The Optimism Foundation announced on Friday that it has started a private token sale of over 19.5 million OP tokens, which are currently valued at almost $90 million, to an unidentified bidder. The Optimism network, a blockchain that processes and settles Ethereum transactions, is one of the networks that the foundation helps to maintain and
Blockchain technology is causing a stir in a variety of sectors. It is frequently heralded as the foundation of innovation in the digital age. But its influence goes well beyond trendy terms and virtual currencies. Project management is about to undergo a transformation thanks to blockchain, which will bring in a new era of accountability,
Launched on March 7, Lava is a decentralized loan market platform. According to a press release provided with Cointelegraph on March 7, Lava’s technology would allow automated market makers (AMMs) to optimize liquidity across numerous blockchain networks and prevent temporary loss. As per John Lo, managing partner of digital assets at Recharge Capital, impermanent loss
In a research report released on Wednesday, Fidelity Digital Assets stated that the Ethereum blockchain’s Dencun upgrade, slated for March 13, is the first step toward enabling its rollup-centric roadmap and will enable the network to function as a proper database for layer-2 blockchains to store data more effectively and affordably. Analyst Max Wadington stated
Travel company Travala.com, which embraces cryptocurrencies, is launching a Bitcoin cashback scheme, pointing to BTC’s scarcity as an appealing reward system for its elite customers. Travala’s new reward program is described in a release made exclusively to Cointelegraph. Users who have unlocked the Smart Diamond tier of the loyalty reward program run by the blockchain
Exchange-traded products (ETPs) that expose investors to ether (ETH) and solana (SOL) values in addition to additional incentives from staking are planned by Figment Europe, an institutional staking services provider, and Apex Group, a global financial services organisation with headquarters in Bermuda. The two funds, called Figment Solana Plus Staking Rewards (SOLF) and Figment Ethereum
According to a recent court filing, bankrupt cryptocurrency lender BlockFi, which was caught up in the FTX contagion and filed for bankruptcy a few days after the exchange crashed, has reached a “in principle” agreement with the estates of FTX and Alameda Research for almost $1 billion. This agreement could result in full value recovery
Zama, an open-source cryptography company, has secured $73 million in Series A funding to create apps utilising fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), a technology that permits data processing without requiring decryption and may be helpful for safeguarding privacy in blockchain and artificial intelligence. By email on Thursday, Zama revealed that Protocol Labs and Multicoin Capital had
The owner of the bankrupt cryptocurrency lending company Genesis Global Capital, Digital Currency Group (DCG), has filed a motion to have the lawsuit brought against the firms by New York Attorney General Letitia James dismissed. On Wednesday, DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert filed a motion to have the Attorney General’s allegations against him dropped.
The Canadian bitcoin miner Hut 8 is leaving its Drumheller, Alberta, location owing to power outages and rising energy expenses. Hut 8’s Drumheller mining operation, which mines 1.4% of the company’s Bitcoin at a cost of about 11% of its hash rate, is set to close with immediate effect, according to the March 6 release.
Tuesday saw a massive inflow of nearly $778 million into the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), as investors in the fund appeared to have taken advantage of the decline in the largest cryptocurrency in the world. With 12,600 new bitcoin added, IBIT surpassed the 10,000 daily record. More than 107 million shares, or more than
The SEC’s (Securities and Exchange Commission) attempt to freeze Binance last year.According to an executive who testified in court, the company’s activities under a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in the US caused massive layoffs as sales collapsed and it battled with market trust. “We saw somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1 billion of assets flee
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has granted cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, based in Europe, regulatory permission in principle. A Wednesday email statement stated that Bitstamp would soon be able to provide digital payment token services in the city state of Southeast Asia thanks to the Major Payment Institution (MPI) licence. According to its own description,
Revolut Ramp, a tool that enables users to top up their MetaMask wallets with their Revolut account, is the result of Revolut’s partnership with the self-custodial wallet MetaMask. In a bid to make adding cryptocurrency to self-custody wallets simpler, the digital bank will allow users to make purchases straight into MetaMask wallets in the United
An ICO is a specific type of crowdfunding used by blockchain-based gaming companies. By providing early access to exclusive game assets and tokens, mostly in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), it helps game developers to raise money. This strategy gives investors the opportunity to be involved in cutting-edge gaming ventures from the beginning and
Targeting institutional investors, the German securities market Deutsche Börse has formally introduced its own cryptocurrency trading platform. On March 5, Deutsche Börse announced the opening of Deutsche Börse Digital Exchange (DBDX), its exclusive cryptocurrency spot platform for institutional clients. The DBDX, which was introduced in partnership with custody provider Crypto Finance, provides a safe, regulated
The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) of the area has granted Nexo, a provider of digital asset services, preliminary authority to operate as a licensed organization in Dubai. The company made this announcement on Tuesday. Three steps are required to obtain a full license: a preliminary license, an operating license, and an initial provisional permit.
