot, Ether’s slide is likely to continue in June due to macro concerns posed by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive policies and a cautious prognosis for the DeFi industry.

Data from CryptoQuant reveals a rise of 550,459 ETH in the worldwide sum of Ether balances since May.

In all, about $950 million has been deposited into the hot wallets of exchanges since the Terra crisis began in 2013.

Investors who want to swap tokens for other assets often transfer them to a crypto exchange for that purpose. If the decline in ETH reserves on exchanges starts to reverse, then selling pressure will certainly intensify.

Categories
Altcoins News

USDD breaks collateralization record amid stablecoin concerns

Despite the recent upheaval surrounding stablecoins, Tron’s USDD has continued to make substantial progress over the previous month. The stablecoin has made significant progress since its inception one month ago.

‘The first over-collateralized decentralized stablecoin’ has been upgraded by the TRON DAO Reserve. The coin’s entire circulating quantity is close to 700 million, making it the currency with the greatest global collateral ratio.

The USDD’s collateral ratio is now 205.54 percent, according to the most recent information on the company’s website. According to a blog post from USDD tea,

USDD has a guaranteed collateral ratio of at least 130%, making it one of the safest decentralized stablecoins. By over-collateralizing assets under the TRON DAO Reserve, the update maintains USDD’s stability and trustworthiness, while enabling Reserve members to continue minting USDD by burning TRX (TDR).

There would be a reserve of BTC and TRX, as well as many stablecoins, at a ratio of 130 percent to back USDD. In the TRON DAO Reserve, there are now 10,500 BTC, 240 million USDT, and 1.9 billion TRX held in reserve. An additional 8.29 billion TRX will be burned as a result. The real-time collateral ratio now exceeds 200 percent, implying that the 667 million USDD in circulation are backed by assets worth $1.37 billion.

According to Justin Tron, the Tron creator, the improved, over-collateralized USDD will lead the Stablecoin 3.0 age by adding more diverse features to support its stability. Decentralized stablecoin USDD will have the greatest collateral ratio in blockchain history, according to TDR’s guarantee of $10 billion in reserves. As of now, the 200 percent Plus collateral ratio provides USDD with a fairly solid safety net.

Stablecoin regulation is now being considered by a number of nations. The United Kingdom has recently stepped up to fill the regulatory void in crypto-related matters. The “Financial Market Infrastructure Special Administration Regime” was recommended to be changed by the government. In the event of a collapse, the Bank of England will be able to maintain stablecoin payments.

Categories
Altcoins Blockchain News

During May, Tether’s USDT lost ground to the USDC

Several stablecoins have come under scrutiny following the recent collapse of TerraClassicUSD (USTC). Regulators around the world have begun to take action to safeguard and control them. Stablecoins’ market capitalization has dropped to $160.9 billion. In the last 30 days, the USD Coin (USDC) has outperformed the largest stablecoin, USDT.

Tether’s market capitalization has fallen by more than 12.7 percent in the last 30 days, according to data from Coingecko. At this point, the total is somewhere around $72.7 billion. The USDC, on the other hand, has risen by nearly 11% in the same period. There has been a $54.1 billion market value registered for the USD coin.

The trading volume of stabecoins 24 has decreased to $32.8 billion. With a market share of 79 percent (approximately $30.7 billion), the USDT dominates. While the USDC (approximately $3.7 billion) accounts for 9.5 percent. Binance USD’s market capitalization has risen by about 1.5% in the last 30 days. It has now reached $18 billion in value. At $6.4 billion in market value, Dai Stablecoin’s market value has fallen by more than 21%.

The global crypto market crashed in May, and many major stable tokens were de-pegged. The collapse of Terra’s USTC served as a catalyst for it. More than $18 billion worth of TerraClassicUSD crashed to $186 million in value. Traded at $0.018 a token, which is supposed to be backed by the value of the dollar.

From $116 to $0.000093, Terra Classic’s (LUNC) price has plummeted. LUNC was once valued at more than $40 billion. This amount has risen to about $608 million.

Whales are the largest cryptocurrency holders – institutional investors, exchanges, and wealthy individuals – who can move large amounts of tokens and influence market prices. Analysts keep a close eye on their activity in order to spot trends and predict large price swings.

Categories
Blockchain News

More than $1 billion has been lost by victims of crypto frauds since 2021

Crypto appears to have resurrected internet fraud, which is nothing new. Since 2021, at least 46,000 people have been swindled by crypto frauds, according to a new FTC report.

