Day: January 20, 2023

The Bank for International Settlements Introduces the DeFi Stack Reference

by Blockchain News

In a recent working paper, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) examined the inner workings of decentralised finance (DeFi) and created the DeFi stack reference (DSR) model to highlight the capabilities of the technology as well as the potential hazards associated with it.

The research offered some suggestions as to how the risks associated with the integration of DeFi with conventional finance might be evaluated. It also explored this integration.

In the study, a substantial amount of technical depth was devoted to analysing the architecture, technical primitives, and functions of DeFi protocols. According to what the authors noted, “a comprehensive grasp of DeFi is still missing in many circles,” and because of this, “a specialised framework for an enhanced working knowledge of the technology” is required.

Despite this, we believe that DeFi is an important development since it makes use of cutting-edge technology that has the potential to influence the future of the financial sector.

” The areas of algorithmic automation, “competitive financial engineering,” and transparency “are of interest far beyond cryptocurrency markets,” “according to the report.

The writers meant composability when they referred to competitive engineering. Composability is the process of integrating smart contracts to construct complicated and one-of-a-kind financial solutions.

The DSR model separates DeFi into three levels: the interface, the application, and the settlement. Within each of these layers, there are sublayers that allow for the variety of DeFi technologies.

In order to illustrate its points, the study employed many distinct types of tokens, blockchains, and financial services.

The authors went into great detail on the run on Terra (LUNA) because of its informative worth and because it served as an example of how successful their inquiry approach was.

This working paper was published during the same week as an overview of decentralised autonomous organisations was made available by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Because the WEF publication was similarly thorough but lacked a technical focus, the two publications are extremely complimentary to one another.

Research on digital currencies is routinely conducted by central banks, in which the BIS participates.

It has adopted a very conservative posture towards cryptocurrencies.

Recently, it put a 2% cap on the total value of crypto assets that may be held in reserves by globally operating banks. This cap will take effect on January 1, 2025.

Source

Tagged : / /

Moonstone Bank to Exit Crypto Space

by Blockchain News

Moonstone Bank, a rural bank in the state of Washington that was given an estimated $11.5 million investment by Alameda Research, the sister firm of FTX, has announced that it will withdraw from the cryptocurrency industry and return to its “original objective” as a community bank. The investment was made by FTX. Moonstone Bank is a rural bank. In a statement that was made public on January 18, the bank said that the reason for the change in strategy was “recent developments in the crypto assets market and the evolving legal environment surrounding crypto asset firms.” This information was included in the statement. It was recently revealed by the financial institution that it would no longer operate under the moniker Moonstone Bank as part of an effort to “return to its roots.” It will instead be rebranding itself and re-adopting the name Farmington State Bank, which has been well-known in the community that surrounds it for the last 135 years.

Customers of local banks should not anticipate any interruptions in service as a consequence of the changeover, as the bank says that the change is likely to become effective within the next few weeks.

It is general knowledge that the bank’s decision to re-strategize and rebrand itself may be tied to the collapse of FTX, despite the fact that the bank did not directly acknowledge the failure of FTX as a reason in its decision to make these changes.

Moonstone Bank was reportedly acquired by Jean Chalopin in the year 2020. Chalopin lives in the Bahamas and acts as the chairman of Deltec, which is another financial partner of FTX. Chalopin is also said to have owned the bank.

It was reported in January 2022 that Chalopin had been successful in securing an investment of $11.5 million from Alameda Research in order to transform Moonstone into a cryptocurrency-focused financial services organisation. The investment had been sought after by Chalopin in order to turn Moonstone into a cryptocurrency-focused financial services organisation. It would seem that the Farmington State Bank is one among the several financial entities that have been harmed as a result of the unexpected decline of FTX.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / /

Nexo Capital to Pay $45 Million in Penalties

by Blockchain News

Due to Nexo Capital’s failure to register the offer and sale of its Earn Interest Product, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) have agreed to levy penalties against the cryptocurrency lender in the amount of $45 million (EIP).

On January 19, the SEC and the NASAA each released their own statement announcing the news to the public.

According to the statement released by the SEC, Nexo has come to an agreement with the agency to make a penalty payment of $22.5 million and to discontinue its unregistered offer and sale of the EIP to investors in the United States.