Major international cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it is leaving the Nigerian market and will no longer be offering any services in the country’s fiat currency, the Nigerian naira (NGN). The platform will stop accepting NGN withdrawals after March 8, according to a formal announcement made by Binance on March 5. The notification stated
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom has authorised Baanx as a cryptocurrency payments specialist. The firm announced on Tuesday that it has raised a $20 million Series A fundraising round. Ledger, Tezos, Chiron, and British Business Bank were among the investors in the financing round, which increased the cryptocurrency payment enabler’s total
The Fantom Foundation, which oversees and contributes to the development of the Fantom blockchain, is attempting to recoup a portion of the funds it lost in July’s $200 million cross-chain router protocol Multichain hack. The foundation is currently attempting to liquidate the business, which is comparable to filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the United
The oil and gas business is a vital component of modern society, particularly in light of the increasing worldwide demand for energy. Even still, this industry’s management techniques—which are fraught with inefficiencies and excessive expenses—remain antiquated despite its continued prosperity. The Growing Importance of Natural Gas and Oil Resources Global economic and social advancement are
To improve the security of EigenLayer and the Omni Network, Omni Network has negotiated a $600 million Ether contract with restaking protocol Ether.Fi.Omni Network stated in an X post from March 4 that the $600 million will aid in securing both the Omni testnet and mainnet. “Omni is proud to announce a commitment of $600M of staked ETH from @ether_fi to secure the Omni Network. This first-of-its-kind deal positions us at the forefront of the growing restaking ecosystem.” The goal of Omni Network, a layer-1 interoperability blockchain, is to reduce latency and enhance ecosystem fragmentation by securely connecting Ethereum rollups through restaking.About 33 percent of Ether is represented by the $600 million worth of Ether.The $1.88 billion total value locked (TVL) of Fi.Ether.DefiLlama statistics shows that Fi is currently the largest liquid restaking protocol in the world, with its TVL rising over 163% in the last month. With over $10.3 billion in TVL, EigenLayer is now the largest Ethereum restaking protocol. The $600 million worth of Ether will be restaked on this platform. The announcement of a $100 million fundraising round for EigenLayer by venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) was almost two weeks prior to the announcement of the new strategic alliance.In March, Blockchain Capital led a $50 million investment round for the protocol. EigenLayer was established in 2021 and allows stakers and validators to restake derivative tokens that are designed for liquid staking, such as Lido Staked Ether and RocketPool’s rETH, in order to validate and secure other networks.To increase yield, these assets can potentially be used in other decentralized finance protocols.With a total TVL of $54.7 billion, liquid staking is now the largest protocol category on DefiLlama. Restaking protocols are ranked sixth with a TVL of $10.305 billion.Only EigenLayer’s TVL makes up 99.96% of the $10.305 billion total TVL that is locked in restaking protocols. After the protocol temporarily lifted its staking cap on February 5 in an effort to encourage organic growth, investor interest in EigenLayer began to soar.EigenLayer’s TVL increased by more than 181% during this restaking time, from just $2.15 billion on February 5 to $6.05 billion on February 10.Although a new staking cap was implemented, the project intends to eventually eliminate this cap permanently.
