Tag: bitcoin

Crypto Billionaire Cameron Winklevoss Ups Ante In Bankruptcy Dispute With Barry Silbert

Post By World , , , , , , , , ,

The Winklevoss twins doubled down on fraud allegations against Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert and threatened further legal action to recover over $1 billion in customer funds.

So much for a peaceful holiday.

On July 3, bitcoin billionaire Cameron Winklevoss, twin brother of Tyler Winklevoss, published a scathing letter addressed to Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert in a bid to force the embattled mogul to settle with his creditors.

“You have never had any intention of doing the right thing and taking responsibility for the mess that you, your companies, and your employees created with your reckless and fraudulent behavior,” writes Winklevoss in the letter, which he shared on Twitter, and which reiterates accusations of accounting fraud he first leveled in January.

DCG and Silbert did not respond to requests for comment. In January, a spokesperson for the firm denied the allegations and described Winklevoss’s initial letter as a “desperate and unconstructive publicity stunt.”

Genesis Global Capital, the lending arm of Silbert’s digital assets conglomerate, filed for bankruptcy in January after making bad loans, including to FTX’s sister company Alameda Research, which shut down in November following fraud allegations against its founder Sam Bankman-Fried (which he denies).

Genesis owes more than $3.5 billion to its largest 50 creditors, including $766 million earmarked for customers of Gemini, a crypto exchange run by the Winklevoss twins, according to Genesis’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing from January. Gemini had previously partnered with Genesis on its Gemini Earn program, which lent out customers’ crypto to generate yield.

Winklevoss vowed in his letter to sue Silbert personally if DCG does not agree to Gemini’s proposed “Final Offer” for Silbert’s company to pay a near $1.5 billion settlement to Gemini Earn customers by the end of this week, as outlined in a second Tweet. (The higher dollar price tag appears to account for crypto prices skyrocketing between the original Chapter 11 filing and now). Winklevoss also pledged to file a turnover motion, which could force DCG to turn over its assets to a third party to distribute them to creditors.

DCG had announced an initial restructuring term sheet in February that would involve the Winklevoss brothers chipping in $100 million of their personal funds, but that deal fell apart: DCG says that some creditors “reneged and raised new demands.”

“My speculation is that DCG floated a term sheet out there, and in fact did not have the alignment out there [among creditors],” says Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of crypto firm Lumida, who is not involved in the dispute but has been closely following the situation.

The parties moved to mediation in May after DCG failed to make a scheduled $630 million loan payment to Genesis. Winklevoss now says in his public letter that the move was a ploy for Silbert to obtain “infinite forbearance” on the loan payment.

Complicating the matter further is that Genesis is also now being sued by the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX (founded by former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried), which filed a lawsuit in May seeking to reclaim about $3.9 billion in cash and crypto assets from Genesis. Lawyers for FTX alleged that Genesis “was one of the main feeder of funds for FTX and instrumental to its fraudulent business model.” Genesis denies wrongdoing and is contesting the legal action.

“Since this proceeding is mainly between two entities which have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ultimately the funds will be taken from one set of debtors to benefit another set of debtors,” Fatemeh Fannizadeh, chief of legal affairs and a board member at the Swarm Foundation, which is not involved in the litigation, previously told Forbes. “Which ones are more legitimate to be made whole is yet another question.”

Silbert’s 40% stake in DCG was once worth over $3 billion, after investors in the digital asset conglomerate sold $700 million of stock in a secondary sale at a $10 billion valuation in November 2021. Today Forbes estimates Silbert is worth around $450 million, thanks to an early bet on bitcoin. Luno, a crypto exchange owned by DCG, laid off about 35% of its employees earlier this year.

The Winklevoss twins, too, were also once worth over $4 billion each, per Forbes; Gemini was previously valued at $7 billion by outside investors. Today, each twin is worth an estimated $1.5 billion. Trading volumes on Gemini cratered after the Earn fiasco. In an apparent effort to reboot its business, Gemini recently announced it was seeking a crypto license in Dubai.

The Silbert-Winklevii relationship dates back to 2021, when Gemini launched its Gemini Earn program, an interest-bearing program for yield-hungry crypto investors. Serving as an agent, Gemini directed its Earn customer funds to Genesis, which lent out those assets to other investors, including Alameda Research, the hedge fund and sister company of FTX. In November last year, following FTX’s blowup, Genesis halted withdrawals by Gemini Earn customers, leaving 230,000 people without access to their crypto.

Winklevoss’s fraud allegations pertain to a $1.1 billion “promissory note” that DCG issued to Genesis last June, after one of its biggest borrowers, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, went bankrupt. Winklevoss alleged in January that the $1.1 billion note was “a complete gimmick that did nothing to improve Genesis’ immediate liquidity position or make its balance sheet solvent.” (Genesis has denied these allegations).

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Genesis and Gemini in January, alleging that the two parties sold unregistered securities through the Gemini Earn program. The SEC lawsuit is one area where both Silbert and the Winklevii are in agreement, as both parties are moving to have the case dismissed, on the basis that Earn products were not investment securities.



Source link

#Crypto #Billionaire #Cameron #Winklevoss #Ups #Ante #Bankruptcy #Dispute #Barry #Silbert

Meet ‘Heina’ Chen, The Secretive Executive Holding The Purse Strings At Binance

Post By World , , , , , , ,

CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s mysterious associate Guangying Chen emerges as a key player in his company’s operations, which are the subject of a recent lawsuit from the SEC.

By John Hyatt, Giacomo Tognini, David Jeans, and Sarah Emerson, Forbes Staff

In the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s sprawling lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao, one name appears over and over again: Guangying “Heina” Chen.

When Binance set up its U.S. entity in 2019, it was Chen’s name listed as the signatory of its bank accounts. When Zhao set up a secretive company in Switzerland to allegedly artificially inflate the volume of crypto assets on Binance.US, it was Chen’s name on the bank accounts and onboarding documents. In the SEC’s complaint filed against Binance alleging “fraudulently inflated trading volumes,” the agency refers to a “Back Office Manager” executing the phony trades: Again, Chen.

Chen seemingly has no official title at Binance or visible public presence, though Binance documents obtained by the SEC describe her job as “finance director.” The company hadn’t publicly acknowledged Chen’s existence at all before posting a blog by Zhao last September that downplayed her role as overseeing “admin and clearing.” However, a Forbes investigation found that Chen has controlled more bank accounts and served as a director at more Binance entities than any other executive besides CEO Zhao.

She is currently a director of 8 key Binance companies and was a signatory for dozens of bank accounts belonging to 27 entities registered in 13 countries, overseeing the company’s treasury and a spiderweb of companies that has processed $148 billion in deposits and withdrawals since 2019, according to the SEC. The bank accounts, held at Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank—both of which collapsed in March—were all closed or had balances of zero by May this year.

“Heina is the person CZ trusts,” said a former Binance executive who worked alongside Chen and Zhao. “She is the gateway of the Binance treasury.”

Court records, land deeds and corporate filings from China, Malta, Singapore, Switzerland and Turkey reviewed by Forbes, and four former Binance employees and an external consultant who have known or worked with Chen, paint a portrait of an elusive crypto leader who has followed Zhao around the world. While paying herself at least $32 million since 2019, according to court filings, Chen has had sign off on some of Binance’s most questionable and consequential business transactions, overseeing trades to allegedly artificially pump up the volumes of trading on the platform to drum up customer and investor interest—a key focus of the SEC’s fraud allegations. She also played a crucial role overseeing multiple entities that Zhao used to fund his lavish lifestyle, including purchases of a $55 million jet and an $11 million yacht, according to the SEC.

“[Chen] is the gateway of the Binance treasury.”

Former Binance executive

Such transactions are now at the center of Binance’s regulatory woes, with sprawling inquiries by the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The exchange is also reportedly facing a Department of Justice investigation over claims that Binance or its executives ran afoul of Russian sanctions and anti-money laundering laws, and Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for the DOJ to open an investigation into claims the company lied to Congress. (Binance responded to Warren’s letter by stating that the company “supports the United States’ effort to look holistically at regulations” and “takes the issue of compliance very seriously.”)

In a statement released on June 5, Binance said it was “disappointed” by the SEC complaint and that the company will “vigorously defend against any allegations” that user assets on Binance.US were put at risk. Neither Chen nor the company responded to a request for comment on this story.

While Zhao’s crypto empire has so far survived the implosion of its largest competitor FTX and the contagion that brought down crypto lenders Celsius and Genesis, it is now facing existential threats. Binance, which claims to have no headquarters, has already withdrawn from or been banned in at least 10 countries. In April, Australian authorities canceled the financial services license of Binance’s Australian subsidiary, leading to it being dropped by its payments provider. In May, Ontario’s Securities Commission launched an investigation into whether Binance was circumventing the province’s securities law, prompting Binance to withdraw from Canada two days later and then file an application seeking to revoke the investigation.

Since the SEC charges became public, Binance trading volumes have fallen by 32%. In the U.S., where Binance serves more than 5 million customers, volumes have fallen by more than 75% and the SEC has requested a freeze on more than $2.6 billion in assets, effectively halting Binance’s operations in its largest market. Binance suspended all U.S. dollar deposits for its U.S. arm last week.

“The [SEC’s] not interested in a resolution that is going to permit Binance to do business in anything close to its current form,” says Renato Marrioti, a former prosecutor with the Department of Justice’s Securities & Commodities Fraud division.

Despite the headwinds, Zhao is still one of crypto’s wealthiest; Forbes estimates he is worth at least $10 billion, though that number could be significantly higher, depending on how much of Binance’s profits Zhao has kept for himself. The SEC records and corporate filings in 30 jurisdictions reviewed by Forbes indicate that Zhao owns 100% of Binance’s international business and 81% of Binance.US.

“[Chen] was the real CFO.”

Former Binance advisor

The secretive Chen remains at the helm of Zhao’s and Binance’s assets. “Heina had all controls,” said one former Binance executive. “[Zhao] trusted very few people with access to money.”

In one instance, where Binance tried and failed to acquire a bank in Liechtenstein, Binance’s then-CFO Wei Zhou negotiated the deal and met with local regulators. But it was Chen who wired $5 million into escrow from a Binance bank account held with Liechtenstein-based Bank Frick & Co., according to two people with knowledge of the deal and bank documents seen by Forbes. And it was Chen’s DocuSign signature (signing under her nickname, “Heina”), not Zhou’s, on an attestation form reviewed by Forbes of Binance’s assets and liabilities that was shared with Liechtenstein’s regulatory body. (Zhou did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment).