According to the article, the extra fine amount of $22.5 million will be paid to address comparable allegations brought forth by state regulatory agencies.

According to a statement released by NASAA, the settlement in principle was reached following investigations into Nexo’s allegedly fraudulent offer and sale of securities that took place over the course of the previous year. During the course of the inquiry, it was found out that EIP investors had the potential to receive interest on digital assets that they had lent to Nexo in order to generate passive income. “Nexo exercised complete autonomy in determining which operations would generate money and be used to generate returns for investors.

Through its website and other social media platforms, the firm sold and advertised the EIP as well as other goods to potential investors in the United States. The company suggested, in certain circumstances, that potential investors might get returns of up to 36% “that was said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) noted that throughout the negotiating process for the settlement, the commission took into account Nexo’s degree of cooperation as well as the corrective actions that were swiftly implemented by Nexo in order to remedy their deficiencies.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / /

China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

by Blockchain News

Improvements have been implemented into China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), often known as the digital yuan or eCNY. These upgrades have given the digital yuan the ability to participate in smart contracts, and they have also introduced a number of new use cases.

According to a story published on January 17 by a local cryptocurrency media site called 8btc, the smart contract capability was released on the Meituan app, which is a Chinese app that offers retail and food delivery services.

When a user of Meituan places an order and pays for it with their e-CNY wallet, a smart contract is triggered, and the contract examines the order for certain keywords and things that were bought.

If a user purchases an item that is included in the list of keywords for the day, they will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a portion of a reward.

The award consists of a portion of a “red envelope,” also known as an hongbao in the area, which contains 8,888 yuan, which is equivalent to little more than $1,300.

Hongbao are wallet-sized packages that have long been used as an auspicious way to present monetary presents during the Chinese New Year celebration.

In an effort to encourage more people to use the e-CNY wallet app before the Chinese New Year begins on January 22, the developers included a function in December of the previous year that enables users to send digital red envelopes to one another.

In conjunction with the most recent advancement, new applications for the e-CNY have also been developed during the course of the last several days.

According to a story that was published in the China Shares Journal on January 16, e-CNY was utilised for the very first time to purchase securities.

In addition, investors are able to purchase assets via the CBDC by using the mobile app for Soochow Securities, which is a local brokerage business.

According to a report published on January 11 by Yicai Global, the digital yuan wallet software has gotten an upgrade that enables users to conduct contactless payments using their Android phones even when their device does not have access to the internet or electricity.

The new applications for the digital yuan come at a time when China is having difficulty increasing the usage of its central bank digital currency (CBDC).

In December 2022, a former official from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, made a rare public admission saying that the digital yuan’s “usage has been low” and “highly inactive,” and added that “the results are not ideal.” This admission was made by saying that the digital yuan’s “usage has been low” and “highly inactive.”

On January 10, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) for the first time included e-CNY in currency circulation data, which revealed that the CBDC constituted around 0.13% of the 10.47 trillion yuan ($1.54 trillion) in circulation at the end of 2022.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / /

Genesis Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

by Blockchain News

Genesis, a cryptocurrency lending company, has filed a petition for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in the Southern District of New York.

According to the filing from January 19th, the company is projected to have liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion, and its assets fall within the same range.

According to earlier reports, the firm was reportedly contemplating applying for bankruptcy protection in the event that it was unable to obtain sufficient money to address the liquidity issue it was facing.

Genesis said in a news statement dated January 19 that it has been in conversations with its advisers “to its creditors and corporate parent Digital Currency Group (DCG) to analyse the most effective approach to preserve assets and take the company forward to determine the best way to proceed.” ” Genesis has already begun the process of reorganisation, which will be overseen by the court, in order to further forward these conversations.

According to the Chapter 11 plan that the firm has developed, it is now considering a “dual track procedure” that would include seeking a “sale, capital raising, and/or an equitization transaction.” This would ostensibly make it possible for the company “to emerge under new ownership.”

According to the company, Genesis’s activities in the areas of derivatives, spot trading, broker-dealer services, and custody will not be affected by the Chapter 11 proceedings and will continue to function normally.