On Friday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that over $1 billion had been lost by approximately 46,000 people since 2021 due to crypto scams. According to the report, $680 million was lost in 2021, and about $329 million was lost in Q1 2022 due to these scams.

It is estimated that each victim lost an average amount of $2600, with most of the money being held in Bitcoin. Scammers received more than two-thirds of their cryptocurrency from the scam in Bitcoin, with Tether and Ether each receiving a small percentage of the total.

Cryptocurrency scam losses have increased 60-fold since 2018, according to the most recent findings. It was found that nearly half of these losses were caused by people engaging in fraudulent activity on social media. According to the FTC, about 40% of the money victims lose to social media scammers is in cryptocurrency.

Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram are some of the most frequently used platforms by scammers, who rely on deceptive investment schemes to defraud unsuspecting victims out of their money by promising unrealistically high returns in a short period of time. More than $575 million has been lost to these investment scams since 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Romance scams came in second place with $185 million in revenue, according to the report. Third is a $133 million loss in business and government impersonation scams. Investors are advised by the FTC not to choose investments that guarantee returns, not to buy crypto at the direction of another to protect their wealth, and not to take investment advice from an online love interest to avoid becoming victims of these scams.

In the first quarter of 2022, internet fraudsters lost nearly half as much money in crypto as they did in the entire year of 2021. FTC estimates that these figures do not represent the full extent of this crisis. The FTC, for example, estimates that only 5% of people who lose money to crypto fraud report it to them in another paper.

On the proliferation of scams in the cryptocurrency space, Billy Markus co-created Dogecoin, which was created as a joke in 2013. He claimed that investors are encouraging it.

Categories
Blockchain News Regulation

South Korea is beefing up its crypto investigations and regulations

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea launched an investigation into payment gateway services that work with digital assets on Friday, June 3. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) is South Korea’s financial regulator, which reports to the FSS. Both are government institutions.

According to local news outlet Money Today Co., the FSS recently demanded reports from 157 payment gateways on any crypto-related services, future plans, and digital asset disclosure. However, according to an FSS report, only 6 had any digital assets.

Although the FSS is currently the primary financial regulator, South Korea announced the formation of the Digital Assets Committee on May 31, 2022. Following the Luna-Terra crash, this is a temporary solution to bring structure to the virtual asset industry, according to the announcement.

The guidelines include screening criteria for newly-listed assets, market monitoring, trade monitoring, a level of disclosure, and other investor protections, according to the announcement. The country’s five major exchanges appear to agree on the standards and have formed their own committee to help prevent another incident like Terra (LUNA).

Soon after the FSS launched its investigation, it announced a remote meeting with other financial supervisory authorities from five Asian countries. The Indonesian Financial Supervisory Service hosted this event, which also included Australia, China, and Japan.

The discussion focused on global market conditions, as well as big tech and cryptocurrency. The Korean representative emphasized the importance of cryptocurrency regulation, disciplinary action regarding virtual assets, and the expansion of financial regulatory frameworks.

South Korean officials launched an investigation into Do Kwon, the main figure in the Luna incident, on Tuesday, May 24th, 2022. Yoon Chang-Hyeon, the chairman of the People’s Strength Virtual Assets Special Committee, who met with top exchanges in response, will lead the aforementioned Digital Assets Committee.

Categories
Blockchain News NFT

Bored Ape Yacht Club Discord Gets Hacked Again

A phishing attack appears to have compromised the Discord servers of Yuga Lab projects Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Otherside.

Over 145 Ethereum ($256,000) worth of tokens were allegedly stolen by the attackers. It appears that a community manager’s account was hacked, giving the attackers access to the servers’ admin accounts.

They then posted a link to a phishing site where users were encouraged to link their wallets in order to gain access to a “exclusive giveaway.” The BAYC Discord has been disabled, and moderators on the Otherside server are advising users to turn off direct messages.

This isn’t the first time BAYC has hacked Discord this year. In the last three months, the project has been the target of a series of phishing attacks, which resulted in the theft of several NFTs.

32 NFTs were stolen, according to data from blockchain security firm PeckShield, including one BAYC token, two Mutant Apes, five Otherdeeds, and one Bored Ape Kennel Club token.

The hack appears to be one of the most damaging in recent memory. In previous attacks this year, one to two tokens were stolen per attack.

Yuga Labs has yet to make a public statement on the subject. According to Coingecko data, BAYC’s floor price has also dropped by 2.9 percent in the last 24 hours.

The project has been the target of several phishing and hacking attempts since its inception, owing to its status as the most valuable NFT collection.

In April, the project’s social media platforms were hacked twice. Seth Green, an actor and producer, had his Bored Ape stolen recently.

