Disruptive technologies, such as blockchain and Metaverse, have been forced into the mainstream of business by technological advancement. Over a ten-year period, the talks surrounding DLT have gone from murmurs to roars. To overhaul their basic infrastructures, businesses are hurriedly integrating blockchain technology into them now. The most prosperous industries to successfully alter themselves with
The world of technology is constantly changing, and Web3, the upcoming version of the internet, is just now coming into being. Digital ecosystems that are more user-centric, secure, and equitable are predicted by Web3 technologies like blockchain and decentralized protocols. It is essential that women take an active part in guiding the decentralized revolution as
The federal judge presiding over the criminal trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried denied his pretrial motions to have the charges against him dismissed. In his ruling, the judge stated that the founder of the exchange lacked standing to have many of these charges dismissed and that he did not meet the requirements for a dismissal under “extraordinary” circumstances. Bankman-Fried filed seven pretrial motions last month to have the majority of the accusations against her, including campaign funding, bribery, running an unregistered money transmitter, and wire fraud, dismissed. The last three of those motions were rejected by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York following a hearing earlier this month. On Tuesday, he rejected Bankman-Fried’s requests to have the allegations against her for bank fraud, money transmission, campaign finance, bribery, wire fraud, and other types of crime dismissed. The judge’s reasoning for rejecting the remaining four pretrial motions to dismiss is outlined in a 41page memorandum that also addresses the issues of venue and whether the prosecution has shown a strong case for property rights in bringing the fraud allegations. The judge’s reasoning for rejecting the remaining four pretrial motions to dismiss is outlined in a 41page memorandum that also addresses the issues of venue and whether the prosecution has shown a strong case for property rights in bringing the fraud allegations. “The Second Circuit has deemed dismissal an ‘extreme sanction’ that has been upheld ‘only in very limited and extreme circumstances,’ and should be ‘reserved for the truly extreme cases,’ ‘especially where serious criminal conduct is involved,” the judge wrote. Five of the 13 allegations that were presented against the
Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL), two cryptocurrencies, had worse losses on Tuesday than the overall crypto market, right before trading platform Robinhood was scheduled to delist them at 6:59 p.m. ET. According to a statement made by Robinhood on June 9, support for ADA, SOL, and MATIC would terminate on June 27 “based on [their]
Small-scale investment company Arceau has created a platform to streamline the verification of bitcoin bankruptcy claims in companies like FTX or Celsius, enabling it to acquire smaller creditors who had trouble accessing traditional bankruptcy markets. Many major cryptocurrency companies went out of business last year, turning thousands of investors into unsuspecting creditors and trapping their
According to Fabio Panetta, a member of the board of the European Central Bank (ECB), cryptocurrencies have “no societal benefits” and should be viewed as a kind of gambling.Panetta stated that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) do not have any useful use in society in a lecture delivered at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) last week.He also stated categorically that he thinks digital assets lack fundamental worth because they are not supported by any central authority or institution, which further undermines faith in them. Cryptocurrencies are hence “inherently highly volatile and unsuitable as a means of payment,” Panetta told the audience at the BIS’ 22nd Annual Conference in Basel, Switzerland. Panetta also compared the dangers of gambling to the characteristics of cryptocurrency.He cautioned that “the very instability of unbacked cryptos does make them appealing as a means of gambling,” and claimed that centralized crypto exchanges had essentially made this possible.Policymakers in all nations should simply recognize this industry as a kind of gambling and subject it to “rigorous regulatory standards” that “address their social cost,” Panetta added, rather than providing support to it. According to Panetta, if cryptocurrency is not adequately controlled, it may eventually develop to the point where it poses a risk to the stability of the financial system. The ECB leadership said that in order to prevent this, self-custodial wallets and decentralized finance (DeFi) should both be regulated.Although the new MiCA legislation are a significant step in this direction in the EU, he pointed out that more has to be done. Panetta also emphasized that regulating cryptocurrency should not be viewed as a means of legitimizing it.Instead, he suggested using the “same activity, same risk, same regulation” premise, adding that investors must be fully aware of the hazards.
