Day: January 25, 2023

SAMA is Ramping Up Its Research into Central bank digital currencies

by Blockchain News

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) is stepping up its investigation into central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), although it has not yet disclosed any plans to implement such a currency.

The bank announced that it was working on a phase of a project that “focuses on domestic wholesale CBDC use cases in conjunction with local banks and fintechs” in a bulletin that was issued on January 23.

Nevertheless, it was revealed that there had been no definitive decision made to introduce such a digital currency in the Middle Eastern country.”

SAMA emphasises that despite the fact that no decision has been taken on the implementation of CBDC in the Kingdom, it is continuing to concentrate on researching the advantages of introducing CBDC as well as the possible hazards associated with doing so.”

SAMA is doing research on numerous areas of a state-issued digital currency, including the applications of a CBDC-based payment system, the economic effect of the currency, and the preparedness of the market.

In addition to this, it plans to examine the relevant legal, policy, and regulatory aspects.

This action is being taken as part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme, which aims to lessen the kingdom’s reliance on oil, diversify its economy, and expand public service industries such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, leisure, and tourism by the year 2030.

The governor of SAMA, H.E. Fahad Almubarak, said that local banks and payment businesses would play a significant role in the CBDC project and its execution.

In 2019, SAMA was able to carry out the CBDC experiment known as “Project Aber” with flying colours.

It carried out this investigation in conjunction with the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates in order to determine whether or not blockchain technology may play a role in international financial transactions.

Late in the year 2020, the banks published a report detailing their research and coming to the conclusion that a dual-issued CBDC was technically viable for facilitating cross-border payments and presented a “significant improvement over centralised payment systems in terms of architectural resilience.”

There is no information available on the technology that underpins the Saudi CBDC; nevertheless, CBDC Tracker implies that it is built on the Hyperledger Fabric developed by the Linux Foundation.

The Atlantic Council, a think tank based in the United States, reports that as of right now there are 11 nations that have completely implemented a CBDC and 17 countries that are conducting pilots.

The vast majority of those that have already begun operations are located in the Caribbean, with the exception of one in Nigeria.

Source

Tagged : / / / /

On-chain data is signaling a “generational buying opportunity”

by Blockchain News

After the surge that we’ve seen this year, several on-chain measures from the Bitcoin (BTC) network are indicating that now is the time to purchase.

Bitcoin has emerged from its slumber to post a gain of 37% since the beginning of 2023, breaking out of its previous slump.

However, according to experts, on-chain data is still indicating it might be a “generational buying opportunity.”

On January 24, 2019, a researcher and technical analyst by the name of “Game of Trades” found six on-chain measures for the 71,000 people who follow him on Twitter.

The first measure is an accumulation trend score, and its purpose is to identify pockets of significant accumulation in terms of both the size of the organisation and the total amount of coins purchased.

The market analyst made the observation that “large entities have been in deep accumulation mode ever since the FTX collapse,” and went on to say that “similar accumulation took happened in the 2018 and 2020 bottoms.”

Six on-chain data pointing to a potentially generational and long-term purchasing opportunity for bitcoin

A thread called Game of Trades (@GameofTrades_), which may be found here. The 23rd of January, 2023 The ratio of the current market capitalization to the annualised dormancy value is the measurement that is used to determine the Bitcoin entity-adjusted dormancy flow.

When the dormant value surpasses the market capitalization, the market is said to have fully capitulated, which in the past has been a favourable purchasing zone.

Glassnode reports that in 2022, this measure reached an all-time low, making it the lowest point it has ever been.

The level of confidence that long-term Bitcoin holders have in relation to the price of Bitcoin may be measured using Bitcoin’s reserve risk.

According to the statistics provided by Glassnode, this dropped to its all-time lowest level by the end of 2022.

The Realized Price (RP) of Bitcoin is the worth of all coins in circulation at the price at which they were last traded. This is an estimate of what the whole market paid for their coins.

Since the fall of FTX in November till the 13th of January, Woo Charts indicate that Bitcoin has been trading at a price that is lower than this level.

At this moment, it is located slightly over the RP, which gives even another possibility for buyers.