According to Punch, a committee of the Nigerian House of Representatives has called Binance CEO Richard Teng to attend “on or before March 4″ in order to look into allegations of money laundering and terrorism financing.The Nigerian newspaper posted a statement on its website on Friday stating that Ginger Onwusibe, the head of the Committee on Financial Crimes, had made the call. This came days after two executives from Binance were arrested upon their arrival in the nation after being invited to meet with officials, as reported by Bloomberg. The nation’s central bank is furious with the cryptocurrency exchange, accusing it of inflaming the economic crisis by purportedly manipulating the exchange rate and permitting $26 billion in untraceable funds to flee the nation as it struggles with a foreign exchange crisis.Nigerian officials have threatened to punish the exchange up to $10 billion, according to a report from the BBC on Friday. However, a spokesman for the president later played down the allegation. If the exchange fails to meet the summons, the committee will take appropriate measures Onwusibe said according to Punch. “You cannot run a company with over 10 million Nigerians on your platform without paying tax and having a physical office where Nigerians can lodge their complaints when they experience any challenge with your
Broker Bernstein stated in a research study on Monday that a broad-based recovery in the cryptocurrency sector is anticipated, with decentralized finance (DeFi) leading the way.Analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra stated, “We expect a big bang DeFi recovery and the investor narrative to come back as the future of blockchain finance.” Six of the 10 most lucrative protocols, according to Bernstein, are DeFI applications.Uniswap, Aave, Maker, GMX, Synthetix, and Sushi are these.The writers stated, “DeFi’s foolish last cycle was the game of unsustainable yields that came crashing down,” adding that the Luna stablecoin, which crashed later, was the pinnacle of unsustainable DeFi.One kind of cryptocurrency that is usually correlated with the US dollar is called a stablecoin.The word “DeFi” refers to a broad category of blockchain-based or cryptocurrency-based financial apps that aim to displace financial middlemen.The research stated that this cycle is different since the yield is real and that it would not be shocking to see global asset managers contemplating the possibility of a DeFi exchange-traded fund (ETF) and active DeFi due to regulatory clarity. The biggest decentralized spot exchange is called Uniswap.The study went on to say that “at today’s run rate, Uniswap on an annualized basis could have revenues crossing $1b,” pointing out that the UNI token now has a $9.3 billion floating market value.
Following the demise of its stablecoin, USDR, last year, Tangible changed its name to re.al. In two weeks, the redesigned layer-2 blockchain is anticipated to be online. Can one of the most well-known failures in the real world assets (RWAs) space become a pillar of support for one of the most popular financial products in
The coin with a frog theme saw trade volumes rise to $3.6 billion, a record high. Despite the introduction of ecosystem upgrades by the developers of other meme tokens like as Floki, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu, its increases exceeded those of these tokens. A rally in meme coins, led by the likes of dogecoin (DOGE)
A U.S. court determined on March 1 that the trading of certain cryptocurrency assets on a secondary market, like Coinbase, constitutes a securities transaction in an insider trading lawsuit involving Ishan Wahi, the former product manager of Coinbase, his brother Nikhil Wahi, and their friend Sameer Ramani. Despite Ramani’s token trades on the secondary market,
In the cryptocurrency space, MAGA coin—a joke coin with a Donald Trump theme—has become a prominent competitor.The meme coin is headed for the ranks of illustrious canine-inspired tokens such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), as seen by its remarkable spike of about 400% over the past month, according to CoinGecko data, with a market valuation exceeding $285 million.Popular YouTube talk show personality and MAGA coin project director Steven Steele anticipates that the cryptocurrency will become as well-known and have the same market capitalization as these legendary meme coins. In a recent interview, Steele discussed his lofty objectives for the project and stressed how “PoliFi,” a portmanteau of decentralized finance (DeFi) and politics, has the ability to unite the domains of politics, finance, and community.Meme coins are sometimes criticized for being speculative and linked to the “degenerate” parts of the cryptocurrency industry, while some contend that they capture the playful spirit of trying to change the world financial system.For example, the Avalanche Foundation has said that it will be investing in meme coins because it believes that these coins have the ability to promote fun and community development in the cryptocurrency world. Steele contends that the Trump-themed coins serve a unique purpose beyond mere speculation. He contends that the value of the coin essentially acts as an investment prediction market, with its value strongly correlated with significant events affecting Donald Trump.The accuracy of these coin motions amuses Steele, he said. Steele makes the case that traditional prediction markets are inferior than meme coins in terms of return potential and liquidity, with TRUMP being one example.Meme coins have the potential to yield exceptional