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Maven 11 Launches $30m Loan Pool on Defi Lending Protocol Maple Finance

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Defi lending protocol Maple Finance has launched a $30 million liquidity pool backed by Netherlands-based crypto-native investment firm Maven 11.

Maven 11 announced that the launch of the loan pool is designed to help institutional businesses seek income opportunities.

A $30 million pool of funds funded by institutional lenders will provide liquidity to borrowers used by firms including Wintermute, Auros and Flow Traders Nibbio and Folkvang Trading.

In return, the lender will receive revenue from the market maker.

The injection of funds into lending pools by institutional investors will provide liquidity to borrowers, a particularly valuable resource during crypto bear markets.

Maple Finance, a decentralized financial credit platform, claims to have issued over $1.5 billion in cumulative loans, with total deposits exceeding $635 million at the time of writing.

Sidney Powell, CEO of Maple, said, “Now that the last quarter has come to a close, appetite is shifting back toward deploying and getting yield again. We’ve seen lending volumes starting to grow. People are being enticed by price to come back into the market for stablecoin yields. “

Maven has been investing in venture capital since 2017 and has backed projects such as Celestia, Qredo, Nym Technologies, Spectral Finance, Merit Circle, Maple Finance, Anoma and Zapper through its two funds.

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Bullish Sentiment Restores in Crypto Derivatives Markets, Surged to $3.12 Trillion in July

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Investors in the cryptocurrency ecosystem have increased their exposure to derivatives markets, with trading volume on central exchanges rising to $3.12 trillion in July, up 13% from the previous month, according to researcher CryptoCompare.

Derivatives trading volume on major exchanges hit the $245 billion mark on July 29, up 9.7% from its daily high of $223 billion throughout June, according to CryptoCompare data.

The move was marked by signs of recovery from a crash in futures/options contracts.

Crypto derivatives are secondary contracts or financial instruments whose value is derived from a primary underlying asset such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), or other alternative currencies.

Futures are investment contracts that enable investors to gain exposure to an asset without owning it directly. Futures allow traders or investors to speculate on the future price of the underlying asset.

Options offer traders a unique opportunity to buy or sell crypto tokens at a price. The price of an option contract will vary depending on the time of purchase, the strike price, and the day of expiry.

CryptoCompare states, “the rise in derivatives trading volume indicates an increase in speculative activity as traders believe there is room for further upside in this rally.”

Previous Fed rate hikes, inflation, and the war between Ukraine and Russia triggered investors to sell cryptocurrencies sharply, causing the cryptocurrency market to plummet.

Lower-than-expected inflation data from the United States boosted market risk appetite, and cryptocurrencies have now recovered.

Bitcoin (BTC) quickly crossed $24,000, and Ether (ETH) also managed to climb back above $1,900 during the intraday.

CryptoCompare pointed out that the market is also concerned about the potential market for the upgrade and merger of Ethereum. This upgrade is expected to increase the network rate of Ethereum, which may help Ethereum to strengthen.

So open interest for ETH derivatives is higher than BTC for the first time.

Derivatives market volume now accounts for 69% of total crypto volume, up from 66% in June.

The prospect of value-adding derivatives has made them popular among retail and institutional investors. While U.S. law remains largely ambiguous, forays into derivatives markets have been a better investment option for most businesses looking to capitalize on asset price swings to make money.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Cryptocompare / Derivatives / Market Update

MakerDAO Intends to Depeg DAI from USDC

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Announcing through Discord, MakerDAO’s founder Rune Christensen revealed that the DeFi protocol might consider depegging its native token DAI from stablecoin USD Coin (USDC).

Christensen pointed out:

“Will be discussing it at tonight’s call but I think we should seriously consider preparing to depeg from USD … it is almost inevitable that it will happen and it is only realistic to do with huge amounts of preparation.”

This decision might have been reached based on tornado sanctions, given that MakerDAO might replace USDC as collateral with Ethereum (ETH).

Christensen added:

“I have been doing more research into the consequences of the TC sanction and unfortunately it is a lot more serious than I first thought.”

Tornado Cash, a popular crypto mixing platform, was recently slapped with sanctions by the United States Treasury Department based on accusations of facilitating money laundering for hacker groups like the North Korean government-sponsored Lazarus Group, Blockchain.News reported.

MakerDAO’s consideration of jumping on the Ethereum bandwagon was revealed by Yearn.finance core developer Banteg who tweeted:

“MakerDAO is considering a $3.5 billion ETH market buy, converting all USDC from the peg stability module into ETH.”