“It’s all with her,” one of the sources added. “She was the one needed when it came to fund transfers or fund confirmation letters, whatever—because she is the authorized person for all bank accounts.”

“She was the real CFO,” the source said.

Little is known about Chen’s life before Binance. According to her LinkedIn, she earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and an MBA from the National University of Singapore.

Though Chen’s had an outsized role at Binance since its inception in 2017, the company only acknowledged her existence in response to a reporter’s question last September. In a blog post titled “Who Is Guangying Chen, and Is Binance a ‘Chinese Company’?” Zhao wrote that he had met her in 2010 “when she was working at [his] friend’s wine store.” Chen also supplied alcohol for poker nights he hosted in Shanghai, according to a former Binance executive. “He changed her life,” the former executive added.

In the blog post, Zhao says that Chen went on to manage back office functions at a “large commercial bank” before he hired her to work at his new crypto company Bijie Tech, a cloud-service startup that provided software to support crypto exchanges. There, she would “manage the back office as the early team was mainly engineers,” Zhao wrote, saying that he’d installed her, a Chinese national, as a listed representative “because of restrictive laws in China surrounding foreigners (like [him,] a Canadian citizen).”

“[Chen] moved wherever [Zhao] went.”

Former Binance employee

Chinese corporate records reviewed by Forbes show that while Zhao was listed as CEO of the company, Shanghai Bijie Network Technology Co. Ltd., it was Chen who controlled it on paper. She held 93% of the shares and was listed as both founder and sole legal representative.

After Bijie shuttered when its exchange clients were reportedly forced to close because of rampant scams, Zhao launched Binance in Shanghai in 2017. Again, corporate filings in China show that the firm was established under Chen’s name as the legal representative, with her holding 80% of its shares.

Rumors that Chen secretly controlled Binance began to circulate in 2020, after the friend of a disgruntled Binance customer put the company on blast in the Chinese social networking app Weibo, claiming his friend had lost 167 bitcoins on the platform. Several Chinese websites published his post and the emails his friend received from Chen, where she warned that “such activities on your part may be considered malicious to us, and we may respond to such attacks with prosecution for damage to our reputation, manipulation of public opinion, and even defamation.”

Chen appears to have had varying titles at different times. On her LinkedIn, she states that she’s “in charge of the middle and back office, including finance / HR / admin / clearing, etc,” and lists her title as “Co-Founder” of “the Company,” but doesn’t reference Binance by name. In Telegram messages seen by Forbes, former Binance CFO Wei Zhou called her Zhao’s “personal finance manager.” In the 2020 attestation form shared with Liechtenstein regulators, Chen listed her title as “Head of Backoffice”; the SEC refers to Chen as Binance’s “Back Office Manager” in its complaint. In emails seen by Forbes introducing Chen to an outside party, Chen was introduced simply as a “VP” at Binance. A former Binance executive who dealt with Chen on phone calls told Forbes they didn’t think she had an official title, but that her role was in the “finance department.”

Zhao himself has also tried to downplay her role: in the blog post from last year, he said Chen was responsible for the “admin and clearing team.” But despite Zhao’s claims that she was primarily a legal representative while Binance was still based in Shanghai, Chen’s central role in Zhao’s corporate entities extended far beyond China. After a Chinese government crackdown on crypto exchanges forced Binance to find a new home, Zhao established two companies in Malta in 2018, installing Chen as a director and sole legal representative at both firms the following year, per Malta’s business registry.

“Guangying had to leave her family, her home, and her friends behind when most of us left China in 2017,” Zhao wrote last year. “It was a tremendous sacrifice and she is one of the very few people who will ever truly understand the impact that this has had on all of us.”

As for her current whereabouts, Zhao stated in the 2022 blog post that Chen is a “passport holder in a European country, where she lives quietly with her family.”

But current filings reviewed by Forbes in the Maltese and Singaporean business registries appear to contradict that. According to the Malta registry, Chen updated the filings last June to register a new Chinese passport. China doesn’t allow dual citizenship, and the filings show that she resides in Singapore. That appears to contradict Zhao’s assertion that Chen “lives quietly” in a “European country.” Her LinkedIn says she’s based in the United Arab Emirates, which Zhao moved to from Singapore in 2022.

Said a former Binance executive: “She moved wherever [Zhao] went.”

Binance’s move to Malta failed when the country’s financial services regulator announced that the company was unauthorized to operate in crypto in February 2020. As Binance expanded to new markets, Chen was there, acting as a director and bank account signatory for subsidiaries in at least 15 countries ranging from Canada to Kazakhstan, according to court documents and corporate filings.

In 2019, when Binance launched a separate U.S. exchange as part of a plan to convince regulators that U.S. customer data and funds were managed and stored by a U.S. team, Chen was installed as an officer and bank account signatory at the U.S. companies that ran the American business. An end-of-year balance sheet for Binance.US in 2019, cited in the SEC filings, shows Chen as the only signatory for all nine of the company’s bank accounts at the time.

To bolster the local operation, Zhao used a new company based in Switzerland and led by Chen—as a director and bank signatory, according to SEC filings and corporate records—to conduct what the SEC would later allege was widespread fraud on the U.S. platform. The company, Sigma Chain AG, was set up as a so-called market maker, using “revenue generated from the differences of bid and ask price,” backstopped by “funds from [Zhao’s] personal account,” according to an onboarding document for Binance.US cited in the SEC filings.

But unlike typical market makers that serve as independent high volume traders on exchanges, Sigma Chain was allegedly used to artificially drum up trading volumes on Binance.US using a process known as “wash trading”—sending crypto assets back and forth to create the appearance of customer activity—according to the SEC complaint.

On the day Binance.US launched in September 2019, Sigma Chain was conducting wash trades, creating the impression that the exchange was bustling, per the SEC. In the summer of 2021, when Binance’s U.S. arm was in talks to raise $200 million from investors like Foundation Capital and Circle Ventures—a deal that ultimately closed in March 2022—the SEC alleges that Sigma Chain accounts were making spoof trades on 51 of the 58 cryptocurrencies available on the platform. Then, in the first half of 2022, as Binance.US listed dozens of new crypto assets, Sigma Chain allegedly conducted wash trading in 48 of the 51 newly listed assets, according to the SEC. In a filing responding to the SEC’s complaint, Binance’s lawyers said that “the allegedly manipulative trading identified by the SEC was entirely appropriate and, in any event, was not material.”

Yet inside the company, Sigma Chain’s activity was raising eyebrows among Binance.US employees. Catherine Coley, the former CEO of Binance’s U.S. arm, had raised concerns in 2019, stating in a message to Binance’s then-CFO Wei Zhou that having Chen as a signatory for bank accounts would be a “red flag for regulators and open [Binance] to U.S. scrutiny,” per SEC documents. When a sales director told the Binance.US CEO and employees in January 2021 that 20 accounts belonged to Sigma Chain, an employee responded “whoa.”

Along the way, the lines between Binance subsidiaries and entities controlled by Zhao and Chen began to blur. Entities owned by Zhao and controlled by the pair were used to commingle approximately $11 billion in customer deposits with Binance’s bank accounts, according to the SEC. Beyond wash trading, Sigma Chain was used to buy an $11 million yacht and to pay $32 million to Chen personally.

Chen was also a bank signatory to multiple transactions that fueled Zhao’s opulent lifestyle, despite his espousal of doing away with material luxuries and traditional banking; “no house, no car, no boat, no fiat money,” he tweeted in 2020. The SEC documents show that another company owned by Zhao, British Virgin Islands-based Binance Capital Management Co. Ltd., spent $55 million on a jet and distributed $62.5 million to one of his personal bank accounts. That firm and two other Binance entities controlled by the pair directed another $178 million to two Singapore companies controlled by Zhao and Chen.

But working so closely with Zhao hasn’t always been advantageous for Chen. In his blog post last year, Zhao expressed regret for asking Chen to be his legal representative back in 2015 because she’d been subjected to so much scrutiny. “She and her family have been targeted and harassed by the media and online trolls,” he wrote. “Had I known how much of a negative impact this would have on her life, I never would have asked her to do what seemed like such an innocuous step at the time.”

MORE FROM FORBES

MORE FROM FORBESSEC Charges Binance With Dodging Regulation While Piling Up Billions Of DollarsBy Mitchell MartinMORE FROM FORBESU.S. Regulator Says That Binance Illegally Helped Americans Trade On Its ExchangeBy Steven EhrlichMORE FROM FORBESLeaked ‘Tai Chi’ Document Reveals Binance’s Elaborate Scheme To Evade Bitcoin RegulatorsBy Michael del Castillo



Source link

#Meet #Heina #Chen #Secretive #Executive #Holding #Purse #Strings #Binance

Crypto Market: SEC, BTC, ETH, Altcoins | Dive In Now!

Post By Cryptocurrency , , , ,

The crypto market has been stagnant in recent weeks. As it turned out, however, this was only the calm before the storm. In recent days, some very negative news has emerged. The SEC has filed lawsuits against the largest exchange in the world and the largest exchange in America – Binance and Coinbase. The situation has caused quite a bit of turbulence. We invite you to our next weekly recap. As always, we will discuss the charts of the two largest cryptocurrencies – BTC and ETH – and then analyze the news! So, let’s get started!

Review of the Crypto Market: June 9, 2023

Bitcoin Price in USD This Week

The Bitcoin price has been in a rather narrow range in recent weeks. However, the SEC’s lawsuit against Binance announced on June 2, caused quite a drop. The price of BTC dived from USD 27,000 to almost USD 25,000 in one day. One day later, however, it managed to recover nearly all of its losses. However, we are still below last week’s level. So, what is the price of Bitcoin today? As of today, BTC is oscillating around USD 26 500.

Bitcoin Price in USD This Week

However, all signs indicate that the situation with the SEC has reflected more strongly on altcoins than Bitcoin. And this is because the dominance of BTC has increased by 0.5% and now stands at 44.7%. Interestingly, such strong news has not affected investor sentiment. The Fear and Greed Index indicates the same level as the week before – 50 – and investors’ attitude towards investments is still neutral.

BTC Fear and Greed Index

Ethereum Price in USD This Week

Ethereum’s chart looks similar to Bitcoin’s. And this is even though the SEC did not mention ETH in its lawsuit. Ether also recorded a huge red candle, through which it even dived to the USD 1780 level. Today, however, the price of ETH has partially recovered its losses and is oscillating around USD 1850.

