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Fiat Exchange Volumes Down 5 Times in a Row: The Block

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

Fiat exchange volumes fell for the fifth time in a row as September ended, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard.

Among crypto exchanges that support fiat, FTX ranked highest in terms of volume in September with 24.6%, followed by Coinbase with 22.7 % and Upbit with 13%, the data showed.

While the August exchanges report showed $219 billion in total fiat exchange volume, the September report showed $210.6 billion, and the month-over-month change between the two months was -3.8%.

The months between May and June saw the largest decrease in the last five months with -20%.

The fall in crypto exchange volume and the broader crypto downturn have spurred many firms to execute layoffs in recent months.

In June, 18% of employees were laid off by crypto exchange Coinbase, and in the next month, Gemini did the same and cut its staff by 68 positions.

However, money flowing out of crypto-related funds has slowed.

A report from Bloomberg stated that the third quarter of 2022 has witnessed a slowdown in money flowing out of crypto-related funds.

The report added that the slowdown is a possible sign that many investors might have already withdrawn from the risky asset class.

Data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence showed that $17.6 million was withdrawn by investors from crypto exchange-traded funds in the three months ending September 30.

By September 30, that number had fallen below the record $683.4 million withdrawn from such funds in the second quarter, the data analysis showed.

According to the report, the past two months had witnessed the most outflows. Upwards of $200 million were poured by investors into crypto ETFs in July.

The high degree of outflows in the second quarter was in relation to plunging cryptocurrency prices. The world’s largest digital asset based on market value, bitcoin, fell nearly 60% during the second quarter of 2022 and posted a record low of $17,785 on June 18. However, the cryptocurrency rose 3.7% in the third quarter.

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Crypto Exchange Volumes Sees Growth since May, Jumped to $733 billion in Sep

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

According to The Block, trading volume on cryptocurrency exchanges jumped to $733 billion in September, up 16% month-on-month and marking the first significant increase since May of this year.

In the year’s first half, the cryptocurrency industry did not perform as well as expected, with a significant drop in spot and derivatives trading volumes across major exchanges.

Cryptocurrency spot trading volumes fell nearly 28% in June to $1.41 trillion, the lowest level since December 2020, as bitcoin prices tumbled, according to data compiled by CryptoCompare.

The Block’s legitimate trading volume index shows $629 billion in June, $633 billion in July and $630 billion in August.

Source: The Block

Katie Stockton, the co-founder of Fairlead Strategies, said:

“Volumes have declined given investor sentiment in cyclical bear markets. So, before cryptocurrency prices break out of the bear cycle (which may be a few months away), volumes are expected to be below average.”

As Bitcoin (BTC) continued to oscillate near $19,000 recently, CryptoQuant noted that more than 60,000 Bitcoins have flowed out of exchanges over the past three days, the highest amount of outflows in months, a sign that demand is re-entering the market. Santiment also reported similar data, noting that traders are likely to be confident in the fourth quarter.

CryptoQuant data showed 61,301 bitcoins flowed out of exchanges in the past three days, marking the largest outflow in recent months. “This is quite an important indicator and highlights signs of demand re-entering the market after months of declines,” CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn said.

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Tagged : #BTC / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Exchange / Market Update

Pro-Russian Group Raises $400K in Crypto to Support Russian Military Actions

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

Pro-Russian groups are raising funds through cryptocurrencies to support Russian military operations as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, CNBC reported on Oct. 3.

Since the war started on Feb. 24, the groups have raised $400,000 in cryptocurrency as of Sept. 22, according to a research report published Monday by digital asset compliance and risk management firm TRM Labs.

Cryptocurrency risk watchdog TRM Labs said it found that the pro-Russian group used the encrypted messaging app Telegram to deliver messages and provide people with a way to raise funds to help Russian-affiliated militias fund and support operations close to the Ukrainian border train. ,

Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs at TRM Labs, said the exchange the group uses could be one that doesn’t comply with anti-money laundering and other regulations.

He added that:

“They’re probably using non-compliant exchanges to off-ramp those funds [into fiat currency].”