According to a press announcement on Monday, Hut 8 Mining (HUT) has obtained up to $50 million in loans from Coinbase Credit to finance its operations, which at the moment involve finalizing a highly anticipated merger with rival US Bitcoin Corp (USBTC). In particular, with its plans to serve as the custodian for BlackRock’s well-publicized bitcoin exchange-traded fund, subject to regulatory approval, Coinbase (COIN) has been making inroads into the institutional market. Coinbase purchased institutional digital asset manager One River in March. The press release stated that Hut 8’s new credit facility is made up of a $15 million term loan “which is expected to be funded at or shortly following closing,” an option to draw an additional $20 million between one and two months later, and an additional $15 million within 15 business days after concluding the merger with USBTC.Hut 8 shares did not change appreciably in early Monday trade. In one of two recent high-profile cases, the other one being launched against Binance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Coinbase with running an unregistered securities exchange. A subsidiary of the cryptocurrency exchange is Coinbase Credit, according to the company’s annual financial report for 2022. It was identified as a “finance subsidiary” in a prior filing.
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe stated that the cryptocurrency custodian has further acquisitions in the pipeline and anticipates more industry consolidation in the second half of the year, days after the company abandoned its proposed acquisition of Prime Trust.“We’ve got [other acquisitions] pending,” Belshe said on Monday to CoinDesk TV’s First Mover.“Over the next six months, I believe there will be consolidation in the space,” the speaker said. “I haven’t been able to announce them yet.” On June 22, BitGo canceled the purchase of Prime Trust amid rumors that the target was filing for bankruptcy.Subsequently, Prime Trust was cited by Nevada’s Financial Institutions Division (FID) as having “a shortfall in customer funds” and being unable to fulfill all withdrawal requests this month. based in Palo Alto, CaliforniaBefore the $1.2 billion deal was scrapped in August, BitGo itself came close to being acquired by Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency merchant bank Galaxy Digital (GLXY).Other approaches have “from time to time” since Galaxy withdrew, according to Belshe, but BitGo is currently more interested in expanding its business than being acquired by a significant player. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), which BlackRock (BLK) selected as the custodian for its fund-management unit iShares’ planned bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), is one potential contender in the custody market.Coinbase has a very strong balance sheet and is a publicly traded firm, so it does receive some of those first movers, according to Belshe.To differentiate its custody service from its trading operation, Coinbase may eventually be forced to do so. “These are not custodians, these are exchanges. Coinbase is going to have to choose which side of the fence they want to be on,” he said. Belshe noted that BitGo is “talking to pretty much every big deal that’s out there” and that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has his phone number.
According to a recent announcement from Japan’s National Tax Agency, crypto issuers are exempted from paying capital gains taxes on unrealized gains. Although, in the previous year the tax committee of the nation’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) accepted a plan to exempt cryptocurrency firms that issue their own tokens from paying corporation taxes on
The Hong Kong Economic Times’ chief executive, Li Ka-chung, expressed his happiness at attending the “Convergence of Finance, Innovating the Future” conference and the Hong Kong Economic Times Business Awards ceremony. Li Ka-chung, speaking to distinguished visitors and friends, stressed Hong Kong’s potential for leveraging its strengths as an international financial hub and promoting the
Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange, announced recently that it had been granted a license to provide custody and exchange services in Cyprus. The company, which has its headquarters in Dubai, claimed that the action demonstrates its dedication to following local laws. After facing regulatory scrutiny in Japan and leaving Canada and the United Kingdom, the exchange’s
A number of significant media organizations have appealed a bankruptcy court’s decision to permanently redact the names of FTX users. The New York Times, Dow Jones & Company, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times argued that keeping the names secret effectively denies the public’s “presumptive right” to view bankruptcy filings in a recent filing with the
Recently, creditors of the insolvent cryptocurrency loan company Celsius Network updated their complaint to accuse Wintermute, a significant cryptocurrency market maker, of taking part in a wash trading scheme. According to the claims, Wintermute and Celsius officials conspired to mislead investors by manipulating the price of CEL tokens through shady market trading. Bloomberg reported recently