Ethereum Price in USD This Week

Ethereum’s dominance of the market also increased, although marginally – by 0.2%. Investor sentiment, however, is much worse than a week ago. Ethereum’s Fear and Greed Index indicates fear.

ETH Fear and Greed Index

Biggest Crypto Gainers This Week

Although Bitcoin and Ethereum did not do so well this week and saw declines already recovered, several altcoins showed solid gains. BSCEX, for example, has given investors as much as 8,000% return over the past seven days. In terms of other tokens, we can include among the biggest crypto gainers this week:

The list of cryptocurrencies that saw any increases last week includes: XRP, EOS, and Cronos. The rest of the altcoins recorded losses.

Crypto News of the Week

Now that we know how BTC and ETH behaved and which alts gained the most, it is time to move on to the most important part of our review. Let’s review last week’s news because a lot was going on.

Ripple May Go Public Via an IPO

According to an expert, Ripple may go public through an IPO. Other rumors and facts also evidence this.

The topic arose during a Digital Perspectives interview with Linda P. Jones, a Wall Street investor. She provided an initial valuation of potential Ripple shares. Based on data from investment firm Linqto, she calculated that the price per Ripple share would be US$35 (with a market cap of US$5.7 billion). The expert added that this valuation could be pessimistic and the price per share could cost more.

But why is the idea of the company going public? Firstly, we have previously seen the successful IPO of the Coinbase exchange. Ripple might want to go in this direction as well. On top of that, the long-running XRP lawsuit filed against the company by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon end. The regulator alleges that Ripple’s token is a de facto security, so the entity broke the law because it issued unregistered stocks.

Above all, however, Ripple had already expressed a desire to go public. In May 2022, its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said at a conference in Davos that Ripple was moving the possibility of an initial public offering (IPO). However, he conditioned the IPO on completing the pending legal process mentioned above.

That is not all, however. That these plans are taking shape is evidenced by Fox Business reporting that Ripple held a private ‘roadshow’ – a meeting with potential IPO investors – in April. Several well-known investors reportedly attended the meeting.

Do Kwon Will Be Released

According to an official announcement from the Podgorica High Court, the appeal of the National Prosecutor’s Office against an earlier agreement to release Do Kwon on bail has been dismissed. As a result, the former CEO is being released. Along with him, former CFO Han Chang-Joon was also released from custody. Both will await further court proceedings under house arrest.

Bail was set at as much as €400,000 (US$436,000). On top of this, Kwon and Chang-Joon are subject to strict conditions of release from custody – they are not allowed to leave their temporary residence. Local police will closely monitor the duo. If they leave the accommodation where they will be staying or violate surveillance measures – the bail will be forfeited.

Kwon and Chang-Joon were arrested in Montenegro in March 2023. It all took place at the airport in the country’s capital. They were trying to board a plane they wanted to bring to Dubai. The reason for the arrest was that they were using alleged forged documents. It was not just an attempt to hide their identities, but the South Korean authorities canceled their original passports in October 2022.

The court noted that it would take more time to verify the authenticity of the two Koreans’ Belgian passports and ID cards. Thus, it stressed that the agreed bail amount “is a sufficient guarantee to secure the presence of the defendants” in Montenegro.

SEC Sues Binance and Coinbase

This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Binance and its CEO, CZ. The lawsuit cites cryptocurrencies that the authority considers to be securities.

Let’s start with the SEC suing Binance, its US subsidiary, and CZ itself. It is talking about as many as 13 allegations of, among other things, illegal operations in the US. However, the lawsuit also lists cryptocurrencies that officials consider to be securities. These include BNB, Binance USD, Solana, Cardano, Polygon, Cosmos, The Dandbox, Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and COTI. It is worth mentioning that the SEC also recognizes XRP tokens, LBRY’s LBRY Credits, and Algorand as securities.

A few days later, US exchange Coinbase also received a suit. Authorities claim that the company never registered as a broker, national securities exchange, or clearing agency. On top of that, several tokens offered by the platform, including Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Filecoin (FIL), Sandbox (SAND), Axie Infinity (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ), FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, and NEXO qualify as securities.

The lawsuit specifies that Coinbase has operated as an unregistered broker since 2019. However, this is not the end of the story. It also stated that Coinbase’s staking program is, in legal terms, an investment contract. It also has implications – the exchange should register with the SEC.

With the lawsuits targeting Binance and Coinbase, whether cryptocurrencies are securities is resurfacing. The head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, believes they are. The problem is that he says so in the media, but during a recent congressional hearing, he refused to confirm his controversial claims.

So far, SEC documents show that the Commission considers just over 60 tokens and cryptocurrencies securities. Neither Bitcoin nor Ether is on the list.

Bitcoin Ordinals Will Receive Another Update

The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol will be able to index older inscriptions and thus allow them to be sold and bought. 

The new update aims to fix more than 71,000 invalid or faulty inscriptions. These were created due to misuse or deliberate abuse of the operating code. Such behavior ultimately led to their invalidity. An update was, therefore, necessary. 

The problem had been analyzed before, with Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor presenting an initial concept for a solution in April. Casey had an ambitious plan to automate the transformation of faulty inscriptions into correct ones using the creation of special subsets. A block activation pitch was then set, where specific types of previously invalid inscriptions would begin to be indexed as normal, positive ones.

The Atomic Wallet Cryptocurrency Wallet Has Been Hacked

The team behind Atomic Wallet announced on June 3 that it had received reports of the wallet being hacked. It further stressed that it would investigate them. The investigation involves a well-known”detective” who helps track assets transferred on blockchains – ZachBTX. 

He has analyzed transactions relating to stolen funds from Atomic Wallet victims and relayed that more than $35 million in cryptocurrencies were stolen due to this breach. The earliest transaction involving stolen Atomic Wallet assets occurred on Friday, June 2, at 21:45 UTC.

The detective relayed that the most severe loss incurred on a single address was US$7.95 million in USDT. The five largest thefts settled at US$17 million.

Atomic Wallet is now collecting information from victims, asking, among other things, what operating system they use, where they downloaded the software from, what they did before their funds were stolen, and where they stored the account recovery phrase. 

Crypto News From Our Partners: Bambi is Developing at a Fast Pace

The Bambi project, although relatively new, is developing at an incredibly fast pace. According to a recent tweet, it will soon launch several new products, including a 3D game, an animated series, a THUMP token airdrop, token burning, NFT, and digital comics, to which anyone in the community can contribute. Moreover, the project already has 7,000 HODLers, and the market cap of the BAM token has reached $2 million!

Bambi is Developing at a Fast Pace

Follow us on Medium, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube, and Publish0x to stay updated about the latest news on StealthEX.io and the rest of the crypto world.

Swap crypto on StealthEX

Don’t forget to do your own research before buying any crypto. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Tags: Bitcoin crypto news crypto world Ethereum price analysis



Source link

#Crypto #Market #SEC #BTC #ETH #Altcoins #Dive

Crypto Market Review: Weekly Analysis, May 26, 2023 | StealthEX Blog

Post By Cryptocurrency , , , ,

Last week in the crypto market was rather quiet and dull. Bitcoin and Ethereum traded in a very narrow range. The current price of these two major cryptocurrencies is lower than a week ago, but no real blood was shed. What happened last week? For the answer, check out our next crypto weekly recap!

Review of the Crypto Market: May 26, 2023

Before getting to the news, we will classically analyze the situation in the BTC and ETH markets. We will check how the prices of these two coins are shaping up and what investors’ sentiment is. So, let’s get started!

Bitcoin Price in USD This Week

Bitcoin started the week at a price gently above $27,000. Nevertheless, it has fallen slightly, and today’s BTC price is $26,450. The 7d high of BTC formed at nearly $27,500, and the 7d low was just below $26,000. It is worth noting that this low is the lowest price in more than 2 months.

BTC Price May 26, 2023

BTC’s dominance has declined somewhat. Last week it was 44.5%, and today it is 44.2%. As for investor sentiment, the Fear and Greed Index indicates a neutral level – 49.

BTC Fear 26.05

Ethereum Price in USD This Week

The situation in the Ethereum market looks similar to that of Bitcoin. ETH started the week at slightly above $1800; today, the price is still at $1813. However, the difference between the 7d high and low is marginally larger. The highest ETH price last week was $1870, and the lowest was $1763.

ETH Price May 26, 2023

ETH’s dominance in the crypto market has increased slightly and now stands at 18.8%. Investor sentiment, however, has dropped significantly. Traders are no longer greedy. They approach the project rather neutrally.

ETH Fear 26.05

Biggest Crypto Gainers This Week

Although ETH and BTC behaved rather dull and stable, some of the cryptocurrencies in the top100 showed quite large gains. The title of best crypto gainers of the week goes to: 

Biggest Crypto Gainers This Week 26.05

Crypto News of the Week

Now that we know how the major cryptocurrencies behaved, it’s time to get down to specifics. Now, every week, we will analyze the most important news!

Bitcoin Pizza Day Celebration

On May 22, we celebrated Bitcoin Pizza Day. This is a remembrance of one particular transaction. At the time, Florida programmer Laszlo Hanyecz decided to use Bitcoin – a little-known cryptocurrency – to purchase two large pizzas with cheese, olives, and salami. He contacted another Bitcoin enthusiast on the BitcoinTalk forum, offering 10,000 BTC in exchange for two pizzas. The forum user accepted the offer and ordered the pizzas through a local restaurant, which delivered them directly to Hanyecz’s home. The transaction is believed to be the first documented purchase of goods using Bitcoin.

Naturally, Hanyecz is sometimes criticized for “wasting” so much Bitcoin on something as trivial as pizza. However, many in the crypto community see this as proof of the practical utility of the oldest digital asset. Such early transactions are necessary for Bitcoin to have a precedent as a medium of exchange, and its long-term value could be questioned. 

However, it’s hard not to mention that the pizza that cost 10,000 BTC in 2010 could be worth millions today. With 10,000 BTC, Laszlo would now buy several, if not hundreds or thousands, of pizza restaurants.

Bitcoin Pizza Day Celebration

XRP Is Not a Security? Emails from the SEC May Indicate So

New evidence suggests that XRP may not be considered a security. The controversial Ripple-linked cryptocurrency likely only meets some of the elements of the Howey Test. Therefore, it may not necessarily be classified as a security. John Deaton, a popular legal commentator, revealed the information.

