The popular play-to-earn (P2E) game developer Sky Mavis has revealed that, with the help of Norwegian authorities, it has recovered $5.7 million from the infamous Ronin Bridge incident of 2022. Sky Mavis revealed on June 7 that the “Økokrim,” Norway’s central unit for combating economic and environmental crimes, had froze and returned $5.7 million in proceeds from the Ronin Bridge breach. Law enforcement, attorneys, accountants, and blockchain forensic teams like Chainalysis needed to coordinate their operations, according to Sky Mavis. The blockchain gaming firm publicly thanked the Norwegian government and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for tracking the funds and recovering the assets. The gaming corporation declared that the recently found money would be added back to the Axie Infinity reserve. But some of the money will go toward paying the costs of people who work hard to get them back. They penned. “15% of recovered assets will be used to cover costs and expenses incurred by those involved in the recovery efforts. The remaining 85% of recovered funds will

The chip will improve the efficiency of Bitcoin mining, use less power, cut expenses, and have a less environmental impact. In its technical roadmap for the recently released Sealminer rig, bitcoin mining startup Bitdeer has highlighted the “SEAL04” chip. Aiming for an energy efficiency as low as 5 joules per terahash (J/TH), the SEAL04 chip

Sandbox revealed that it has attracted more than 330,000 unique creators at a time when significant metaverse ventures are finding it difficult to acquire traction after the weak market of 2022–2023. At a $1 billion valuation, $20 million in convertible promissory notes have been raised by Animoca Brands and its subsidiary Bacasable Global, the company

According to broker Bernstein’s research study published on Friday, Robinhood’s (HOOD) acquisition of Bitstamp is a calculated move by the trading platform to grow its cryptocurrency business and places the company well against rivals like Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken. Robinhood has “stood the test of time over multiple cycles,” according to the broker, while Bitstamp

A variety of use cases are made possible by Solana’s speed and scalability, which also makes PYUSD affordable, fast, and accessible. Developers now have a new stablecoin option for their projects using PayPal USD available on Solana. Building with PYUSD is now easier than ever because to the Solana Devnet faucet’s quick access to test

Through the Notifi messaging service, users of Coinbase’s mobile cryptocurrency wallet can now receive automated alerts about events occurring on-chain. According to a press release, the service’s first customer is the perpetuals exchange GMX. Users of the platform, which is built on Arbitrum and Avalanche, will be able to create custom automatic flags in addition to receiving information regarding upcoming liquidations and governance upgrades. “If you’re not constantly monitoring what’s happening on-chain it’s impossible to keep up,” Notifi CEO Paul Kim said in an interview. With the launch of the service, Coinbase’s XMTP-based communications rails have expanded. Users of Coinbase wallets can communicate with one other since July of last year thanks to the XMTP protocol.According to the press announcement, Notifi also makes use of the XMTP protocol.

The decentralized exchange SushiSwap has gone online on the Rootstock sidechain for Bitcoin (BTC), as per a Thursday release published by CoinDesk. One of the most well-known projects, Rootstock was founded in 2018 with the goal of bringing decentralized finance (DeFi) features—more often associated with Ethereum and BNB Chain—to the Bitcoin network. It describes itself as the first Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that is compatible with the Bitcoin sidechain. Similar to an operating system on a computer, an Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) is software that runs smart contracts. With the use of Ethereum’s smart contract technology and the security of the Bitcoin network, Rootstock hopes to provide a platform that developers can use to create and implement decentralized apps (dApps).The RBTC coin, which is correlated 1:1 with BTC, is used in the ecosystem. About half a year after Uniswap was introduced to the Bitcoin sidechain, the integration has taken place. Uniswap was the original fork of SushiSwap. DeFi Llama data indicates that Rootstock’s bridged total value locked (TVL) is little over $450 million. Additions to the Bitcoin network that were previously the purview of Ethereum and other platforms have been made more quickly since the year 2023 began. The Ordinals protocol served as the foundation for the introduction of smart contracts to the largest blockchain in the world. It enabled the creation and storage of a version of NFTs on the Bitcoin network, and this led to more projects.