Therefore, this will mean that Ethereum will back more than half of DAI stablecoins.

Nevertheless, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin reiterated that caution was not to be thrown to the wind because this was a risky affair. He stated:

“Errr this seems like a risky and terrible idea. If ETH drops a lot, value of collateral would go way down but CDPs would not get liquidated, so the whole system would risk becoming a fractional reserve.”

The MakerDAO was also not contented with this decision because it deemed it another Terra in the making, given that Terraform made the miscalculation of backing its native token UST with Bitcoin (BTC) as the LUNA crash continued.

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Tagged : #ETH / Altcoins / DAI / DEPEGGING / MAKERDAO / Rune Christensen / USDC / Vitalik Buterin

Core Scientific Records $862m Loss in Q2, follows by 10 % Workforce Laid off

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Core Scientific, a large publicly traded cryptocurrency mining company in North America, announced its second quarter 2022 update and said it was laying off 10% of its workforce as it reported an $862 million quarterly loss due to impairments such as goodwill and digital assets.

The loss was primarily attributed to an $840 million impairment of goodwill, a $150.2 million impairment of digital assets, a $106.9 million increase in total operating expenses, and a $13.1 million loss on exchange or disposal of property, plant, and equipment.

Chief Financial Officer Denise Sterling said on the earnings call that the layoffs will not affect Core Scientific’s data centre operations staff.

In the second quarter, the company mined 3,365 bitcoins and had 1,959 bitcoins in reserves at the end of the quarter.

Core Scientific Sold 1,975 Bitcoins, more than it mined in July, to recover spending on the company’s costs.

On its balance sheet, revenue in the second quarter was $164 million, an increase of more than 115% from the previous year. The revenue growth benefited from the growth of digital asset mining revenue and custody revenue.

The company’s escrow revenue generated $38.9 million due to onboarding new clients and executing new affiliate escrow contracts for deployed miners.

During July, the company signed hosting agreements with customers for a total of 75MW. As of July 31, 2022, Core Scientific provides data centre hosting services and technical and operational support for approximately 86,000 customer-owned ASIC servers.

Core Scientific said thanks to an increase in self-mining hash rate, from 0.45 EH/s to 10.3 EH/s, digital asset mining revenue was $109.8 million, an increase of $99.1 million from the previous $10.8 million, an increase of 920% up to $99.1 million.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Core Scientific / Enterprise

KuCoin Pairs with DeFi Data Aggregator 1inch for Implementing Native Swap Function

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

The Seychelles-based crypto exchange KuCoin has announced a partnership with 1inch DeFi data aggregator to bring native token swap functionality to its in-house wallet.

KuCoin has launched a decentralized product called KuCoin Wallet.

KuCoin Wallet provides users with encrypted services through GameFi, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) functions, providing a convenient experience in the Web3.0 space.

Through this cooperation, 1inch’s Pathfinder algorithm will be added to the KuCoin wallet to support users’ cross-chain swap token transactions and DeFi and non-fungible token (NFT) transactions and provide liquidity support for automatic market makers and active market makers.

“Swap is a high-frequency feature of the wallet, and 1inch is one of the most popular DEXs in the Web3 industry, so we work together through native integration to provide a smooth and cost-effective trading experience for our users,” said Jeff Haul, Head of KuCoin Wallet, adding that “As a gateway to the Web-3 world, we are willing to integrate any excellent Dapp that can provide high value to our users. This partnership with 1inch is a great start to our journey with more exciting landscapes ahead.”

In addition, KuCoin wallet users can also use 1inch’s limit order protocol features, including ether (ETH) gasless limit orders, etc.

1inch is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator built on Ethereum. It is a type of liquidity protocol specialized in providing customers with accessible transaction by automatically aggregating offers from other decentralized exchanges.

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Tagged : 1Inch / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Enterprise / KuCoin

Huobi Group Founder in Talks to Sell Almost $3B Company Stake

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

The selling of Huobi Group founder’s majority stake in the crypto-exchange could be the industry’s biggest takeover since a $2 trillion global crypto rout started, according to Bloomberg.

Leon Li is in talks with various investors to sell a valuation of almost $3 billion stake, or 60% of the company he established nearly a decade ago.

The report has been shared by people familiar with the matter. They added that the Chinese crypto-mogul has already been in contact with Tron founder Justin Sin and crypto-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX for a share transfer.

The source disclosed that Li is seeking a valuation of between $2 billion to $3 billion, which means that the scale could fetch upwards of $1 billion.