returns; some tokens have grown by 100x or even 1,000x, while prediction markets offer a helpful hedge against macroeconomic disasters.This crucial distinction has drawn investors looking for high-risk, high-reward prospects in the cryptocurrency market.Upon closer examination of the political scene, it is clear that memes related to President Trump have become considerably more popular than those related to President Joseph Biden. Compared to the vibrant TRUMP community, the largest Biden meme coin has a market cap of only $340,000 and little activity, according to on-chain data.This disparity, in contrast to the more serious prediction markets, begs the question of whether meme coin performance actually reflects a candidate’s chances. Steele highlights that in order to sustain momentum and attention, the MAGA coin project’s roadmap coincides with election season and takes advantage of developments affecting Donald Trump.Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) of the project actively promotes Trump’s official non-fungible token (NFT) series, drawing attention to the official NFT collection as well as the unofficial meme coin.Furthermore, a portion of the money raised from the sale of MAGA coins is donated to worthy causes like supporting homeless veterans and victims of child trafficking.Buying meme currencies, such as the MAGA token, is motivated by factors other than political support or affiliation. Given the attention economy that surrounds celebrities like Trump, many investors are lured to these assets because of the possible financial benefits that they bring.In a recent post on X, Mechanism Capital’s Andrew Kang stated that the investing thesis for the Trump token centers on Trump’s ongoing media appearances rather than his likelihood of winning the election. According to him, investors—both ardent MAGA supporters and seasoned token investors—find Trump’s ability to command attention to be an attractive aspect. In the future, Kang sees a “sell the news” reaction in response to Trump’s likely election triumph, much to the consolidation stage that Dogecoin went through following its connection to Elon Musk.Whatever one’s political stance, Trump is a desirable figure in the cryptocurrency industry due to his intriguing and unpredictable persona.
As Bitcoin price movement battles for all-time highs, it is departing exchanges at the fastest rate in years.James Van Straten, a research and statistics analyst at the cryptocurrency insights company CryptoSlate, reported multibillion-dollar Bitcoin withdrawals in a post on X on March 3. Although the majority of investors may not have jumped back into cryptocurrency just yet, Bitcoin exchanges are steadily running out of BTC reserves.Van Straten uploaded statistics from the on-chain analytics company Glassnode, which showed that withdrawals totaled around $2 billion on March 1 alone. “I don’t think I’ve quite seen anything like this before,” he commented. “All in all on the Friday, just over $2.3B worth of Bitcoin left exchanges. One of the biggest withdrawals in over 5 years.” Glassnode itself appears to show daily BTC outflows roughly equalling June 28–29, 2021, which combined to see record
Richard Teng, the CEO of Binance, has been invited to appear before the Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes due to allegations of money laundering and terrorism financing.Punch, a local news source, reports that Ginger Onwusibe, the chair of the committee, gave the Binance management until March 1 to come before the committee by March 4, 2024, at the latest.On February 27, the governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) expressed worries regarding Binance, citing “suspicious flows” of funds through the exchange in 2023. Onwusibe issued a warning, stating that the committee would use its constitutional authority and take appropriate action if Binance disregarded the summons.In a letter dated December 12, 2023, and signed by Onwusibe, Punch claims that the committee requested that Teng show up for a hearing on December 18, 2023. Onwusibe voiced his disappointment in Teng for declining several offers to attend.Onwusibe underlined that it has to do with the regulations that currently regulate the nation’s financial and corporate operations being completely disregarded.Reiterating the committee’s resolve to fight financial crimes, Onwusibe emphasized that they are empowered by the constitution to protect Nigerians against financial crimes, especially those involving foreign corporations. In an effort to quell speculation over the country’s fiat currency, the Nigerian naira, the National Security Adviser’s office is also said to have detained two senior Binance officials in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.Amid an ongoing crackdown on the cryptocurrency exchange, Binance suspended the naira from its peer-to-peer (P2P) service on Wednesday, February 28.Users can transact without the involvement of a third party by using the P2P capability.Under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, it gained popularity in Nigeria in 2021 as a result of the government’s prohibition on the country’s booming cryptocurrency business. But in December 2023, the CBN simultaneously released regulations for virtual asset service providers and repealed a two-year restriction on banks doing cryptocurrency transactions.In 2022, Nigeria became the second nation to introduce a digital currency issued by its central bank.The cNGN stablecoin, pegged to the naira, was also introduced by the Africa Stablecoin Consortium in February under a CBN regulator sandbox.