One group TRM Labs identified as raising funds is the Russian Task Force, raising money on Telegram channels for projects such as thermal imaging equipment and radios.

The U.S. Treasury described the Russian task force as a “neo-Nazi paramilitary group that has participated in combat alongside Russia’s military in Ukraine.”

The cryptocurrency market was full of bearish sentiment right after Russia launched the latest military operations against Ukraine earlier this year.

U.S. President Joe Biden has announced new sanctions on the crypto assets of sanctioned Russians as additional punishment for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There are concerns that Russia could use cryptocurrencies to evade those penalties. But experts say there is insufficient liquidity in cryptosystems to move money on the scale Russia needs.

TRM Labs identifies Russia-linked groups by publicly available wallet addresses and cross-checking other websites and online activity. However, there is no way to know whether these groups work with the Russian government or receive support from government agencies.

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Tagged : Blockchain / Crypto / Politics / Russia / Ukraine

BitMEX to Launch Platform Token BMEX by the End of 2022: CEO

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

The CEO of BitMEX said it would launch its exchange token BMEX by the end of this year.

BitMEX CEO Alexander Hoeptner announced the news in an interview at the Token2049 conference in Singapore.

BMEX, P2P crypto-products trading platform, was initially planned to be launched earlier. Still, BitMEX decided to postpone the launch of BMEX, considering the unsatisfactory market conditions at that time and hoped to allow BMEX to be launched in an environment where holders could get the best chance of return.

“Although we are ready to list BMEX, the present market conditions are not ideal, and we want to list the token in an environment that gives it the best chance to reward you, its holders,” the company said in a July announcement.

Alexander Höptner explained that the team would discuss whether there would be another “huge drop” in the future before evaluating the specific BMEX token listing time.

Just like other exchange tokens, such as BNB of the Binance exchange and FTT of the FTX exchange, the platform currency is the digital currency issued by the platform itself.

Platform currency has more diversified value support than traditional assets such as Bitcoin. There are many application scenarios based on the exchange’s equity, such as its transaction and circulation value.

Therefore BMEX coin holders will be entitled to discounts on BitMEX transaction fees and other benefits.

In May, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined three BitMEX co-founders $10 million each for violating anti-money laundering (AML) requirements and received suspended sentences. The three companies failed to implement KYC processes for their U.S. customers, allowing their exchange to be an effective money laundering platform, processing up to $209 million in suspicious transactions, prosecutors said. Last August, BitMEX agreed to pay $100 million to settle years of civil charges it allowed illegal transactions and violated anti-money laundering rules.

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Tagged : Altcoins / Bitcoin / Bitmex / Blockchain / Bmex

Cryptex Finance Launches NFT Index Token JPEGz

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

Cryptex Finance, an open-source financial solutions-driven firm for the global Crypto community, announced its new NFT index token JPEGz, powered by Chainlink NFT Floor Pricing Feeds from Chainlink Labs and Coinbase Cloud.

Ever since last year, when the NFT market gained traction within the industry, the rise of NFTs has been seen to have increased, with the NFT market hitting over 1,000,000 sales despite how volatile non-fungible tokens are.

Even some of the most significant Web2 companies, like Adidas, eBay, Samsung, and so on, joined the moving train of the rapidly growing NFT market, making the NFT Market Cap reach an all-time high of over $2B – according to CoinMarketCap. With this large amount of funds flowing into the NFT market, the NFT market called for creating an NFT index.

Speaking with a keynote at SmartCon 2022 in New York City, “Today marks a groundbreaking point for Cryptex and our newfound ability to fully tokenize this unique asset class for crypto users worldwide,” said Joe Sticco, CEO and Co-Founder of Cryptex Finance.

The NFT JPEGz is an index token that will give users broad real-time exposure to the NFT market. An index token is a cryptographic token that tracks the price performance of a particular market index.

Before this announcement of Cryptex to launch an NFT index, in September, Coinbase announced its collaboration with Chainlink Labs to launch NFT floor pricing feeds earlier last week in September.

Launching the NFT floor pricing feeds enables the latest NFT pricing data to be easily accessible to developers, allowing them to deploy unique smart contracts across DeFi use cases and more with high-quality pricing data and an optimal liquidity profile.