Furthermore, they said that existing backers – ZhenFund and Sequoia China – were informed about Li’s decision during a July shareholders’ meeting, and the deal could possibly be closed as soon as the end of this month.

“He hopes that the new shareholders will be more powerful and resourceful and that they will value the Huobi brand and invest more capital and energy to drive the growth of Huobi,” a Huobi spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg but did not provide specifics.

Co-founded in 2013 by former Oracle Corp. coder Li, Huobi was once the most active bitcoin trading platform in the world, especially in China. However, it had to begin expansion into overseas markets after China banned crypto-transactions last year. Since then, it has had to fight bigger rivals like Binance and FTX.

According to Blockchain.News, Huobi, in early August, filed an application to be registered as a digital currency exchange provider with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

While the crypto exchange platform in late July received provisional approval from the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), joining other crypto exchanges to expand its footprints in the gulf nation.

Per the data tracker CoinGecko, Huobi handled roughly $1.12 billion of crypto transactions over the 24 hours on August 12, a little more than half of the trades hosted by Coinbase Global Inc.

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Tagged : #Huobi / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / LEONLI / News

Spanish Football Giants Barcelona and Real Madrid Seek Crypto Trademark Protection

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Football giants Barcelona and Real Madrid filed a joint crypto trademark protection covering various virtual products, according to licensed patent and trademark attorney Michael Kondoudis.

Kondoudis tweeted:

“Football powerhouses Real Madrid and Barcelona have filed a joint trademark application covering: virtual reality gaming, virtual clothing, footwear, headgear, cryptocurrency transaction management software …and more.”

Source:MichaelKondoudis

Under serial number 97536450, the trademark protection was filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on August 5 and seeks to safeguard the football powerhouses’ virtual reality software and downloadable software used to manage crypto transactions.

Barcelona and Real Madrid also intend to shield non-downloadable virtual products like headgear, footwear, and clothing for an enhanced experience in the Metaverse. Furthermore, their e-commerce and e-payment platforms will be protected.

Earlier this year, Real Madrid set foot in the Metaverse after partnering with Astosch Technology by creating a digital recreation of its Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

The football giant sought to boost its fans’ experience by offering them a chance to walk through the famous arena, including the trophy cabinet, which had a 3D recreation.

With the new crypto trademark petition, the El Clasico rivals intend to continue exploring the web3 and metaverse spaces.

Meanwhile, Barcelona entered the crypto sector in 2020 after partnering with fintech firm Chiliz for a blockchain-powered fan-engagement platform, Blockchain.News reported.

Barcelona sought to render a tokenized engagement platform to its more than 300 million fans worldwide. Fans were to purchase the Barca Fan Tokens (BAR) through an innovative procedure called Fan Token Offering (FTO).

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Tagged : Barcelona / Crypto / Football / Industry / Patent / Real Madrid / Trademark

Tron’s Justin Sun Hopes USDD to Become First Stablecoin in “EthereumPOW ecosystem”

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON and investor of Poloniex, a global cryptocurrency exchange, hopes that USDD the stablecoin, would become the first one in the “EthereumPOW ecosystem” after the completion of the Merge. However, Sun reiterated that he supports the fork with the strongest community consensus and the largest hash rate instead of supporting one specific fork.

As the Ethereum Merge draws near, Poloniex becomes the first crypto exchange to list two potential forked Ethereum (ETH) tokens: ETHW (ETH1) and ETHS(ETH2), on August 7, 2022 with the support of TRON’s underlying blockchain technology in addition to the exchange’s zero-fee trading policy. However, Poloniex remained neutral during the Merge and it will continue to support the community regardless of the results.

The latest announcement of Poloniex is endorsed by H.E. Justin Sun, and he showed his full support for the exchange’s latest advancement on his Twitter account prior to the listing: “Vitalik and EF’s contribution to Ethereum is huge. After the Merge phase is over, Vitalik and EF still lead the development of Ethereum and @Poloniex will continue to support Ethereum projects.

Personally, I have great respect for their work,” Poloniex’s latest announcement drew so much attention in the crypto world that many exchanges, including Gate.io and MEXC, also followed its footstep to launch forked assets.

According to Poloniex, the two forked tokens, ETHW (ETH1) and ETHS (ETH2), which represent Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) respectively, can be paired up with ETH, USDT, or USDD for trading and they can be swapped with ETH at a one-to-one ratio and vice versa on the platform. In addition, the two newly-listed tokens are powered by TRON, which guarantees more transparent and trustworthy liquidity and circulation, and can also be transferred to other exchanges.