In addition to this, it said that it has a cash reserve of more than $150 million, which it thinks “would provide adequate liquidity to fund its continued business activities and simplify the process of restructuring.”

Genesis has stated that the goal of the restructuring process is to provide “an optimal outcome for Genesis clients and Gemini Earn users.” The process will be led by a “independent special committee” of the board of directors of the company, and this committee will be responsible for overseeing the entire restructuring process.

In November 2022, in response to the disruption in the market created by the failure of FTX, the company temporarily halted all withdrawals from its platform.

Customers of the yield-bearing product Gemini Earn, which is available to users of the cryptocurrency exchange controlled by Genesis, were disrupted as a result of the shift.

Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founder of Gemini, tweeted that the bankruptcy is a “crucial step” toward Gemini users being able to recover their assets. However, Cameron Winklevoss claimed that DCG and its CEO Barry Silbert “continue to refuse to offer creditors a fair deal.” Cameron Winklevoss threatened to file a lawsuit “unless Barry and DCG come to their senses.”

6 If Barry and DCG don’t come to their senses and make a reasonable offer to the creditors, we are going to have no choice but to file a lawsuit against them as soon as possible.

— Cameron Winklevoss, also known as @cameron on Twitter The 20th of January, 2023 Both Genesis and Gemini are being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States for allegedly selling unregistered securities via the Earn programme. The SEC is investigating both companies.

Concerns are growing inside DCG, the parent company of Genesis, since it is possible that the business may have to liquidate a portion of its venture capital portfolio worth $500 million in order to make up for Genesis’ obligations.

In an effort to “reduce operational expenditures and preserve cash,” DCG ceased paying dividends on January 17, 2019.

Reportedly being considered is the sale of DCG’s cryptocurrency media site CoinDesk, which could bring in an additional $200 million for the company.

Source

Tagged : / / /

Donald Trump’s NFT Trading Card Collection

by Blockchain News

In recent days, there has been a significant uptick in the daily sales volume of nonfungible token (NFT) trading cards belonging to the former President of the United States, Donald Trump.

According to market analytics aggregator Cryptoslam, sales volumes on January 18 and January 19 saw surges of 800% and 600% respectively when compared to sales volumes on January 17.

Following reports that the former president was seeking to rejoin Facebook and Twitter in advance of the 2024 presidential election campaign, some experts believe that the rekindled interest could be due to his imminent return to social media networks. This speculation comes after it was reported that the former president was seeking to rejoin these networks.

On December 15th, a collection of 45,000 self-themed trading cards was released, and the price of each card was originally set at $99 USD.

Customers who purchased the collection were instantly placed into a sweepstakes with “thousands of prizes,” some of which included one-on-one meals, zoom calls, and games of golf with the previous President.

They sold out very rapidly and achieved daily sales volumes of more than $3.5 million, but after that, their sales volume sank to a baseline of around $26,000 by the end of 2022.

Yuga Labs, the company that created Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has blocked the secondary trade of its “Sewer Pass” non-fungible tokens on markets that do not provide full support for creator royalties.

It is possible to mint the Sewer Pass, which serves as an admission pass to its new skill-based non-flip-to-win game called Dookey Dash, but only for those who are members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club or the Mutant Ape Yacht Club.

According to the statistics provided by NFT Price Floor, The Sewer Pass has had a large amount of transactions on secondary markets, with a floor price of 1.81 ETH (which is equivalent to $2,809) and sales volumes of 15,627 ETH (which is equivalent to $24,267,411).

Secondary sales of the collection have already brought in more than $1.2 million in income for Yuga Labs, which is based on a 5% creator royalty charge for the collection.

According to the announcement, “Neopets Metaverse” will be a play-and-earn virtual pet game based on the original, and it would enable users to “grow, care for, personalise, and combat with their Neopets” on the blockchain. The game will be based on the original “Neopets.”

Neopets was established in 1999, and its parent business has high hopes that its newest product, Neopets Metaverse, would reintroduce “the magic of Neopets in a wonderfully fresh light to old-time gamers, as well as recruiting and fostering a new generation of Neopians.”

The news has been received with a lacklustre reaction from the community, with some members speculating that the community’s earlier attempt to create a Neopets metaverse was unsuccessful.

Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a pair of haptic gloves that they hope will allow users to experience the feeling of touch in the metaverse.

The HaptGlove is an untethered and lightweight glove that will enable users of the metaverse to interact with virtual items in a manner that is much more realistic by communicating a sense of touch and grip. The innovation was developed by HaptLabs.

When users put on the HaptGlove, they are able to sense when their virtual avatar’s hand touches something, as well as tell how hard the object is and what shape it is. This is made possible by the HaptGlove restricting the user’s finger positions, which enables users to sense when their virtual avatar’s hand touches something.

According to NUS, the HaptGlove will also be valuable in other fields, such as education and medicine, since it will enable surgeons to practise their procedures in a “hyper-realistic environment” and will provide students with the opportunity to gain practical knowledge via hands-on practise.

Although the idea of haptic gloves is not new, as for example, Meta is now working on their own version of them, NUS say that theirs is capable of providing users with a far more realistic feeling of touch in comparison to other haptic gloves that are already on the market.

It has been suggested by those working on metaverse games that because virtual reality is such an immature technology, it is difficult to incorporate it into metaverse products. As a result, games like The Sandbox and Decentraland have not yet fully incorporated virtual reality clients into their gameplay.

Rarible, a marketplace for NFTs, made the announcement on January 18 that it was going to extend its marketplace builder to accommodate Polygon-based NFT collections.

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance made an announcement on January 19 that it would be tightening its rules for NFT listings. As part of the new regulations, the exchange will require sellers to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification and have at least two followers before they can list their NFTs on the platform.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / /

Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Finally Comes to an End

by Blockchain News

Following the formation of the cryptocurrency’s first red candle on January 18, the two-week winning run that Bitcoin (BTC) had been on has finally come to an end.

The previous day, it seemed as if Bitcoin might equal or possibly break its record set in November 2013 of 15 straight days of positive price movement. This would have been the longest stretch of its kind in its entire existence.

In spite of the fact that the record wasn’t broken, Bitcoin managed to register the longest victory streak since the 2013 record in a run-up that some Twitter critics have described as “crazy.” Bitcoin is denoted by #. One bearish daily candle does not cancel out two weeks of all green candles being bullish.

the 18th of January, 2023 — IncomeSharks (@IncomeSharks) The primary reason for the negative price action appeared to be an ominous announcement made earlier on January 18 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), which stated that it would “announce an international cryptocurrency enforcement action.” [Citizens] should be aware that the DOJ has the authority to take legal action against anyone who engages in illegal activity related to cryptocurrencies.

However, it turned out that the action was taken against a rather obscure cryptocurrency exchange called Bitzlato that was situated in Hong Kong and had connections to Russia. Many people had assumed that it may be against a prominent cryptocurrency exchange or organisation.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

National Australia Bank to Launch Ethereum-Based Stablecoin

by Blockchain News

National Australia Bank (NAB), one of Australia’s “Big 4” banks, is getting ready to launch an Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum network. This coin will be backed by the Australian dollar. This coin will have the value of one Australian dollar attached to it. This coin will have a value equivalent to one Australian dollar affixed to it when it is released. When it is first put into circulation, this coin will have a value ascribed to it that is comparable to one Australian dollar. When it is initially placed into circulation, this coin will have a value that is roughly equivalent to one Australian dollar. This value will be assigned to it before it is put into circulation. This coin will first be put into circulation with a value that is approximately comparable to one Australian dollar. This value will be determined when the coin is originally put into circulation. Before being sent into circulation, it will get a value equivalent to this one first. If anything similar were to occur, the National Australia Bank (NAB), which is one of the “Big 4” banks in Australia, would be the second of the country’s financial institutions to be touched by it. NAB is a member of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

In a story that was published on the 18th of January by the Australian Financial Review, the subject of the introduction of the AUDN stablecoin was examined. The piece was composed using the English language throughout. According to the conclusions of the research, it is projected that the launch of the AUDN stablecoin would take place somewhere in the neighbourhood of the middle of the year 2023. The current situation has been brought to the attention of a greater number of members of the general public. The easing of the transfer of funds across international borders is the primary objective of this firm; the ease of the purchasing and selling of carbon credits follows in a close second (AFR).