According to a recent notification released, Belgium’s top market regulator has ordered the troubled cryptocurrency exchange Binance to stop providing services to local clients immediately. The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) claimed that Binance was “offering and providing exchange services in Belgium between virtual currencies and legal currencies, as well as custody wallet services,
To buy the fentanyl ingredients they supply to drug cartels around the world, Chinese chemical makers now take cryptocurrencies.90% of the Chinese chemical companies that supplied fentanyl precursor chemicals and advertised their goods online were discovered by researchers at the crypto analytics platform Elliptic. These companies also offered to accept payments in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT), which were found to be used by only a small minority of these organizations. The company recently reported that “many of these businesses were also willing to supply fentanyl itself, despite this being banned in China since 2019.”According to the investigation, the majority of the Chinese labs that provided the ingredients for fentanyl utilized accounts at “three specific exchanges” situated abroad that were left nameless.These businesses have received thousands of payments totaling just over $27 million, according to Elliptic’s analysis of their cryptocurrency wallets, which also showed that the number of “transactions has increased by 450% year-on-year.” Elliptic claimed that numerous suppliers have acknowledged sending fentanyl precursors and the drug itself to Mexico, the country from which the majority of the fentanyl entering the United States arrives. The blockchain analytics company continued, “Most fentanyl trafficked into the United States is manufactured using precursors imported from Chinese suppliers.”In a related development, a research from the blockchain analysis company Chainalaysis showed that bitcoin addresses linked to alleged fentanyl precursor suppliers in China have collected more than $37.8 million in cryptocurrency since 2018. According to the survey, Latin American cryptocurrency users remitted approximately $3.6 million worth of cryptocurrencies to chemical stores in China, making them the region’s most active participants in Fentanyl trafficking.
The US Supreme Court has sided with Coinbase and granted its request to postpone customer lawsuits while it pursues appeals intended to have the issues arbitrated privately instead of in court. On Friday, five of the nine Justices supported Coinbase’s motion, reversing the decision of a lower court that had been made in the case of a user who had filed a lawsuit after a scammer had stolen money from his account. “The sole question here is whether the district court must stay its pre-trial and trial proceedings while the interlocutory appeal is ongoing. The answer is yes:The district court must stay its proceedings,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh on behalf of the court. In response to an exchange-related putative class action complaint, Coinbase is attempting to compel arbitration.Although the decision can only be seen as a victory for Coinbase, it has no effect on the bitcoin market as a whole.However, it does represent the first time a cryptocurrency corporation has presented an argument before the US Supreme Court, which may have consequences for other claims brought against Coinbase. Since arbitration is more expedient and affordable than court action, businesses frequently opt for it to resolve disputes.Furthermore, because there is less chance of suffering serious harm, arbitrations are frequently more comfortable to contest.Despite Friday’s decision, Coinbase may still try to compel arbitration. “We anticipate that the Ninth Circuit here, as we anticipate in
The use of Cardano’s ADA coin has significantly increased in the US, propelling the ecosystem’s impressive expansion. Cardano’s blockchain technology has grown its user base and development community due to rising interest and confidence in it. With this increase in use, the Cardano ecosystem is anticipated to expand and evolve. Despite American regulatory difficulties, Cardano’s ADA cryptocurrency is expanding.Cardano’s blockchain technology has been accepted and used without problems by both individuals and corporations in spite of these regulatory challenges. A blockchain technology called Cardano has seen its usage rise nearly twofold during the previous 18 months in the US.According to “Morning Consult”‘s crypto analytics, 7% of Americans, or about 10 million people, hold ADA.It has increased by over 100% since January 2022, when the adoption rate was 4%. The adoption of Cardano has grown as a result of a unique feature called staking, which has drawn more users eager to generate money.A decentralized service called staking pays users for keeping and validating transactions on a blockchain.Cardano has an intriguing incentive rate for creating passive income, coming in at just over 3% annually. Staking Rewards estimates that 62% of ADA coins are already staked, making it a common investment strategy. In terms of cryptocurrency networks that offer large staking payouts, Cardano comes in third behind Ethereum and Solana. A large number of American customers, possibly exceeding millions, stake ADA on centralized exchanges.