The maker of chips for ASIC mining equipment, Desiweminer, has agreed to be acquired by Bitcoin (BTC) miner Bitdeer in an all-stock deal valued at $140 million. An announcement on Thursday stated that Bitdeer had agreed to purchase all outstanding shares of Desiweminer on June 3 for a sum of 20 million Class A ordinary

Following Mastercard’s August 2023 shutdown of this feature, Binance is now able to enable users of its cards to make cryptocurrency purchases on the biggest exchange globally. Around the same time that Binance was facing legal issues in the United States, including many charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and U.S. Commodity

Metaverse interface In an effort to improve its user-generated multiplayer game platform, The Sandbox has secured $20 million at a $1 billion valuation. According to a news announcement, True Global Ventures and LG Tech Ventures contributed to the capital round, which was led by Kingsway Capital and Animoca Brands. By 2022, The Sandbox was valued

According to Reuters, Binance requested that the majority of a collusion action made by BSV Claims against it and three other cryptocurrency exchanges be dismissed from the U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). The litigation may be worth up to 10 billion British pounds ($13 billion).In 2019, the exchanges delisted the token, allegedly engaging in collusive anticompetitive action, according to BSV Claims. The company said that as a result, token holders lost out on possible profits of more than 9 billion pounds. According to BitMEX Research, it determined the loss by examining the gains made by other cryptocurrencies since then. Claims that BSV might have grown to be a significant cryptocurrency were removed, per Binance’s request to the tribunal. As reported by Reuters, Binance laywer Brian Kennelly stated that owners of BSV “could reasonably have sold it and reinvested it in comparable cryptocurrency”. When BSV Claims was founded in 2022, it stated that the lawsuit was being brought on behalf of about 240,000 investors in the UK. Based on documents at Companies House, David Curries, a member of the House of Lords and a former chairman of the CAT, is the only director of the business. Bittylicious, Kraken, and Shapeshift are other defendants in this case. Craig Wright is one of the main supporters of BSV. A London court last month found that Wright had lied “extensively and repeatedly” in support of his claim to be the anonymous creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. June 7 is the deadline for the case, which is 1523/7/7/22.

The Bank of Canada lowered its benchmark overnight rate by 25 basis points to 4.75% on Wednesday morning, as predicted. Since Canadian authorities had previously expressed satisfaction with the path of inflation coupled with some anxiety about slowing economic growth, most economists had anticipated the move. “[It is] reasonable to expect further cuts to our policy interest rate” if inflation continues lower, said BoC Governor Tiff Macklem in prepared remarks following the decision. Following the revelation, bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $70,500 at the time of publishing, without moving. After fighting for years to reduce inflation, the Bank of Canada (BoC) is the first of the G-7 central banks to start an anticipated cycle of looser monetary policy. At its meeting tomorrow, economists anticipate that the European Central Bank will loosen, making it the second major central bank to do so. Furthermore, despite recent remarks from certain US Federal Reserve members that the bank would postpone rate reductions until 2024, recent economic data has shown slowdowns in inflation and economic growth. According to CME FedWatch, traders have presently priced in a nearly 60% possibility of a rate cut either before or during the Fed’s September meeting. All other things being equal, riskier assets, like bitcoin, are typically negatively impacted by tighter monetary policy since higher interest rates increase competition for investor money. As a wave of lower interest rates appears to be approaching for Western countries, bitcoin bulls may soon be aiming for the cryptocurrency’s all-time high of $73,500, which was reached in March.

Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin has revealed plans to raise $320 million to purchase bitcoin (BTC) and reimburse victims of last week’s theft. According to a statement on its website, any BTC owned by users would be secured by securing backing from “group companies.” DMM Bitcoin is a subsidiary of DMM Financial, which is itself

Several bitcoin businesses are warning that there is an ongoing “supply chain email breach attack” that exploits newsletter mailing lists to distribute dangerous phishing links to consumers. The intrusion targeted an unknown vendor that administers email lists for crypto firms. Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino and CoinGecko founder Bobby Ong have verified that a breach has

Web3 cybersecurity business GoPlus has secured $10 million in a private funding round with involvement from a variety of heavyweight crypto investors including OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital and Animoca Brands, according to an emailed release issued on Wednesday. GoPlus is designing a permissionless, modular Web 3 security layer, meant to be connected with any blockchain

According to a statement on Tuesday, cryptocurrency broker Bitpanda has chosen Deutsche Bank (DBK) to handle fiat deposits and withdrawals for its customers in Germany. Users of Bitpanda can now access international bank account numbers (IBANs) in Germany, thereby facilitating the conversion of cryptocurrency to money and vice versa. Additionally, Deutsche Bank will support both

Developer “B” of Floki, a dog meme coin turned utility project, announced on Tuesday that cryptocurrency trading company DWF Labs will purchase $12 million worth of Floki (FLOKI) tokens from the Floki treasury and open market to support the project’s expanding ecosystem. The prior pledge to buy $10 million worth of FLOKI tokens in February—which

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced an indictment against Bill Guan, the chief financial officer of Epoch Times, early on Tuesday. He was charged by the DoJ with participating in a plot to utilise cryptocurrency to launder $67 million. Popular conservative political media site Epoch is well-known for its criticism of the Chinese government.

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, liquidity refers to how easily digital assets may be bought or sold without experiencing significant price fluctuations. For the bitcoin markets to run smoothly, this liquidity is necessary. Liquidity for traders refers to the capacity to enter and exit positions fast without having a large negative impact on the market.

After spending a short time at a transfer facility in Oklahoma, US officials have sent former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried back to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. After spending almost a week at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Bankman-Fried was being housed at MDC Brooklyn as of June 4, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate data.Numerous people conjectured that the authorities planned to move the former CEO of FTX to a prison in the San Francisco Bay Area close to the California home of his parents. The reason behind SBF’s return to New York is unknown. The former CEO of FTX had been asked by his attorneys to stay at MDC Brooklyn in order to support him in his appeal of his conviction and sentence.SBF was advised to remain in the state by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, who presided over his criminal trial and sentencing. A jury found Bankman-Fried guilty in November 2023 of seven felonies pertaining to the embezzlement of client monies at FTX and Alameda Research.Judge Kaplan condemned SBF to 25 years in jail back in March. On April 11, Bankman-Fried’s legal team submitted a notice of appeal. No documents indicating the grounds for SBF’s anticipated appeal were visible on the court docket as of the time of publishing. Among those connected to the demise of FTX and Alameda, Bankman-Fried was one of the few who entered a not guilty plea and was put on trial. Judge Kaplan sentenced Ryan Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, a company domiciled in the Bahamas, to ninety months in jail on May 28. Three other former executives who were engaged in the collapse of the exchange, Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, have entered guilty pleas and are awaiting sentencing. For the first time since November 2022, Salame made a post on social media site X shortly after his sentencing hearing. A “complete memoir of [his] time at FTX and Alameda,” as he has proposed, should be published. Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, hasn’t posted to X since January 2023 and hasn’t talked to the media much while he’s being tried. Changepeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, after receiving a four-month prison sentence for breaking American money laundering rules. With his sentence likely to expire in October 2024, Zhao revealed that he intends to “write something” during his confinement. With SBF and Zhao already facing criminal charges, Alex Mashinsky will be the next well-known player in the crypto sector. In January 2025, the criminal prosecution of the former CEO of Celsius is scheduled to commence.