Deaton expressed surprise, asking why Ripple’s legal team did not expose the potential implications of the emails received from the SEC. The emails, cited as Exhibit 220, argue that XRP does not meet all the conditions of the Howey Test. Recall that this test is used to determine whether assets qualify as securities.

This unexpected revelation surprised Deaton. However, he admitted that he had also initially overlooked this detail in the footnotes of the court letters. This was even though he had read thousands of legal documents related to the case. This key detail was overlooked due to the location of the email quote because it referred to a sentence regarding the analyses sent to the SEC by independent market players.

Will FTX 2.0 be Created?

FTX CEO John J. Ray III is working on developing a plan to reboot the currently defunct cryptocurrency exchange, according to a recent court filing.

A monthly personnel report and salary details for John J. Ray III, who is leading FTX’s restructuring efforts, show that the exchange’s recent CEO has been pursuing steps that, in theory, could facilitate the exchange’s revival. Indeed, Ray has been studying the next steps required to relaunch the cryptocurrency trading platform. At the same time, he was developing materials called “FTX 2.0” to distribute to investors.

The new CEO was also seeking help from the cybersecurity company Sygnia to enhance the platform’s security. He was also reviewing a summary of steps provided by investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners LP regarding the reboot plan. The CEO also maintained constant communication with the investment bank in April.

The new head of the exchange first put forward the idea of a reboot in January of this year.

Fake Photos of the Pentagon Fire Have Caused Panic in the New York Stock Exchange

Fake news has just entered a whole new level. A great example of this is Monday’s New York Stock Exchange events caused by a fake photo of the burning Pentagon.

The S&P 500 index took a $500 billion dive in 30 minutes. All because of a fake photo published by a “verified” Twitter account. The message went viral online, causing big drops on Wall Street. Ultimately, the picture was probably generated by artificial intelligence.

The photo of black smoke clouds hovering near the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters building appeared shortly after the opening of the New York stock market session. The image quickly became viral and circulated the web, causing quite a stir among investors on Wall Street.

Internet users quickly verified that it was fake news. Artificial intelligence probably generated the image, but it effectively shook the New York Stock Exchange. Information about the explosion and fire at the Pentagon appeared on an Indian television network.

Although the crisis was quickly contained, the intention of such provocation remains questionable. Many experts admit that it was an ideal opportunity to make a lot of money for stock market speculators playing leveraged positions.

Ron DeSantis Has Announced His Run for the US Presidential Election. He Is a Supporter of BTC and an Enemy of CBDCs

Preparations for next year’s presidential elections continue in the US. Currently, the first candidates are entering the race for the White House and will seek the nomination of their respective parties. The best chances, of course, are those who the Democratic Party or the Republican Party will support. From the latter comes Florida Governor Ron De Santis, who has just officially announced that he will fight for the presidency. He is Donald Trump’s most formidable rival, an opponent of the CBDC, and – of strongest interest to us – a bitcoin supporter.

De Santis announced his plans to run for election on Wednesday. At the start, he already had a strong ally in Elon Musk, who expressed his regrets about voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. He also added that he is not interested in voting for Trump, as he would like to support someone “normal.”

Musk and DeSantis have some things in common. For example, they both like cryptocurrencies. Unlike Trump, who once referred to BTC as a “scam.” Compared to this, the current Florida governor comes off much better. He has publicly promised that he would oppose any legislation banning bitcoin as head of state.

Do Kwon Will Stay in Prison

Do Kwon was close to leaving the Montenegrin prison and being transferred to house arrest. However, the court granted the prosecution’s request. As a result, the former Terra CEO will remain behind bars.

Let’s briefly recall the recent fate of the former head of Terra. In March, Do Kwon was detained at an airport in Montenegro. The reason was that he tried to cross the border using a fake passport. Of course, a search for him was going on in the background. The services of a couple of countries and Interpol wanted to find him.

Kwon was eventually put behind bars to await sentencing in prison. His defense attorneys demanded that he be released on bail. They wanted him to await his sentence under house arrest (he would be sent to his lawyer’s apartment). There were many indications that the businessman would be released from prison. In the end, however, the judge did not agree to that. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the judiciary told a Bloomberg reporter that a court in the nation’s capital overturned a lower court judge’s decision to agree to Kwon’s release in exchange for bail of about 400,000 euros.

A similar fate befell Han Chong-Joon, or Kwon’s associate, who fell in with him. He, too, will await trial in prison.

The sentence Kwon may hear in Montenegro sometime from now will likely begin his prison odyssey. After all, he faces only a year in prison in that European country. This will be the punishment for using a fake passport. After that, he will probably face extradition to the US, Singapore, or his native South Korea. There he faces higher sentences. He will spend as much as 40 years in prison if found guilty in South Korea. In the US, he may face a similar penalty. In practice, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life. Today he is 31 years old.

AMA Bounce Token (AUCTION) x StealthEX 

A lot is going on in the cryptocurrency market lately. A lot is also happening with our partners, such as Bounce Finance. That’s why we are holding an AMA with the project team. If you want to find out what’s new and the plans or have any questions, we invite you to join us on 30 May on Twitter Spaces. Watch our and Bounce Token‘s social media to ensure you attend the event.

Swap crypto on StealthEX

Follow us on Medium, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube, and Publish0x to stay updated about the latest news on StealthEX.io and the rest of the crypto world.

Don’t forget to do your own research before buying any crypto. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Tags: Bitcoin crypto world cryptocurrency Ethereum price analysis



Source link

#Crypto #Market #Review #Weekly #Analysis #StealthEX #Blog

Crypto Market Pulse: Analyzing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Key Developments

Post By Cryptocurrency , , , ,

The crypto market was rather quiet this week. Although we saw quite a large red candle on the Bitcoin chart, at the end of the day, the BTC price is almost the same as the week before. We invite you to our next recap of the week, where we’ll analyze the BTC and ETH prices in USD and look at the latest news from the crypto world. So, let’s get started!

Review of the Crypto Market: May 5, 2023

What Happened to Crypto This Week?

Before we get to the overview of the most important news, as we do every week, let’s first look at the basic data on the two largest cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap – BTC and ETH. Let’s look at their charts, how their dominance is shaping up, and investor sentiment.

Bitcoin Price in USD This Week

Bitcoin did quite well this week. Admittedly, its price did not rise, but despite the sizable red candle recorded on May 1, BTC has rebounded and is at the same level as a week ago. So, what is the price of Bitcoin today? Currently, the price of BTC is located at the level of $29,182.

BTC Price May 5, 2023

The 7d high of BTC formed at nearly $30,000, while the 7d low was around $27,600. The dominance of the largest cryptocurrency rose slightly to 45.4%.

Investor sentiment is the same as the week before. Greed still prevails in the market, with Bitcoin’s Fear and Greed Index indicating a level of 61.

BTC Fear 5.05

Ethereum Price in USD This Week

The chart of Ethereum looks similar to that of Bitcoin. ETH started and ended the week at the same level, even though a sizable red candle appeared on the chart. In the case of ETH, the 7d high was $1938, and the 7d low was almost $1800. The current price of Ether is nearly $1900.

ETH 5.05

The dominance of the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap increased to 18.3%. Investor sentiment for Ethereum, however, is worse than for Bitcoin. It ranks at 48, or neutral.

ETH Fear 5.05

Biggest Crypto Gainers This Week

Bitcoin and Ethereum did quite well this week – they did not see too much decline. However, quite a few altcoins provided investors with much higher returns on their investments – some even several hundred percent. So, which coins have done best? Which projects are the biggest crypto gainers this week? Below is the list:

Among other tokens that achieved higher gains than Bitcoin were stablecoins linked to the price of gold – Pax Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT). All thanks to the XAU/USD pair reaching another ATH.

Gainers 5.05

Crypto News of the Week

Now that we have analyzed the charts of the major cryptocurrencies, it is time to move on to the next important part of this recap: the list of the most important news of the week.

Elon Musk Introduces Twitter Monetization System for Content Creators

Since Elon Musk took over Twitter in October, the billionaire has been steadily making some changes to the platform to make it, as he puts it, an app for everything. One of the key elements is the implementation of a monetization system for published content. Musk is convinced that this will benefit the users and make them even more active. It will also help Twitter itself, of course.

He has now unveiled a plan under which content creators can make money by sharing their content with other users. As he stated – he hopes this will translate into greater promotion of citizen journalism.

The announced “Subscriptions” feature offers Twitter users to generate additional profits by charging monthly fees to their followers. Upon payment of the corresponding fee, subscribers will receive access to exclusive content by a given creator, which will not be available to everyone.

Elon Musk Introduces Twitter Monetization System for Content Creators

As Musk conveyed, content creators can keep 97% of the revenue up to a limit of $50,000. Once this limit is exceeded, revenue will be split – only 80% will remain in the creators’ pockets. To do this, Twitter has partnered with Stripe, a payment processor. 

Nearly Half of Millenials Own Crypto

Analysts from Bitget conducted a survey in 26 countries. They collected responses from 255,000 people in four different age groups: millennials, Generation X and Z, and baby boomers. Some countries included in the survey were the United States, Nigeria, China, Indonesia, and Japan. The study analyzed activity in the cryptocurrency market from July 2022 to January 2023.

As many as 19% of respondents were from the baby boomer generation. Representatives of Generation X accounted for 23% of the surveyed population, while Generation Z and millennials – 31% and 17%, respectively. The results were published on April 28.

What did they find out? 46% of millennial respondents own some virtual assets. Around 25% of Generation X and 21% of Generation Z respondents have crypto. The figure for “boomers” is only 8%.

Millennials invest in digital currencies because they have extensive knowledge of the Internet and other digital technologies. Moreover, this demographic group considers crypto a promising investment option – mainly because of the significant potential returns this asset class can generate.

On the other hand, Generation Z respondents are interested in modern technologies such as blockchain and digital assets. It is worth mentioning that this is a group of people who were born after 2008 and have not experienced the negative effects of the previous financial crisis in the past.

JPMorgan Acquires First Republic Bank

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation on May 1 officially closed First Republic Bank. It also reached an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – it will act as a trustee for the bank. 

In addition, the FDIC has agreed for JPMorgan to take over the collapsed institution. One of the largest banks in the United States is to take over the FRB’s assets. On top of that, there are also deposits that do not have adequate collateral. As of this moment, First Republic Bank manages assets worth $229.1 billion. The deposits it holds were estimated at $103.9 billion.