Right now, Ethereum’s consensus layer is PoW which is similar to that of Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, during which miners compete to secure the network by solving complex computational puzzles. However, PoW is known for its high energy costs, and PoS may be able to reduce in the future with the replacement of validators significantly.

Witnessing the ups and downs of the crypto industry for eight years, Sun understood the correlation between active developers and the community and the importance of adoption and sustainability to keep the crypto ecosystem growing. Therefore, Sun is willing to donate some ETHW to the Ethereum community and organize events, including Hackathon and developer competitions alike for a good cause to show solidarity.

Originally dubbed “Ethereum 2.0”, The Merge has been long-awaited since ETH first launched in 2015, but complexities have postponed the upgrade for several years, and the upgrade is expected to have a significant immediate impact on the network’s energy use.

Media contact

Sana Fong

sana.fong@poloniex.com

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Tagged : Blockchain / POLONEIX / Press Release / Tron / USDD

Poloniex to List ETH Potential Hard Fork Tokens in Support of the Merge

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Poloniex, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, announces that it fully supports the Ethereum Merge with listing of two potential forked ETH tokens: ETHS & ETHW, with commencement date of trading on August 8.

Through its more than eight-year history in the crypto space, Poloniex has been always supporting the Ethereum community that it was the world’s first crypto exchange to list ETH. Although time goes by, the exchange’s support to the community remains unchanged that it also became the first exchange to show full support for the Ethereum Merge by listing potential forked ETH tokens: ETHS and ETHW, two of which represent the new PoS (proof-of-stake) chain and PoW (proof-of-work) chain respectively.

“We’ve witnessed the consensus mechanism of PoW as a key factor driving the expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem, and are willing to continue to support the development of the community.” H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON and investor of Poloniex, made the announcement on Twitter. “We currently have more than 1 million ETH. If the Ethereum hard fork succeeds, we will donate some forked ETHW to the community and developers to build the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Prior to the official Ethereum upgrade, ETH holders on Poloniex can swap their ETH into either of the aforesaid tokens at a 1:1 ratio, and the exchange will also take corresponding measures to safeguard users’ assets and mitigate the risks from market volatility during the merge.

For more information, please visit https://support.poloniex.com/hc/en-us/articles/7911509585559-Poloniex-supports-lists-Ethereum-ETH-potential-hard-fork-tokens.

About Poloniex

Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency exchange. With its world-class trading platform and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and futures trading as well as leveraged tokens, and its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available, including English, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Media contact

Sana Fong

sana.fong@poloniex.com

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Tagged : Blockchain / Poloniex / Press Release

Mark Cuban Slammed with Lawsuit for Endorsing Bankrupt Voyager Digital

by Blockchain NewsAugust 12, 2022

Days after going tough on metaverse real estate, Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the basketball team Dallas Mavericks, has been slammed with a class action lawsuit for his role in promoting the bankrupt crypto platform Voyager Digital.

The class action suit was filed by the Moskowitz Law Firm in the United States District Court in Southern Florida and is demanding that Cuban, alongside Voyager Digital’s CEO, Stephen Erlich, and Dallas Mavericks pay back those who have suffered losses through the platform whom it said its products were paraded as a Ponzi scheme.

The lawsuit alleges that the business model of Voyager Digital was hinged on frequent promotions from Mark Cuban.

“Cuban and Ehrlich, went to great lengths to use their experience as investors to dupe millions of Americans into investing—in many cases, their life savings—into the Deceptive Voyager Platform and purchasing Voyager Earn Program Accounts (‘EPAs’), which are unregistered securities,” the lawsuit alleges.

He is known as one of the first Wall Street veterans to embrace digital currencies, and he is particularly known as a lover of Bitcoin (BTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE), a tag he competes with Elon Musk for. He took his advocacy to Voyager Digital, and per the lawsuit;

“Voyager Platform relied on Cuban’s and the Dallas Maverick’s vocal support and Cuban’s monetary investment in order to continue to sustain itself until its implosion and Voyager’s subsequent bankruptcy.”

Voyager Digital declared bankruptcy after halting withdrawals on its platform, a situation highlighting its disrupted business opportunity with the inability of Three Arrows Capital (3AC) to pay as much as $670 million it owed the company.

Considering its current woes, it is unclear how well the company will fare with this new lawsuit. Still, it is very focused on bringing succour to some of its customers, which is now necessary since the firm’s representatives advised against accepting the offer from FTX and Alameda Research.

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Tagged : 3Ac / Bankruptcy / Legal / Mark Cuban / Voyager Digital