With a $1 million research fund, StarkWare has revealed its ambitious aspirations to employ zero-knowledge (ZK) technology to deliver Bitcoin to a wider audience. With ZK technology, namely Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge (STARK) cryptography, the project aims to expand Ethereum and Bitcoin concurrently. “We aren’t Ethereum maxis; we are scaling maxis.” With this introduction, StarkWare hopes to carry out Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision by facilitating regular micropayments and developing a scalable system to facilitate international Bitcoin transactions. In a press release shared with Cointelegraph, Eli Ben-Sasson, co-inventor of cheat-proof ZK encryption and CEO of StarkWare, stated that “Bitcoin today is mighty, but still a fraction of what it can be.” “Crypto can clean up the digital world and finance. It can deliver integrity to money and rebalance power in our society, taking it away from Big Tech and restoring it to sovereign individuals […] therefore, we need a vision that showcases this. No such

According to David Krause, a finance professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, the addition of two spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to Wisconsin’s pension plan’s portfolio in the first quarter was probably just the start of the state’s cryptocurrency investments.Shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), worth at $164 million as of March 31, were acquired by the SWIB, according to a May filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Large institutions—pensions in particular—don’t typically invest in nascent exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like the spot bitcoin ETFs, so the revelation stunned the industry. However, as Krause noted in an interview with PBS Wisconsin, the state’s investment board has historically been ahead of the curve. “Wisconsin’s investment board has always been innovative,” he said. “This is a fully funded pension fund so in a way, they have the luxury of being able to invest for the long term. They don’t need to worry as much about liquidity as, say, the pension fund for the state of Illinois, which is

The founder of Binance, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, has been sent to a federal jail in California for a term of four months. His offense was failing to put in place a sufficient know-your-customer (KYC) policy at the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Canada-born Zhao entered a guilty plea in November to charges of breaking the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The four months that CZ was sentenced to in April by a federal judge was more than other crypto CEOs like former BitMex CEO Arthur Hayes received for the same crime, but it was still far fewer than the three years that federal prosecutors had wanted. Based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao has a net worth of $36.5 billion, making him the richest person to have served time in a U.S. prison. Zhao agreed to resign as CEO of Binance and was fined $50 million in addition to his sentence. Along with Zhao, Binance entered a guilty plea to allegations of money laundering and violating sanctions. The charges were resolved earlier this year with Binance paying $4.3 billion in fines to federal officials and appointing an independent compliance monitor. Zhao, as convict 88087-510, will serve his brief sentence at Lompac II, a low-security facility located in Santa Barbara County on the central coast of California. There are 2,160 prisoners housed in the facility as of right now, according to records from the Bureau of Prisons. The conditions at the prison, where some of the inmates work on a nearby farm growing produce and tending to cows and horses, are very different from the notoriously dangerous facility where former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is being held in New York following his 25-year prison sentence earlier this year.

As it turns out, applicants are paying several millions of dollars for Hong Kong crypto exchange licenses—much less than the $25 million they paid a year ago.HashKey Group CEO Livio Wang stated that the cryptocurrency exchange licenses are “not necessarily tens of millions of dollars, but certainly tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars [several million in USD]” in an interview with the Financial Times.According to his explanation, “the expenses associated with the stage of preparing license review materials differ from those associated with the operation stage.” He said as much more. “For HashKey, which is already in operation, our investment in the entire exchange sector is indeed tens of millions of dollars, but it is not expected to be so much for a platform that is still in the licensing stage.” All unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the East Asian city of Hong Kong were forced to close as of June 1 by Hong Kong regulators, who threatened to prosecute noncompliance. There are currently around 11 companies that have been designated as “deemed to be licensed.” HashKey and OSL are the only two exchanges with complete licenses as of last year. During the conversation, Wang disclosed that HashKey Exchange has enabled $440 billion in trades and is now managing $500 million in customer assets since its introduction. The blockchain executive said, “This week we activated 267% more customers than last week, and the number of newly activated customers more than tripled.” HashKey established a global exchange based in Bermuda for users from throughout the world in April, imitating Coinbase. HashKey Global won’t serve Hong Kong, China, the US, and a number of other areas, in contrast to its Hong Kong-based competitor, which was the first to obtain a license to operate in the area. The unregulated cryptocurrency exchange JPEX managed to defraud investors of $166 million before going bankrupt in September 2023, despite the fact that the regulations were in place. This setback to the implementation of Hong Kong’s exchange licensing framework. Residents’ doubts about investing in cryptocurrencies have grown since then.