After JPMorgan takes command of the funds above, all 83 points belonging to FRB, located in eight US states, will reopen under the bank’s branding. All customers using the bankrupt institution’s services will continue to have access to them at the current branches as long as they don’t get a notice of the changes from JPMorgan.

A special loss-sharing agreement has also been reached between the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and JPMorgan. It addresses the issue of residential and commercial loans that the FRB previously acquired.

White House Wants to Introduce Tax on Mining

The White House sees the mining market as harmful to the environment and with limited economic benefits. So it is trying to convince Congress to pass a 30 percent tax on climate change. This one would apply to cryptocurrency miners.

The tax would encourage companies in the mining market to consider so-called “social damages” in their operations. The U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisors also justifies the potential tax that it should be paid because of the need to “combat climate change.”

This tax would be phased in over three years. Starting at 10% in the first year, it would rise to 20% and 30%. It is estimated to generate revenues of $3.5 billion over ten years.

The Council’s economist, who spoke to Yahoo, added that the economic benefits of cryptocurrency mining remain “unclear,” while there are still concerns about the industry’s financial stability and environmental risks.

The White House’s new idea is part of a broader policy. In April 2022, a group of activists from the Democratic Party signed a letter addressed to the Environmental Protection Agency. It demanded an investigation into whether crypto mining companies were violating environmental regulations.

Bitcoin fans responded with their letter to the agency. In the document, they defended the idea of mining and pointed out that it is less harmful than many believe.

BRC-20 Tokens Have Chased Away Bitcoin in Terms of Transaction Volume

The BRC-20 token standard has been enjoying its 5 minutes recently. It is currently a very popular trend in the Bitcoin ecosystem community. This coincides with another memecoin boom, especially with the PEPE token craze. Indeed, the latter has scored a crazy price rally over the past two weeks. 8,500 tokens were minted on the blockchain of the oldest cryptocurrency using BRC-20. Most of them are classified as memecoins.

BRC-20 is the standard for minting tokens on the Bitcoin network, modeled on ERC-20 from Ethereum. Developers can create and transfer such tokens using the Ordinals protocol launched on the BTC blockchain earlier this year. They differ from Ethereum tokens because BRC-20 does not use smart contracts. The standard of these tokens also needs a BTC wallet to carry out their mint and trading.

Interestingly, the popularity of BRC-20 tokens has resulted in transactions surpassing those involving Bitcoin on its network. Between April 29 and May 2, there was a 50% increase in BRC-20 token transfers. The highest volume was observed on May 1 – it amounted to 366,000 transactions. Meanwhile, their total since the inception of this standard is 2.36 million.

The Fed Raised Interest Rates. Possibly for the Last Time

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points this week. Authorities’ announcement suggests it may have been the last increase in the most aggressive monetary tightening cycle since the 1980s.

U.S. interest rates today are in a range of 5 to 5.25 percent. That’s the most since 2007. Let the fact that rates were at zero at the beginning of last year indicate the scale of the cycle. The key question, however, is this the end of interest rate increases? Federal Open Market Committee does not answer it directly. 

The public was told only that “the Committee will closely monitor incoming information and assess the implications for monetary policy.” Noteworthy, however, in previous announcements, there was wording stating that the Fed “anticipates that additional policy tightening may be appropriate.” It also hinted at “future increases.” These words are not in the new statement. According to experts, this is an announcement of a change in U.S. monetary policy and a move to quantitative easing.

We also found out that the Committee’s vote was unanimous. Jerome Powell, who leads the Fed, said during a press conference that the economic situation in the U.S. is stable. He pointed to, among other things, the banking sector, however, contrasting sharply with, for example, the recent collapse of First Republic Bank. He added that a scenario in which the United States may experience a mild recession is becoming possible. Jerome Powell said that “the case for avoiding a recession is (…) more likely than a recession.” 

Powell also pointed to a decline in job vacancies not accompanied by increased unemployment. He didn’t hide that the authorities will continue their efforts to bring inflation down to 2%. In March, that figure was as high as 5%.

To all of the above, Bitcoin reacted positively. Indeed, it once again managed to break through the $29,000 level.

SEC Receives Deadline to Respond to Coinbase’s Petition

On April 25, attorneys of the crypto exchange Coinbase filed a formal complaint against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company was fed up with waiting indefinitely for a response from the agency to a petition it sent last year.

On Thursday, May 4, the exchange’s chief lawyer, Paul Grewal, broke the news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had responded to the lawsuit. It set a deadline for the SEC to respond to the questions it received. The judicial body’s decision is an important step in seeking clarity on cryptocurrency market regulations in the U.S.

As Grewal reported, the court asked the Gary Gensler-led body to act on the petition. The court instructed the commission to respond to Coinbase’s petition within ten days. The so-called “mandamus order” is an administrative measure used by the courts to direct a lower-level state entity to fulfill its official duties.

Coinbase’s lawyer added that the court also granted the company the right to respond to the SEC’s response within seven days. Determining the position on the clarity of the commission’s regulation of cryptocurrency entities is key to operating freely in the digital asset market.

AMA Dash x StealthEX

In addition to traditional news, there is a lot going on with our partners. One example is the Dash. The team has published a summary of its recently introduced new developments.

There are so many new things that we decided to conduct an AMA with Dash team. It will be held on Twitter Spaces on April 11 at 3 PM UTC. To ensure you attend the event, we invite you to follow our Twitter.

AMA Dash x StealthEX

Follow us on Medium, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube, and Publish0x to stay updated about the latest news on StealthEX.io and the rest of the crypto world.

Don’t forget to do your own research before buying any crypto. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Tags: Bitcoin crypto crypto world cryptocurrency Ethereum



Source link

#Crypto #Market #Pulse #Analyzing #Bitcoin #Ethereum #Key #Developments

Explained | What is the EU’s new crypto-legislation?

Post By World , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The story so far: The European Parliament, the legislative body of the 27-country block European Union, has approved the world’s first set of comprehensive rules to bring largely unregulated cryptocurrency markets under the ambit of regulation by government authorities. The regulation called the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), will come into force after formal approval by member states.

Why regulation?

According to Chainalysis, about 22% of the global crypto industry was concentrated in central, northern, and western Europe, which received $1.3 trillion worth of crypto assets. Having a comprehensive framework like MiCA for 27 countries in Europe not only harmonises the crypto industry but also gives the EU a competitive edge in its growth compared to the U.S. or the U.K. which lack regulatory clarity. More importantly, 2022 saw some of the biggest failures and wipeouts in the crypto industry involving bankruptcies and fraud scandals, be it the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX and its spat with Binance or the failure of Terra LUNA cryptocurrency and its associated stablecoin. The liquidity shortage caused by these shocks led other crypto-lending platforms to halt customer transfers and withdrawals before filing for bankruptcy.

As investments and the size of the crypto industry grow, European and other regulators have felt the need to bring governance practices in crypto firms to ensure stability and financial sector-like rout and contagion. European Parliament member Stefan Berger, who is the lead for the MiCA regulation explained that the law will protect consumers against deception and fraud, and “the sector that was damaged by the FTX collapse can regain trust”.

What kind of assets will MiCA cover?

The MiCA legislation will apply to ‘cryptoassets’, which are broadly defined in the text as “a digital representation of a value or a right that uses cryptography for security and is in the form of a coin or a token or any other digital medium which may be transferred and stored electronically, using distributed ledger technology or similar technology”. This definition implies that it will apply not only to traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum but also to newer ones like stablecoins.

Stablecoins are digital tokens that aim to stay pegged in value with a more stable asset — a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar or other stable cryptocurrencies. MiCA will establish new rules for three types of stablecoins — asset-referenced tokens, which are linked to multiple currencies, commodities, or cryptocurrencies, e-money Tokens, which are linked to a single currency and utility tokens, which are intended to provide access to a good or service that will be supplied by the issuer of that token.

As for the assets that will be out of MiCA’s scope, it will not regulate digital assets that would qualify as transferable securities and function like shares or their equivalent and other crypto assets that already qualify as financial instruments under existing regulation. It will also, for the most part, exclude nonfungible tokens (NFTs). MiCA will also not regulate central bank digital currencies issued by the European Central Bank and digital assets issued by national central banks of EU member countries when acting in their capacity as monetary authorities, along with cryptoassets-related services offered by them.

What are the new rules?

MiCA will impose compliance on the issuers of crypto assets, who are defined as the “legal person who offers to the public any type of crypto-assets”. It will apply to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) providing one or more of these services — the operation of a trading platform like CoinBase, custody, and administration of crypto assets on behalf of third parties (customers), the exchange of crypto assets for funds/other crypto-assets, the execution of orders for crypto assets, the placing of crypto assets, providing transfer services for crypto assets to third parties, providing advice on cryptoassets and crypto-portfolio management.

The regulation prescribes different sets of requirements for CASPs depending on the type of cryptoassets. The base regime will require every CASP to get incorporated as a legal entity in the EU. They can get authorised in any one member country and will be allowed to conduct their services across the 27 countries. They will then be supervised by regulators like the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority, who will ensure that the companies have the required risk management and corporate governance practices in place. CASPs will have to demonstrate their stability and soundness, ability to keep the funds users safe, implementation of controls to ensure they are not engaging in proprietary trading; avoidance of conflicts of interest, and their ability to defend against market abuse and manipulation.

Besides authorisation, service providers of stablecoins also have to furnish key information in the form of a white paper mentioning the details of the crypto product and the main participants in the company, the terms of the offer to the public, the type of blockchain verification mechanism they use, the rights attached to the cryptoassets in question, the key risks involved for the investors and a summary to help potential purchasers make an informed decision regarding their investment. Issuers of stablecoins will also be required to maintain sufficient reserves corresponding to their value to avoid liquidity crises. Those stablecoin firms pegged to non-euro currencies will have to cap their transactions at a daily volume of €200 million ($220 million) in a specified region.

Another legislation passed with MiCA requires crypto companies to send information of senders and recipients of cryptoassets to their local anti-money laundering authority, to prevent laundering and terror financing activities.

What has been the reaction?

Leaders at some of the biggest cryptocurrency firms have taken exception to some aspects of MiCA but the broad view is that it is better to have a regulatory framework than having no rules at all and attracting regulatory action on a case-by-case basis without clarity.