Cryptex Finance’s index token JPEGz is said to reference Chainlink NFT Floor Pricing Feeds to help ensure the JPEGz token reflects globally accurate floor prices for popular NFT projects.

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Tagged : Blockchain / CHAINLINK LABS / Coinbase Cloud / Cryptex Finance / JPEGZ / NFT / NFTINDEX / Token

Crypto-Related Funds Witnesses Slow Down of Money Outflow

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

The third quarter of 2022 has witnessed a slowdown in money flowing out of crypto-related funds, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The report added that the slowdown is a possible sign that many investors might have already withdrawn from the risky asset class.

Data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence showed that $17.6 million was withdrawn by investors from crypto exchange-traded funds in the three months ending September 30.

By Sep 30, that number had fallen below the record $683.4 million withdrawn from such funds in the second quarter, the data analysis showed.

According to the report, the past two months had witnessed the most outflows. Upwards of $200 million were poured by investors into crypto ETFs in July.

The report stated that narrower price fluctuations aligned with the more muted crypto-linked ETF outflows in the third quarter. On Sep 30, bitcoin was trading above $19,400 – a range close to its prices at the beginning of the quarter.

Todd Sohn, ETF strategist at Strategas Securities, told Bloomberg, “I wonder if the second quarter was the ‘get me out part of these funds.”

He added that the third quarter saw “some laggards” and investors who are just “keeping the faith mentality” and waiting for crypto to rebound.

With central banks around the world raising interest rates to curb soaring inflation, global banks have sunk in the past few months, and risky investments such as cryptocurrencies have fallen victim as recessionary fears rise.

“Everything’s more correlated right now,” Stephane Ouellette, chief executive officer of FRNT Financial Inc. – a crypto brokerage firm – told Bloomberg.

“The people buying the ETF are in the same position as the people who are in Bitcoin,” he said. “Everyone’s panicking, so they’re acting the same.”

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Tagged : Crypto / Cryptocurrency / Etf / Industry / Outflow

Outage Hits Coinbase Exchange, US Bank Accounts Clients Affected

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase issued alerts at 7:57 a.m. ET Sunday morning indicated that its platform was experiencing an outage that left Coinbase account holders with U.S. bank accounts unable to conduct transactions.

In a statement, Coinbase said: “We are currently unable to take payments or make withdrawals involving U.S. bank accounts. Our team is aware of this issue and is working on getting everything back to normal as soon as possible.”

At 8:23 a.m. ET, the exchange issued another update stating that its engineers identified the transaction’s issues and that fixing was being implemented. The main cause of the problem was a bug that has restricted U.S. bank accounts from making withdrawals, deposits or purchases on the platform.

Coinbase identified the issue as a problem with “ACH withdrawals, deposits, and buys failures.” ACH (the Automated Clearing House Network) is a system used for transferring funds electronically in the U.S. between bank accounts.

The exchange further clarified that the affected users can still use debit cards or PayPal to make direct crypto purchases during the downtime. The firm described the technical glitch as a ‘major outage.’ While all other tokens supported on the platform were still fully tradable, Solana (SOL) witnessed poor performance because of its outage incident that started Friday night and spilt onto a major part of Saturday.

Coinbase later released an update that assured its account holders that their funds are safe and said it would issue further information when functionality resumes. At 11:30 a.m. EST on Sunday, the issue was still unresolved.

This is not the first incident facing the exchange. In May, Coinbase experienced fund withdrawal difficulties. Users witnessed rolling delays in withdrawals, leaving thousands of dollars hanging in the balance while others could not access the app or website.

The exchange confirmed the problem to avert heightening fears amid a widespread crash in crypto prices, adding urgency to trades and withdrawals. The drop in the prices pushed many users to sell their assets and tested the underlying financial infrastructure of several firms.

In June, a Cloudflare outage knocked down several major popular web services, including crypto exchanges such as FTX, Bitfinex and OKX, raising questions about the security of centralized crypto platforms. Many services affected by the Cloudflare incident were back online within two hours.