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / /

Coindesk May Be Sold as Parent Company DCG Struggles

by Blockchain News

According to recent reports, the cryptocurrency news website CoinDesk is mulling over the possibility of being sold as its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), wants to improve its financial standing.

The Wall Street Journal reports that CoinDesk has enlisted the assistance of investment bankers from the financial advising firm Lazard. These investment bankers are assisting the company in weighing its alternatives, which may include a whole or partial sale.

You know, I recently became aware that Coindesk is now available for purchase.

Charles Hoskinson, who tweets under the handle @IOHK Charles 19th of January, 2023 In the past few months, it has been reported that DCG has received multiple offers for the media company that are higher than $200 million. If these reports are accurate, this would represent an incredible return on investment for DCG given that the company was reportedly purchased by DCG for only $500,000 in 2016.

It would seem that Barry Silbert’s DCG is experiencing significant financial difficulties as of late. On January 17, the company informed its shareholders that it will be suspending dividend payments in an attempt to improve the soundness of its balance sheet and “preserve liquidity.”

On January 18, Bloomberg reported that another DCG subsidiary, crypto lending business Genesis Global, was intending to file for bankruptcy after it revealed that it owed creditors over $3 billion. This is undoubtedly the primary cause contributing to DCG’s current financial predicament.

According to the company’s website, DCG’s venture capital portfolio includes about 200 crypto-related startups, some of which include CoinDesk and Genesis.

The asset management company Grayscale Investments, the cryptocurrency exchange Luno, and the advising firm Foundry are all other businesses that are owned by DCG.

Some people believe that the article published by CoinDesk in November that revealed the irregularities in Alameda Research’s balance sheet was the first domino that eventually led to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX as well as the liquidity issues that Genesis, its parent company DCG, and the broader cryptocurrency market are currently facing.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / /

Binance linked to illegal cryptocurrency platform Bitzlato, FinC

by Blockchain News

The United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which is a division of the Department of the Treasury, has asserted that there is a connection between Binance and the unlawful cryptocurrency site Bitzlato.

In an order that was made public on the 18th of January, FinCEN noted that the cryptocurrency exchange known as Binance was among the “top three receiving counterparties” of Bitzlato when it came to the transactions involving Bitcoin (BTC).

Binance was reportedly one of the largest counterparties that received Bitcoin from Bitzlato between May 2018 and September 2022, as stated by the regulator.

FinCEN observed that other counterparties included the darknet market Hydra, which had connections to Russia, and the suspected Ponzi scam operating in Russia under the name “Finiko.”

However, FinCEN did not include Binance in their list of the top three sending counterparties in the order.

According to the paper, the three companies Hydra, the Finland-based exchange LocalBitcoins, and Finiko were the most significant contributors of Bitcoin to Bitzlato between May 2018 and September 2022. According to what FinCEN said in the order, about two thirds of Bitzlato’s top receiving and sending counterparties are linked with darknet marketplaces or frauds.

The agency said that between 2019 and 2021, Bitzlato collected cryptocurrency worth a total of $406 million via frauds, $224 million from darknet marketplaces, and $9 million from ransomware perpetrators.

The disclosure comes at a time when many agencies in the United States have begun serious enforcement action against Bitzlato. These authorities accuse the company of engaging in money laundering and allegedly enabling the circumvention of sanctions against Russia.

Anatoly Legkodymov, the creator of Bitzlato, was taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on January 17 in Miami as part of the ongoing investigation into the company.

Bitzlato was a cryptocurrency service that wasn’t very well recognised, in contrast to prominent cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

The platform is said to have been established in 2016, and it had an office in the Federation Tower skyscraper in Moscow, where it processed transactions of at least one hundred thousand dollars.

The fact that Binance was allegedly involved in the Bitzlato case gives rise to certain worries about the activities of the exchange as well as possible relations with Russia.

As was previously reported, Binance was one of the exchanges that made the decision to keep serving non-sanctioned Russians after the adoption of the eighth sanctions package by the European Union against the nation.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /
Bitcoin (BTC) $ 26,171.01 0.68%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 1,585.84 0.42%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 63.86 1.28%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 213.65 1.06%