Meanwhile, since it’s been three years since MiCA has been in development, some experts feel that the regulation is already laggard in covering newer vulnerabilities in the crypto industry. For instance, it does not cover practices like crypto staking and lending, which led to some of the industry’s biggest failures last year. A Bloomberg analysis notes that MiCA also does not cover NFTs or decentralised finance, which is prone to hacks and fraud because it’s managed by code rather than humans.

How is crypto regulated in India?

India is yet to have a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets. A draft legislation on the same is reportedly in the works.

A full-fledged regulation aside, the Indian government has taken certain steps to bring cryptocurrencies under the ambit of specific authorities and taxation. In the Union Budget for 2022, the Finance Ministry said that cryptocurrency trading in India has seen a “phenomenal increase” and imposed a 30% tax on income from the “transfer of any virtual digital asset.” In March this year, the government placed all transactions involving virtual digital assets under the purview of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

However, statements by ministers and bureaucrats after the Budget seem to suggest that the legality of cryptocurrencies in the country is still a grey area. India is now calling for consensus in the G20 grouping, where it currently holds the presidency, to have a globally coordinated policy response on crypto assets that takes into consideration the full range of risks, including those specific to emerging markets and developing economies.

Source link

#Explained #EUs #cryptolegislation

Crypto Market Week in Review: February 10, 2023 | StealthEX

Post By Cryptocurrency , , , ,

The last week in the crypto world was rather successful. Although we did not experience massive gains, the price of BTC maintained a fairly stable range. Admittedly, the Bitcoin price in USD is lower than a week ago, but the drop is not an extreme one to panic about. Nevertheless, there was a lot of interesting news last week, which we will briefly discuss in today’s crypto recap. So, what happened to crypto this week? 

Crypto Market Week in Review

What Happened to Cryptocurrency This Week?

But before we get to the news, let’s analyze the Bitcoin and ethereum prices and see which projects were the biggest crypto gainers this week.

Bitcoin Price This Week

Bitcoin price this week behaved in a relatively calm manner. The 7d high of BTC was $23,678.10, while the 7d low stood at $21,754.13. Meanwhile, we could see a solid green candle triggered by The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ release of labor market data.

Bitcoin (BTC) price chart

Source: Tradingview, Data was taken on February 10, 2023

Today, Bitcoin (BTC) price is $21,780.51, and the market cap stands at $420,007,235,627. The dominance of the crypto king in the overall market remains stable at 39.68%.

Concerning investor sentiment, it is still positive. The Fear and Greed Index points to 48, indicating that traders still show signs of greed.

Ethereum Price USD This Week

The Ethereum price also stagnated this week. ETH’s 7d high reached $1,643.64, while the 7d low was $1,536.59. As with Bitcoin, macroeconomic data resulted in a significant green candle on February 7. 

ETH price chart

Source: Tradingview, Data was taken on February 10, 2023

So, what is the current price of Ethereum? ETH price today is 1,536.59, and the market cap remains above $188,147,975,604 trillion. ETH’s dominance of the overall market is 17.57%.

Biggest Crypto Gainers This Week

Although Bitcoin and Ethereum stagnated slightly, with their prices oscillating in a very narrow range, some altcoins did much better. Among the top crypto gainers of the week from the top 100 were mainly AI-focused cryptocurrencies, which have been gaining heavily recently on the heels of the ChatGPT success.

Over the past seven days, the highest price increases were seen in the case of the following projects:

  • SingularityNET (AGIX) – 101.29%.
  • The Graph (GRT) – 57.09%
  • Baby Doge Coin (BABYDOGE) – 55.32%
  • Klever (KLV) – 49.24%
  • Fetch.ai (FET) – 46.32%

Altcoins that have gained more than 20% in value over the past week include Frax Share (FXS) and Lido DAO (LIDO). The latter project saw gains probably due to the successfully deployed testnets preparing Ethereum for the Shanghai update.

Crypto News of the Week

As we have already analyzed the situation in the crypto market this week, let’s now look at the most important news.

US Labor Market Data Positive, but Worries Fed

Everyone in the financial markets was waiting for the US labor market data and the new Fed announcement. The former turned out to be overly good. However, they do not soften the Federal Reserve’s stance. In January, US employment rose by 517,000. This is great news. At the same time, the unemployment rate fell from 3.5 percent to 3.4 percent, the lowest since 1969. 

What may please ordinary people worries the Fed. The central bank hoped that the labor market situation would deteriorate enough to cool the markets and thus reduce inflation. As a sign of the economy’s strength, there are two jobs for every unemployed person at this point. New data thus cemented the monetary authorities’ strategy- of raising interest rates. In response to the Fed’s recent announcement, the dollar strengthened again.

A Golden Cross Appeared on the Bitcoin Chart

On the bitcoin chart, a bullish signal – golden cross – appeared for the first time in 510 days, or almost 1.5 years. Historically, such a situation has indicated the start of a bull market. 

For example, two months after this signal was generated during the last boom, bitcoin’s price began to rise and finally reached ATH at more than $69,000. 

Throughout bitcoin’s history, the golden cross has already appeared five times: on October 28, 2015, April 23, 2019, February 18, 2020, May 20, 2020, and September 14, 2021. The chart below perfectly illustrates how BTC’s price behaved after the golden cross’s formation.

BTC's price behaved after the golden cross's formation

Source: Tradingview, Data was taken on February 7, 2023

First Withdrawals of ETH from Staking Contract Succesfull

The ability to withdraw Ethereum (ETH) from the ETH 2.0 staking contract is getting closer. Last week developers deployed a new testnet called Zhejiang. This week team implemented the Shanghai-Capella (Shapella) upgrade. According to the project, the first ETH withdrawals have already been completed.

Deploying test networks allows developers to prepare to implement the Shanghai upgrade. The second major update after The Merge changed the Ethereum consensus algorithm from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. 

Institutions Are Backing Away from Cryptocurrencies

CoinDesk’s analysis indicated that despite Bitcoin and altcoin’s powerful rebound in January, cryptocurrency startups raised only $548 million compared to more than $6 billion in January 2022. The situation was likely influenced mainly by three factors:

  • The impact of the FTX failure on the industry’s fundraising has been huge – it has caused funding procedures to tighten, and anyone giving away money in a bull market without proper ‘due diligence’ is ten times more cautious.
  • Cryptocurrencies’ rebound is still uncertain. Venture capital funding usually peaks not in a bear market ‘when it’s cheap’ but when a rebound in risky assets is already widely considered very likely.
  • High interest rates have made raising external financing a) more difficult b) more expensive, due to higher interest rates, that make venture capitalists who are leveraging their business either unwilling to accept high rates or wait until rates fall, making it cheaper to go into debt, fueling demand for risk (it is uncertain when this will happen). Plenty of VC funds are now in financial trouble because of funding unprofitable startups – others want to avoid repeating that mistake.

Binance Is Halting Transfers in USD: What’s Going On?

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has announced halting all bank transfers in U.S. dollars for its non-U.S. customers starting February 8. However, Binance.US, the U.S. branch of the exchange, assured that the halt does not affect local customers. 

The mysterious announcement has caused a lot of FUD. Many people suspect the exchange of liquidity problems similar to the whales that have already collapsed, and of hiding the true picture of the situation from the community. However, it may be just speculation.

There was no official reason for the transfer suspension, but the company says it is working hard to restart the service. The exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, explained in an interview that the problem affects only 0.01% of monthly active users, and the company understands it’s a poor user experience.

It appears that the company is having problems with the banking system in the United States after their SWIFT transfer partner, Signature Bank, announced that as of February 1 it will only process transactions linked to the U.S. banking sector and above $10,000. The exchange is currently looking for a new SWIFT provider.

Summary

This week has been rather quiet for the crypto market. Admittedly, there was a lot of good and worse news, but Bitcoin managed to stay above support. However, we must remember that this market is extremely unpredictable and volatile. Cryptocurrency prices can fluctuate in either direction, and the trend can change from hour to hour. This is brilliantly illustrated by AI-focused cryptocurrencies, which became the biggest gainers of the week on the ChatGPT heels. What will the next week bring? We’ll have to wait and see.

Follow us on Medium, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube, and Publish0x to stay updated about the latest news on StealthEX.io and the rest of the crypto world.

Don’t forget to do your own research before buying any crypto. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Tags: Bitcoin crypto market crypto world cryptocurrency Ethereum



Source link

#Crypto #Market #Week #Review #February #StealthEX

Argo Blockchain Reports 35% Lower Bitcoin Production

Post By Cryptocurrency , ,

Argo Blockchain (NASDAQ:ARBK), a publicly-listed crypto mining company, published its December 2022 operational update on Wednesday, showing a significantly lower Bitcoin (BTC) production amidst the mining operations halt at the Texan mine.

According to Argo’s trading update, the company mined 147 Bitcoins during the month of December, compared to 198 BTC produced a month earlier. Seasonal conditions triggered the slump of 35% month over month (MoM): the miner halted its operations at the Helios facility in Dickens County, Texas, due to the severe winter that hit the United States and caused additional load on the electric network.

“During the winter storm, Argo joined other Texas Bitcoin miners in reducing power usage by an estimated 1,500 MW, according to the Texas Blockchain Council. Argo has always committed to being a good community partner, and the company is proud to have contributed to the stability of the Texas power grid during the winter storm,” the company commented in the press release.

Argo’s Bitcoin digging revenue in December came in at $2.49 million, slipping 39% MoM from the $3.456 million reported in November. At year-end, the publicly listed miner held 141 Bitcoins in its vault, most of which (116) were “Bitcoin Equivalents.” The company’s total hash rate remained at 2.5 EH/s.

Ahead of the US cash market opening on Wednesday, Argo shares reacted to the trading update rising 1.04% to $27.09. They are now growing more than 40% from last year’s lows set in October.

Galaxy Saves Argo from Bankruptcy

At the end of last year, Argo Blockchain was facing potential bankruptcy . However, the company dismissed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy grim vision due to a strategic deal with Galaxy Digital Holdings, Ltd, a financial firm focused on digital assets, owned by Mike Novogratz.

Argo decided to sell its Texas-based crypto mine Helios for $65 million and use a new loan from Galaxy to refinance its current debt obligations take out to finance the development of its ongoing business.

“This transaction with Galaxy is a transformational one for Argo and benefits the company in several ways. It reduces our debt by $41 million (£34 million) and provides us with a stronger balance sheet and enhanced liquidity to help ensure continued operations through the ongoing bear market,” Peter Wall, the Chief Executive of Argo Blockchain, said.