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Tagged : Coinbase / News / Outage

Fiji Officials Warns Residents of Cryptocurrency Scams

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

The Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has issued a warning to the members of the public concerning a scam that is being publicized in the country.

According to Razim Buksh, the FIU Director, the cryptocurrency scam running in the country is asking prospective investors to inject funds into Bitcoin. These schemes are advertised on Viber alongside a government agency’s logo and official.

“These advertisements are fake,” FIU director Razim Buksh said. “The fake advertisements state that individuals in Fiji can purchase bitcoin, foreign exchange, and binary trading using their mobile money wallets or bank transfers. The advertisement provides two phone numbers for further enquiries. A local number and a foreign number.”

Razim said there is no Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) that is legally approved to operate in the country, and that the only legal tender in the nation is the fiat note issued by the Fiji Reserve Bank. That attempt to conduct transactions outside of the approved brokers will be considered a violation of the Exchange Control Act.

The FIU advised all residents to be watchful of investment offers and provided a list of things that constitutes a red flag that should be watched out for before pitching tents with any acclaimed investment service provider.

As noted by the Fiji Times report, the red flags include but are not limited to “Use of the existing marketing material of government agencies or reputable entities. These are usually fake; You are asked to deposit funds into different accounts held in the names of an individual as opposed to a business or a reputable financial institution; grammatical errors often depict the works of non-professionals.”

Scams are commonplace in the crypto world, and investors have continued to lose billions of dollars on an annualized basis to these fraudulent investment offerings. Scams are not peculiar to a particular country, and authorities are known to always issue warnings such as this one sent out by the Fiji regulator.

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Tagged : Crypto / Cybercrime / FIJI / FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE / SCAM

Celsius Network Conditionally Not to Enforce Debtors to Pay for Outstanding Loans

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

Beleaguered digital currency lender Celsius Network has revealed that it was not planning to ask its debtors to pay their outstanding loans during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Over the weekend, Reuters reported that with the bankruptcy that the firm has filed, there is no plan to enforce payment despite the need to settle its creditors.

As reiterated by the firm through a filing at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York, penalties and interests will also not be levied on its debtors as part of its plans to get back on its feet.

Celsius Network is the first amongst many crypto unicorns to suspend withdrawals as the aftermath of the Terra ecosystem collapse, and the extreme crypto market plunge became too much to bear. The crypto lender tried to settle its financial woes internally but eventually declared bankruptcy in July.

At the time of its bankruptcy, the company said it had about a $1.19 billion deficit on its balance sheet. However, this sum has been shown to exceed this amount.

The firm’s assets and liabilities are estimated to be between $1 billion and $10 billion. Celsius Network has had it rough since pausing withdrawals, and the firm rebuffed one of the earliest offers of acquisition from Swiss competitor, Nexo.

In a bid to solve its woes and bring a speedy recovery to all of its stakeholders, Alex Mashinsky resigned his role as the Chief Executive Officer of the platform, taking a background role to help get succour to all involved.

The downfall of Celsius Network, as well as that of Babel Finance, affected Zipmex which also suspended withdrawals and declared bankruptcy in Singapore. The cataclysmic event emanating from the LUNA crash has affected more crypto unicorns than Celsius Network, Babel Finance, and Zipmex.

With analysts projecting revival in the next couple of years, exchanges like Binance and FTX have been aiding most distressed firms.

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Tagged : Alex Mashinsky / Celsius Network / Enterprise / RESIGNATION

Celsius Network Conditionally Not to Enforce Debitors to Pay for Outstanding Loans

by Blockchain NewsOctober 3, 2022

Beleaguered digital currency lender Celsius Network has revealed that it was not planning to ask its debtors to pay their outstanding loans during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Over the weekend, Reuters reported that with the bankruptcy that the firm has filed, there is no plan to enforce payment despite the need to settle its creditors.

At the time of its bankruptcy, the company said it had about a $1.19 billion deficit on its balance sheet. However, this sum has been shown to exceed this amount.

With analysts projecting revival in the next couple of years, exchanges like Binance and FTX have been aiding most distressed firms.

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Tagged : Alex Mashinsky / Celsius Network / Enterprise / RESIGNATION