The second digital collectable in World of Women’s ten-piece “Masterpiece” collection will be made available thanks to a collaboration with the European football club FC Barcelona and the non-fungible token (NFT) collection.The NFT, titled “Empowerment,” was made by World of Women artist Rhi Madeline, according to a press statement.From June 26 to June 28, it will be up for auction on the marketplace OpenSea. The Spanish soccer player Alexia Putellas, who assisted Barcelona in defeating German team Wolfsburg in the Women’s Champions League semi-final game in April 2022, served as the inspiration for the artwork.The NFT honors the historic triumph for the Spanish football team with nearly 92,000 viewers tuning in to witness the game.“I’m proud to be a part of a club like FC Barcelona, our soccer team, and to continue making history, with this new Masterpiece I have the privilege of being a part of and that represents everyone, while also explaining what Barça represents so well,” stated Putellas in a press release. According to Diana-Luk Ye, Web3 Partnerships and Marketing Manager at World of Women, the organization’s involvement in the Masterpiece collection highlights its commitment to empowering women. “Representation is still an issue that we’re trying to fix, and knowing that there’s Masterpiece number two, honoring Alexia, there’s all the strength, the resilience, the ambition, all that mindset work that goes into being successful,” said Ye. “It was just a nice extension for us to further support this mission.” A series of advantages from FC Barcelona will also be given to the owner of the Empowerment NFT, including the chance to meet Putellas and a pair of autographed soccer cleats.Additionally, they will receive a real chair from Camp Nou at Barcelona Stadium, as well as a hand-signed Putellas portrait by artist Oscar Tusquets.In order to commemorate the club’s history and pay homage to its numerous players and supporters, FC Barcelona unveiled the first NFT in the Masterpiece collection in 2022, “In a Way, Immortal,” which was inspired by the late football great Johann Cruyff.Following its debut, Sotheby’s purchased the NFT for around $700,000.
Late Friday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission canceled a public meeting to address the matter and started a formal study and public comment period to assess prediction market Kalshi’s proposed contracts to wager on who will control Congress. A 90-day review of KalshiEX LLC’s self-certified contracts for betting on which major political party would control Congress after the next election has begun, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) stated on Friday evening.At the end of the 90 days, the CFTC will need to decide whether to take action or try to prolong it. The CFTC also announced a 30-day public comment period, during which the public is invited to submit comments on 24 different issues related to the contracts, including whether they are “similar to gaming” as that term is defined by the CFTC regulations, if the proposed betting is legal, how they differ from earlier attempts, and more.Last week, the CFTC planned a public meeting for June 26 that was meant to allow the regulator to decide whether to start its probe.Friday’s cancellation was confirmed in another press release. Prior to the 2022 midterm elections in the United States, Kalshi intimated that the CFTC would approve his political event contracts. However, staff later advised against accepting the contracts, according to Bloomberg.Later, Kalshi withdrew its request and then resubmitted it in an effort to allay regulator worries.Summer Mersinger and Caroline Pham, two CFTC commissioners, disagreed with the decision to begin a new review period on Friday.Mersinger argued that opening up another comment period would postpone any resolution because Kalshi had been acting in good faith to resolve the regulator’s concerns. Furthermore, according to Mersinger, no description of “gaming” for CFTC purposes applies to Kalsh’s self-certified contracts. “The Commission should treat Kalshi’s certification in the same manner it treats all DCM certifications of new products, and then do what Congress provided: Undertake a public rulemaking process to establish a legal framework for exercising its discretion to determine whether event contracts, including those relating to political control, may be
According to a Friday letter from Belgium’s top market regulator, the troubled cryptocurrency exchange Binance must immediately stop providing services to local clients.In Belgium, Binance is “offering and providing exchange services between virtual currencies and legal currencies, as well as custody wallet services, from countries that are not members of the European Economic Area,” according to the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), which the regulator claims is against the law. “The FSMA has therefore ordered Binance to cease, with immediate effect, offering or providing any and all such services in Belgium,” the notice said. As it fights U.S. SEC claims that it broke securities laws and now learned that French authorities are looking into it, Binance is in the regulatory firing line.Due to regulatory concerns, the exchange also left markets in the European Economic Area like Cyprus and the Netherlands. A representative for Binance said in a statement released after the publication of this article, “We are unhappy to learn that the FSMA has made this decision despite our ongoing negotiations.We are examining the specifics of their notification, and we will keep cooperating with international and Belgian regulators in accordance with our commitments.