It’s unclear whether Yuga, the owner of Bored Ape Yacht Club, has taken any security measures so far. With ownership of the most valuable collections, the company is by far the most powerful player in the NFT space.

Categories
Blockchain News Regulation

Armenia Central Bank Looking Into Crypto Regulations

Armenia central bank has been urged to do its job and put the country’s crypto space back in order. In order to keep cryptocurrencies out of the wrong hands, regulators from both the federal government and the financial industry agree that the industry needs regulation.

The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) has been urged to ensure that Armenia’s crypto market is regulated by the State Revenue Committee (SRC), the country’s regulatory body for tax and customs services. The head of the agency, Rustam Badasyan, elaborated in Armenian parliament:

Tax avoidance and money laundering have been made possible through the use of cryptocurrencies because of the lack of regulation in this area.

According to Armbanks.am, the financial and banking news portal, the SRC official made the statement during parliamentary hearings on the execution of the state budget from last year. In conjunction with the CBA, the committee keeps a close eye on the small country of South Caucasus’ customs and tax departments.

Furthermore, according to Badasyan, the authorities are no longer able to intervene in transactions involving digital assets. He cited a case in which a large sum of fiat money was exchanged for cryptocurrency, but no results were found because there was no legal framework in place.

According to Seyran Sargsyan, ED, UBAN of AR, the issues of identifying cryptocurrency users and the transparency of crypto transactions need to be addressed. Sargsyan made a similar statement. Banks in Armenia, according to the banker, don’t deal in digital coins and don’t offer any related services.

Eurasian Economic Union members failed to agree on a common approach for adopting rules for the crypto economy in their jurisdictions in March 2021, according to a report from Forklog, the cryptocurrency news outlet. Armenians are calling for crypto regulation at a time when Russia’s regulatory framework is being delayed by ongoing discussions on the subject.

Categories
Blockchain News

Brazil central banker says CBDCs can stop bank runs

Fabio Araujo, an economist at the Brazil central bank responsible for its CBDCs work, revealed in a paper recently published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) that the monetary authority will have greater control over the population’s money once its CBDC is rolled out. The central bank will be able to stop bank runs and impose other restrictions on citizens’ access to money through the so-called Real Digital.

It has been debated at the central bank since 2015 and will be tested in 2023 through nine solutions presented by private companies at the recent Lift Challenge event that was carried out by the CBB.

As reported by Cointelegraph, the value of the new CBDC will be based on the national fiat payment system STR, or Reserve Transfer System.

The central bank says it wants to enable “smart payments” in a regulated environment through Real Digital. Smart payments include smart contracts, transactions with IoT devices, and even DeFi applications.

CBDCs are intended to provide entrepreneurs with a safe and reliable environment in which they can innovate using programmability technologies that make smart payments possible, according to Araujo’s BIS document.

Smart payment technologies such as crypto assets allow for new business models that are better suited to meet people’s needs, he said.

This paper by Araujo emphasizes the need for the central bank and the private sector to continue working together to supply the market with liquidity. Coexistence between the CBB-regulated Real Digital and private money issued by financial institutions regulated by the CBB is envisaged, according to Araujo.

People could use their deposits to convert them into tokens that could be used to access the new platform’s services under the promise that these tokens would be converted into Real Digital. The bank’s balance in Real Digital will act as a guarantee for the operations of tokens aimed at smart contract applications.

CBDCs will have a locking system for withdrawals, unlike the cryptocurrency ecosystem, where users own their assets and no one can lock their operations.

Categories
Altcoins Blockchain News

A Terra insider accuses Do Kwon of gaining power through nepotism

Despite Terra CEO Do Kwon launch of the new Luna 2.0, the project appears to have lost faith. Even the launch of the new blockchain came amid much discussion about Do Kwon investment after the crash wiped out billions of dollars in investor funds.

Kwon’s name first rose to prominence in 2016 after he received a $550,000 grant from Infobank, a Korean communications corporation. Kwon’s first startup, Anify, which provided a peer-to-peer communications solution, received funding.

FatMan, on the other hand, questioned how the grant was given without even having a product in place. FatMan, as he is known on Twitter, is a Terra team insider.

According to FatMan, who cites a report, Kwon received the investment due to nepotism. According to reports, Kwon’s connections with the CEO of Infobank landed him the large funding through the Korean government’s TIPS incubation program.

Jang Jun-ho, Jang Ki-father, seok’s was revealed to be Infobank’s CEO. Ki-father seok’s recommended the project to the TIPS board, and he received a large investment into Anify’s bank as a result. Ki-seok was an Infobank shareholder, it was discovered.