Not Everyone Was So Lucky

Although Argo Blockchain was able to save itself from bankruptcy, not every company in the crypto space was as fortunate. The prolonged crypto winter fueled by the collapse of FTX cryptocurrency exchange led to the collapse of BlockFi, a popular cryptocurrency lender and caused Midas Investment, a digital assets company from the DeFi space, to declare bankruptcy in late December.

Meanwhile, the insolvency of the Terra ecosystem in May caused the bankruptcy of Three Arrows Capital, a crypto hedge fund, and two lenders, Celsius Network and Voyager Capital.

Argo Blockchain (NASDAQ:ARBK), a publicly-listed crypto mining company, published its December 2022 operational update on Wednesday, showing a significantly lower Bitcoin (BTC) production amidst the mining operations halt at the Texan mine.

According to Argo’s trading update, the company mined 147 Bitcoins during the month of December, compared to 198 BTC produced a month earlier. Seasonal conditions triggered the slump of 35% month over month (MoM): the miner halted its operations at the Helios facility in Dickens County, Texas, due to the severe winter that hit the United States and caused additional load on the electric network.

“During the winter storm, Argo joined other Texas Bitcoin miners in reducing power usage by an estimated 1,500 MW, according to the Texas Blockchain Council. Argo has always committed to being a good community partner, and the company is proud to have contributed to the stability of the Texas power grid during the winter storm,” the company commented in the press release.

Argo’s Bitcoin digging revenue in December came in at $2.49 million, slipping 39% MoM from the $3.456 million reported in November. At year-end, the publicly listed miner held 141 Bitcoins in its vault, most of which (116) were “Bitcoin Equivalents.” The company’s total hash rate remained at 2.5 EH/s.

Ahead of the US cash market opening on Wednesday, Argo shares reacted to the trading update rising 1.04% to $27.09. They are now growing more than 40% from last year’s lows set in October.

Galaxy Saves Argo from Bankruptcy

At the end of last year, Argo Blockchain was facing potential bankruptcy . However, the company dismissed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy grim vision due to a strategic deal with Galaxy Digital Holdings, Ltd, a financial firm focused on digital assets, owned by Mike Novogratz.

Argo decided to sell its Texas-based crypto mine Helios for $65 million and use a new loan from Galaxy to refinance its current debt obligations take out to finance the development of its ongoing business.

“This transaction with Galaxy is a transformational one for Argo and benefits the company in several ways. It reduces our debt by $41 million (£34 million) and provides us with a stronger balance sheet and enhanced liquidity to help ensure continued operations through the ongoing bear market,” Peter Wall, the Chief Executive of Argo Blockchain, said.

Not Everyone Was So Lucky

Although Argo Blockchain was able to save itself from bankruptcy, not every company in the crypto space was as fortunate. The prolonged crypto winter fueled by the collapse of FTX cryptocurrency exchange led to the collapse of BlockFi, a popular cryptocurrency lender and caused Midas Investment, a digital assets company from the DeFi space, to declare bankruptcy in late December.

Meanwhile, the insolvency of the Terra ecosystem in May caused the bankruptcy of Three Arrows Capital, a crypto hedge fund, and two lenders, Celsius Network and Voyager Capital.

Source link

#Argo #Blockchain #Reports #Bitcoin #Production

Who Is Barry Silbert, The Former Crypto Billionaire That Cameron Winklevoss Is Accusing Of Accounting Fraud?

Post By World , , , , , , , , ,

Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert has been accused of fraud by his ex-business partner turned rival, Cameron Winklevoss. The stunning allegations follow Forbes’ estimates last month that Silbert’s fortune had evaporated, and as government investigations into Silbert’s companies ramp up.

Barry Silbert, the CEO of troubled crypto empire Digital Currency Group (DCG), defrauded some 340,000 crypto investors using Gemini Earn, according to allegations made by Cameron Winklevoss, CEO of crypto exchange Gemini, in a scathing open letter published to Twitter Tuesday morning.

The allegations come nearly two months after Genesis Global Trading, DCG’s wholly owned lending firm, suspended withdrawals for customers in the wake of FTX’s collapse. Gemini had partnered with Genesis for its “Gemini Earn” product, which offered investors annual interest returns of up to 8%.

Silbert and his companies “defrauded” Gemini customers by “conspir[ing] to make false statements and misrepresentations about the solvency and financial health of Genesis,” alleges Winklevoss. “By lying, they hoped to buy time to dig themselves out of the hole they created.”

In response, a DCG spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Forbes: “This is another desperate and unconstructive publicity stunt from Cameron Winklevoss to deflect blame from himself and Gemini, who are solely responsible for operating Gemini Earn and marketing the program to its customers. We are preserving all legal remedies in response to these malicious, false, and defamatory attacks. DCG will continue to engage in productive dialogue with Genesis and its creditors with the goal of arriving at a solution that works for all parties.”

The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York is investigating transactions within the DCG empire and the SEC has also opened an investigation, Bloomberg reported last week. Silbert and his companies have not been charged with any crime. DCG has “no knowledge of or reason to believe that there is any Eastern District of New York investigation,” a spokesperson said. Last month, Forbes wrote down the value of Silbert’s stake in DCG from $3.2 billion to $0. “Forbes estimates the value of DCG’s outstanding liabilities are greater than the fair market value of its assets in the current market environment,” we wrote at the time.

The last few months have been a stunning fall from grace for Silbert, a longtime crypto evangelist who says he first invested in Bitcoin in 2012. Prior to his involvement in digital assets, Silbert was an investment banker and financial entrepreneur. He graduated from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University in 1998, followed by a six-year stint at investment bank Houlihan Lokey, where he specialized in financial restructurings. There, Silbert worked on some of the most prominent bankruptcies of the Dot-Com collapse, including Enron and WorldCom.

In 2004, Silbert founded Restricted Stock Partners, a secondary trading platform for employees of companies with restricted stock in public companies. “It’s the largest asset class without a developed secondary market,” Silbert told the New York Times in a 2005 profile. “It’s not a new or novel concept but the time is right because of the proliferation of hedge funds.”

Silbert rebranded his company to SecondMarket in 2008 as he expanded the trading platform to include private company stock and alternative investments, after an early Facebook employee approached Silbert’s company to ask if they could help him sell his shares. By 2011, SecondMarket had facilitated billions of dollars in private market transactions and had over 75,000 registered users.

As SecondMarket grew, so did Silbert’s reputation as a financial entrepreneur. In 2009, he was named one of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneurs of the Year, and as Crain’s’ Entrepreneur of the Year. Michael Bloomberg, then mayor of New York City, invited Silbert to join his Council on Technology and Innovation. Silbert was named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list. He provided testimony to the U.S. Senate on financial regulations.

One former SecondMarket employee remembered Silbert as “very much a by-the-book kind of guy.” Dealing in unregistered securities, Silbert was “focused on making sure we were in good standing” with regulators.

A second early former employee, who worked at the company for several years, described SecondMarket as “a master class in the Silicon Valley trait of hyping a company prior to actually building it.” SecondMarket representatives were “pitching it as an online marketplace of illiquid assets,” but the company “never moved passed a highly manual process requiring humans to executive every aspect,” says the ex-employee.

As for Silbert’s management style: “Barry as a person was cold and wouldn’t even make eye contact with anyone but the few senior people he interacted with,” the former SecondMarket employee says. “He delegated morale building to others and rarely spoke to people even when it was 20 people in the office.”

Nasdaq bought SecondMarket in 2015 for an undisclosed amount. That same year, Silbert launched Digital Currency Group and styled it as an old-school holding company, but built for the Web3 age. DCG founded and acquired assets including news site CoinDesk, bitcoin public trust Grayscale, bitcoin mining company Foundry, and approximately 200 other digital asset investments and tokens.

“Being part of DCG has been great in the sense that Silbert lets us think long term, in terms of decades, and is not really worried about month to month, quarter to quarter results,” Mike Colyer, CEO and founder of bitcoin miner Foundry, told Forbes last month.

The value of DCG’s portfolio ballooned amid crypto’s bull market run during the pandemic. In November 2021, some Digital Currency Group investors sold around $700 million of their shares at a $10 billion valuation.

“We’re the best proxy for investing in this industry,” Silbert boasted to CNBC at the time. Silbert also compared himself to 19th century oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. “The model I use as an inspiration is Standard Oil,” he told the Wall Street Journal, comparing DCG’s crypto portfolio to Rockefeller’s oil conglomerate.

Grayscale, an investment trust that holds Bitcoin on behalf of investors, quickly became DCG’s most valuable asset, as institutions and high-net-worth investors clamored for a way to gain exposure to Bitcoin. The publicly traded shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) offered investors access to Bitcoin’s upside–but without having to actually buy and store the digital currency, which many were prohibited from doing. In turn, Grayscale charged a flat 2% fee, higher than other ETFs and closed-end funds, and restricted investors from making immediate redemptions for the underlying asset. At its peak, GBTC’s underlying Bitcoin assets were worth over $43 billion. Grayscale offers similarly structured products for other crypto assets, including Ethereum.

“In the early days everybody kind of celebrated it,” recalls Mike Belshe, CEO of crypto custodian BitGo. “I think a lot of people were a little bit jealous of Grayscale for having such a lucrative product. It is a bit of a cash cow.” Indeed, Grayscale’s GBTC product generated $471 million of revenue in 2021.

As Grayscale caught on with investors, a so-called “GBTC premium” emerged, in which the price of GBTC shares were trading for a higher price than the underlying Bitcoin held by Grayscale. That presented an arbitrage opportunity for hedge fund investors, including the ambitious Three Arrows Capital. Genesis, DCG’s lending unit, began lending money to Three Arrows, which it plowed back into GBTC shares, thus continuing to prop up the GBTC premium.

This trade between Genesis and Three Arrows Capital “ballooned the AUM of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and, as a consequence, the fees earned by its sponsor, Grayscale Investments,” according to Cameorn Winklevoss, who alleges that Three Arrows Capital, “was acting as a mere conduit for Genesis, allowing it to enter into what were effectively swap transactions of bitcoin for GBTC shares with the Grayscale Trust.”

In 2021, the GBTC premium turned into a GBTC discount (wherein GBTC shares began trading for less than the underlying Bitcoin). Yet, Genesis continued to lend to Three Arrows Capital. “This had the desired effect of keeping GBTC shares from being sold into the market,” Winklevoss notes, “but for Genesis, this had the undesired effect of keeping its risk position open and allowing it to grow.”