Due to increasing pressure from U.S. regulators on its staking service, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has seen a decline in market share in the expanding ether (ETH) staking industry. According to a Dune analytics data created by digital asset investment product-issuer 21Shares, the exchange’s percentage of ETH staking dropped to 9.7%, its lowest level since May
A federal judge recently handed down a five-year term to a British man who made around $900,000 from a complex Twitter breach and a second crypto-related SIM-swapping scheme, according to Inner City Press. Judge Jed Rakoff stated during the sentencing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Friday that
The largest local cryptocurrency exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, has been granted permission by Brazil’s central bank to take part in the pilot program for the digital real, the central bank’s digital currency (CBDC). According to the local daily Valor, partners in the group headed by Mercado Bitcoin include Mastercard, broker Genial, registrant Cerc, and financial software
Technology continues to transform the way we work and shape the modern workplace. Marketplaces for artificial intelligence (AI) talent are a relatively new idea that are becoming more and more popular as a result of the rising demand for AI-related abilities in the labor market. They serve as a bridge between companies and AI experts,
According to the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, the cryptocurrency custody company Prime Trust is experiencing “a shortfall in customer funds” and is unable to process all withdrawal requests this month. The Financial Institutions Division (FID) of the Department, which is responsible for monitoring trust companies subject to state regulation, ordered Prime Trust to
According to a court document filed recently the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has consented to postpone collecting a $30 million fine from the insolvent crypto lender BlockFi until investors have been paid back. The amount is what’s left over from a $50 million fine BlockFi paid to the SEC to resolve allegations that
According to a recent press release, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has brought an enforcement action against a resident of New York City named William Koo Ichioka for defrauding more than 100 participants in a commodity pool of over $21 million. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California has also brought
DeFi insurance refers to both blockchain-based replacements of traditional insurance policies and insurance that covers blockchain-related activity. Decentralized finance (DeFi) has gained enormous popularity in recent years, providing users with an alternative to established financial institutions. With DeFi, users may transact in a decentralized, trustless financial environment and lend, borrow, and invest. There are risks,
Blockchain data reveals that cryptocurrency billionaire and founder of the Tron network Justin Sun took $29.7 million worth of ether (ETH) from liquid staking platform Lido Finance before sending the tokens to cryptocurrency exchange Huobi.After requesting to unstake the tokens the day before, Sun’s cryptocurrency wallet on Thursday got a total of 15,805 ETH from Lido’s withdrawal address, according to data from blockchain monitoring company Arkham Intelligence.A little while later, according to Arkham, the wallet sent 15,815 ETH through a middle address to Huobi.Tokens sent to an exchange frequently indicate a desire to sell. According to CoinDesk data, the trades took place as ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, increased by roughly 16% over the course of the week, pushing past $1,900 from a low of $1,630.The week saw a rise in cryptocurrency prices, headed by bitcoin (BTC), as investors celebrated the news that numerous traditional financial institutions were taking efforts to become more involved with digital assets.The biggest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, submitted an application last Thursday to establish a highly sought-after BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF).In the same week that new cryptocurrency exchange EDX Markets, supported by Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab, and Citadel Securities, opened its trading platform, banking giant Deutsche Bank asked for a crypto custody license in Germany. BTC’s price was up 19.5% on the week and soared beyond $30,000 for the first time since April.Blockchain data reveals that early on Wednesday, while the token was trading close to $29,000, Sun also made a deposit of 1,000 BTC to Huobi.According to Arkham, Sun held digital assets in designated crypto wallets worth $1.2 billion.The wallets still have 287,855 Lido staked ether (stETH) tokens, worth about $543 million, after the transaction.
According to Three Arrows Capital co-founder Kyle Davies and New York State court papers, OPNX, the bankruptcy claims exchange connected to the founders of the now-defunct hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, has launched a defamation action against venture capitalist Mike Dudas.OPNX claimed Dudas made defamatory remarks about the company between February and March 2023, around the time that Davies and his partner Su Zhu announced their exchange venture, in a summons notice filed in early June.What Dudas said that was defamatory is not stated in the paper. Dudas, a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency sector, is the founder of 6th Man Ventures and was previously the editor-in-chief of the crypto media portal The Block. “Along with my colleagues at Brown Rudnick, we are proud to represent Mike Dudas in defense of this lawsuit filed by 3 Arrows Capital’s ‘ecosystem partner’ OPNX,” crypto attorney Stephen Palley told CoinDesk. “In order to prove defamation you have to show, among other things, reputational damage. We look forward to seeing how