According to Fatman, the investment made Kwon greedy for money. Kwon’s Terra was created in collaboration with Daniel Shin, a man with family ties to Samsung and the Korean CIA, he added. Shin’s power shielded Kwon, Fatman said, adding that the Terra leader was well aware that the project would most likely fail.

However, not all investors believe FatMan’s claims. One user, DefiZealot, who claims to have been rekt by Luna, requested FatMan to provide sources. These are serious allegations that, if true, would be a huge disservice.

FatMan stated on Tuesday that Kwon may launch a new decentralized stablecoin on Terra 2.0. This is in stark contrast to Terra’s revival plan, which was to completely abandon the UST stablecoin.

Categories
Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain News

Attorney General of New York Warns Crypto Investors

On June 2, Attorney General Letitia James issued a “alert” warning New Yorkers of the risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies.

The message arrives as cryptocurrency markets continue to reel from the aftermath of Terra’s implosion. In May, the total crypto market capitalization decreased by $446 billion, marking the sector’s eleven-month low.

James issued a fresh warning to investors, asserting that digital assets are among the riskiest investments available.

Cryptocurrencies are susceptible to extreme and unpredictable price fluctuations, making them among the riskiest investments available.

The last time Attorney General James issued a similar warning was in March 2021, as Bitcoin rallied to new all-time highs and sentiment spiked. However, the message then had a greater emphasis on the industry.

She informed the members of the New York crypto industry that they would be shut down if they did not comply with the rules.

We are sending a clear message to the entire industry that if you do not comply with the rules, we will close you down.

James specifically mentioned state regulatory requirements to register with the Investor Protection Bureau of the Office of the Attorney General. She stated that non-compliant parties would be subject to civil and criminal enforcement.

Her message was unambiguous: the New York Attorney General’s Office is cracking down on crypto firms that take unnecessary risks with investor funds.

We are sending a clear message to the entire industry that if you do not comply with the rules, we will close you down.

James specifically mentioned state regulatory requirements to register with the Investor Protection Bureau of the Office of the Attorney General. She stated that non-compliant parties would be subject to civil and criminal enforcement.

Her message was unambiguous: the New York Attorney General’s Office is cracking down on “greedy crypto firms” that take unnecessary risks with investor funds.

Today, we are leveling the playing field by issuing alerts to both investors and industry members nationwide.

Now, however, James cautions retail investors against investing in cryptocurrencies, stating that doing so can result in more anxiety than wealth.

Too often, cryptocurrency investments cause investors more pain than gain. I urge New Yorkers to exercise caution before investing their hard-earned money in speculative cryptocurrencies, which can produce more anxiety than wealth.
In the press release, James listed seven specific considerations for investing in digital assets.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain News

White House Developing Policy to Reduce Bitcoin Energy Consumption

Bloomberg Law reported on Thursday that the White House is working on policy recommendations to limit Bitcoin energy consumption and carbon footprint in the United States.

Following a series of complaints from critics that Bitcoin’s high energy consumption for mining operations endangers the country’s environmental goals and strains its national grid, the government has taken this action.

The White House’s Chief Energy Policy Advisor, Costa Samaras, stated that if digital assets are to be a part of the financial ecosystem, it must be climate and energy neutral.

If this is to play a significant role in their financial system, it is crucial that it is developed responsibly and total emissions are minimized. When considering digital assets, they must consider climate and energy conservation, said Samaras.

The Bitcoin energy use policy is anticipated to be published in August, but it is unclear whether the law will be passed immediately.

Mining refers to the process of using powerful computers to solve complex computational puzzles in order to create blocks on the blockchain.

Bitcoin, for example, employs a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm that necessitates a high amount of energy to verify and process transactions.

Some global regulators have expressed concern over decentralized assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, whose transactions require a great deal of processing power.

China, for instance, has outlawed crypto mining after launching a massive crackdown in Q4 2021 against all crypto mining facilities in the region.

Similarly, in March, the Conversation Committee of the New York State Assembly passed a bill prohibiting Bitcoin mining operations in the region for two years. Nevertheless, the law is still awaiting approval from the Assembly and Senate. It must also be approved by the governor of the state.

Greenpeace was reported to have launched an anti-Bitcoin and anti-environmental effects campaign in the same month.

The “Change The Code, Not The Climate” campaign received $5 million in funding from the chairman of Ripple, Chris Larsen.

The EU parliament also passed a proposal to restrict the use of Proof-of-Work (PoW) crypto assets, but the bill was defeated by a vote of 34 to 24.