Meanwhile, the parent company Digital Currency Group began borrowing money from Genesis, its own lending firm, which it plowed back into GBTC, the publicly traded trust of its own subsidiary Grayscale. DCG bought nearly $800 million worth of GBTC shares after the GBTC premium became a discount.

“DCG was making a hedge fund-like trade, buying their own product on leverage,” says Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of crypto investment advisor Lumida Wealth.

When Three Arrows Capital blew up in June 2022, Genesis was left with a roughly $1.2 billion hole on its balance sheet, which it then moved to the books of its parent company, Digital Currency Group, in the form of a promissory note due over 10 years.

“They had a solvency issue at Genesis, which they transformed into a liquidity issue,” says Ahluwalia. “But those losses don’t disappear.”

For another five months after Three Arrows’ collapse, Gemini, the Winklevoss’ exchange, continued to rely on Genesis for its Earn Program, and users could continue to redeem their crypto. But the blowup of FTX tipped the scales, causing Genesis to pause all redemptions.

Following FTX’s collapse, Genesis was reportedly seeking a $1 billion cash infusion, but there were no takers as investors ran for the hills. A few days ago, DCG wound down its HQ wealth management business, and Genesis laid off 30% of its staff.

This story was updated to provide comment from DCG on Bloomberg’s report about a New York investigation.



Source link

#Barry #Silbert #Crypto #Billionaire #Cameron #Winklevoss #Accusing #Accounting #Fraud

Happy Holidays for the TRON Grand Hackathon 2022 Season 3 Winners

Post By Cryptocurrency , ,

The winners of Season 3 of the TRON Grand Hackathon 2022 got an early holiday gift this Friday. The recipients of each of the 107 prizes being distributed for this season’s HackaTRON were announced. There were 1185 participants who formed 272 teams that submitted projects in one of six tracks: Web3, DeFi, NFT, GameFi, Ecosystem, and TRON Academy. 

Season 3 submissions began on September 20 and ended on November 14. The judging period lasted from November 29 to December 12. In addition, a second group was chosen by Hackathon participants who were active in the TRON DAO Forum. That voting period lasted from November 29 to December 4. Then, the winners of both groups were announced on December 16.

The TRON Grand Hackathon 2022 Season 3 winners selected by our judges are: 

Web3

1st Prize (60K): OpenATM

2nd Prize (50K): Journey by Tron Magicians

3rd Prize (40K): Hextopus

4th Prize (30K): JustPush by Team Push

5th Prize (20K): Falt by Renaissance Labs

DeFi

1st Prize (60K): Meson-To by Meson Team

2nd Prize (50K): Bunny Notes by StrawberryChocolateFudge

3rd Prize (40K): Inheritokens by Team Tokinhers

4th Prize (30K): Elk-Finance by Team Elk

5th Prize (20K): goStables by goStables Team

NFT

1st Prize (60K): Lazara

2nd Prize (50K): The TREE Token by The TREE Foundation

3rd Prize (40K): Artbeat by 4thfloor

4th Prize (30K): Fractron

5th Prize (20K): Metastore by Void

GameFi

1st Prize (60K): Galaxy Throne 

2nd Prize (50K): TuruVerse by TuruGlobal

3rd Prize (40K): Trxmini.games

4th Prize (30K): Zombieland by Team Zombie

5th Prize (20K): Mushroom by 0xCatbox

The Ecosystem Track was split into two categories – technical and creative. Ten total Ecosystem winners were selected with five from each category and the same prize structure for both.

Ecosystem (Technical)

1st Prize (15K): WaveData

2nd Prize (12.5K): Tronql

3rd Prize (10K): Paylock

4th Prize (7.5K): GETO.Finance

5th Prize (5K): Interpool by Irruption Lab

Ecosystem (Creative)

1st Prize (15K): B4B.World 

2nd Prize (12.5K): Road Incident Predictor  

3rd Prize (10K): MetaVote Poll by Raph Strategy

4th Prize (7.5K): Xeat by BatamPride

5th Prize (5K): Nature Foretold

All projects whose team members participated in the TRON DAO Forum were eligible to vote in the peer evaluated selection of winners. The TRON Grand Hackathon 2022 Season 3 winners selected by the TRON DAO Forum are:

Web3

1st Prize (10K): TronHub by TronNinjas

2nd Prize (9K): dCloud by cctechmx

3rd Prize (8K): Oracula

4th Prize (7K): TsTron by Sterliakov

5th Prize (6K): Web3-scheduler by tokeniz

DeFi

1st Prize (10K): T-Boost by USTX

2nd Prize (9K): Synergy by based.builders

3rd Prize (8K): Inheritokens by Team Tokinhers

4th Prize (7K): Garble.Money by GoblinLab

5th Prize (6K): TRON unlimited Oracle by RedStone

NFT

1st Prize (10K): Fuzzy Ocean

2nd Prize (9K): Fractron

3rd Prize (8K): Lazara

4th Prize (7K): TBlocks

5th Prize (6K): PalmT by JustRug

GameFi

1st Prize (10K): Turuverse by TuruGlobal

2nd Prize (9K): Trxmini.games

3rd Prize (8K): Zombieland by Team Zombie

4th Prize (7K): Mushroom by OxCatBox

5th Prize (6K): Galaxy Throne

Ecosystem

1st Prize (10K): InterPool by Irruption Lab

2nd Prize (9K): NatureForetold

3rd Prize (8K): MetaVotePoll by Raph Strategy

4th Prize (7K): Snake Bite by Team Hero

5th Prize (6K): Shatranj by Web23

The TRON Academy Track was new this season and involved a face-to-face competition called the “Hacker House.” That portion of the Season 3 HackaTRON was held in person on the campus of Harvard University during the weekend of November 12–13, 2022. Two categories of winners were selected – technical and non-technical. The winners were:

TRON Academy Technical

1st Prize (15K): Pneumatic

2nd Prize (10K): Keystream

3rd Prize (9K): DeForms

4th Prize (8K): GroupBy

5th Prize (7K): Dazzle

1st Runner Up (5K): Groot Club

2nd Runner Up (5K): Level

3rd Runner Up (5K): ECO

Honorable Mention (500): PLedger

Honorable Mention (500): Bountiful

Honorable Mention (500): Fawna

Honorable Mention (500): CRUD

Honorable Mention (500): EduBloc

Honorable Mention (500): EcoRypto

Honorable Mention (500): FoodPrint

Honorable Mention (500): JustPass

Honorable Mention (500): TicketTRON

Honorable Mention (500): Tronify

TRON Academy Non-Technical

1st Prize (2K): LSP (Tron: Legacy)

2nd Prize (1K): SuperSets

3rd Prize (500): Arcus

1st Runner Up (250): DeTrove

2nd Runner Up (250): Axies

3rd Runner Up (250): BWS

4th Runner Up (250): Autonoma

5th Runner Up (250): Imperia

6th Runner Up (250): Compute Allocation

TRON Academy Community Forum Winners

1st Prize (5K): Tronify

2nd Prize (4K): Project PLedger by Muffin

3rd Prize (3K): VooDoo Finance by Elvolution

4th Prize (2K): GreenDAO

5th Prize (1K): StackChain by Team Chain

There were three additional bonus prizes given for Season 3:


  • The Devpost Community Prize of $1,000, which was determined by popular choice voting on Devpost by Devpost community members. 

  • The Project Engagement Prize of $5,000, which was determined by the TRON DAO team based on how well a project engaged on the TRON DAO Forum. 

  • The Community Contributor Prize of $5,000, which was determined by the TRON DAO team based on an individual’s valuable contributions during the hackathon. This prize was distributed in $500 increments to ten individuals who did not win another prize.

    • WINNERS: antonio, constantinpricope201, Deba215, Fabsltsa, H_P, Hirangi, Nana66419, Prince-Onscolo, Simon, strxfinance

On December 20th 2022, TRON DAO leaders will hold their monthly Community Call and this month’s focus is the Hackathon and its winners. It’s a chance to congratulate all of the winners for their hard work and innovative ideas, which made this season’s HackaTRON one the best yet. “From cutting-edge solutions to real-world applications, the projects developed during this Hackathon demonstrated the true potential of blockchain technology,” one TRON DAO team member noted. 

TRON DAO strives to empower blockchain projects in alignment with its vision of building a decentralized web. The TRON Grand Hackathon is one essential approach toward that goal.

CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of the TRON Grand Hackathon 2022 Season 3! Many thanks to all of the participants, judges, and sponsors who made Season 3 of the TRON Grand Hackathon 2022 such a huge success. We can’t wait to see the innovations developed in the 2023 Hackathon.

Stay in the know about the upcoming TRON Grand Hackathon Season 4 in 2023 by following the official social media outlets of TRON DAO on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Discord, Reddit, and GitHub. Be sure to subscribe to the Around the Block Podcast for insightful interviews and informative content.

About TRON DAO

TRON DAO is a community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and dApps.

Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized Web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network has gained incredible traction in recent years. As of December 2022, it has over 129 million total user accounts on the blockchain, more than 4.4 billion total transactions, and over $9.7 billion in total value locked (TVL), as reported on TRONSCAN. In addition, TRON hosts the largest circulating supply of USD Tether (USDT) stablecoin across the globe, overtaking USDT on Ethereum since April 2021. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. In May 2022, the over-collateralized decentralized stablecoin USDD was launched on the TRON blockchain, backed by the first-ever crypto reserve for the blockchain industry – TRON DAO Reserve, marking TRON’s official entry into decentralized stablecoins. Most recently in October 2022, TRON was designated as the national blockchain for the Commonwealth of Dominica, which is the first time a major public blockchain partnering with a sovereign nation to develop its national blockchain infrastructure. On top of the government’s endorsement to issue Dominica Coin (“DMC”), a blockchain-based fan token to help promote Dominica’s global fanfare, seven existing TRON-based tokens – TRX, BTT, NFT, JST, USDD, USDT, TUSD, have been granted statutory status as authorized digital currency and medium of exchange in the country.

TRONNetwork | TRONDAO | Twitter | YouTube | Telegram | Discord | Reddit | GitHub | Medium | Forum

Contact

Hayward Wong
[email protected]



Source link

#Happy #Holidays #TRON #Grand #Hackathon #Season #Winners