The Bitcoin MVRV Z-score indicates if BTC is highly overvalued or undervalued in comparison to its “fair value” or the price it has actually been traded for.

It is common practise to consider the bear market to be over when the indicator no longer falls under the highly undervalued zone.

Last but not least, there is something called the Puell Multiple, which investigates the fundamentals of mining profitability and its influence on market cycles.

Source

Tagged : / / /

Digital Surge narrowly avoids collapse

by Blockchain News

Despite having millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets locked up in the now-defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange, the Australian cryptocurrency exchange Digital Surge looks to have barely averted collapse.

A five-year bailout plan for Digital Surge was approved by the company’s creditors on January 24 (local time), with the goal of eventually refunding its 22,545 customers who have had their digital assets frozen on the platform since November 16. This plan will also allow the exchange to continue operating normally.

On December 8, the day the firm was placed under administrative control, the directors of the exchanges sent an email to the company’s clients with a rescue plan for the first time.

The Australian cryptocurrency exchange will be able to continue trading and operate as normal thanks to the “Deed of Company Arrangement,” which stipulates that the exchange will get a loan from a related company, Digico, in the amount of 1.25 million Australian dollars ($884,543).

The administrators at KordaMentha issued a statement in which they claimed that payments to creditors will be made out of the exchange’s quarterly net earnings over the course of the next five years.

According to an article that was published on January 24 by Business News Australia, KordaMentha was quoted as saying on that day that “customers would be compensated in cryptocurrency and fiat cash, depending on the asset composition of their particular claims.”

In addition, it was stated that “we anticipate additional notification will be delivered to all clients as the administration process with KordaMentha unfolds.”

The cryptocurrency exchange with its headquarters in Brisbane had been operating since 2017, but in November it became one of the victims of the collapse of FTX. The exchange froze withdrawals and deposits only a few days after FTX filed for bankruptcy and FTX Australia was placed under administration.

At the time, Digital Surge indicated that they had “some limited exposure to FTX” and that they would inform clients in two weeks’ time; nevertheless, it was subsequently found that this exposure amounted to around $23.4 million, according to KordaMentha.

Despite having a significant amount of exposure to FTX, the exchange is one of the very few crypto companies that has developed a concrete strategy to restore operations and prevent insolvency.

Since November, a number of cryptocurrency companies, including crypto lending businesses BlockFi and Genesis, have sought protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code as a consequence of their exposure to the impact of FTX and market instability.

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Bitcoin Cash advocate Roger Ver sued for $20.8 million

by Blockchain News

An affiliate of the cryptocurrency loan company Genesis has filed a lawsuit against the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) supporter Roger Ver for unresolved crypto options totaling $20.8 million. In the lawsuit that was filed against Ver on January 23 in the New York State Supreme Court, GGC International, which was a part of the defunct crypto lender, claimed that the BCH proponent had failed to settle crypto options transactions that had expired on December 30. GGC International filed the suit on behalf of the bankrupt crypto lender.

A total of twenty days was allotted to Ver in order for her to respond to the summons.

In the event that the BCH advocate does not provide a response within the allotted length of time, he will be required to pay the whole sum by default.

As this article is being written, the proponent of BCH has not yet provided a response to the case.

According to information provided on the Genesis website, GGC International is a business that operates out of the British Virgin Islands.

Genesis Bermuda Holdco Limited, which is a subsidiary of Genesis Global Holdco and is listed as an entity in the bankruptcy petition, is the owner of the company. In addition, Ver was in the news the previous year due to charges that he had defaulted on a loan.

Mark Lamb, the CEO of CoinFLEX, said that Ver was obligated to pay the company $47 million USD Coin (USDC) and that this obligation was stipulated in a written contract.

On June 28th, Ver also refuted these allegations while avoiding making direct reference to the corporation.

The cryptocurrency lender filed its petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York on January 20.

In order to advance the company’s operations, the company initiated a reorganisation that was overseen by the court.

A specialised committee will be in charge of the process, and their goal is to provide results that are satisfactory not just to Genesis customers but also to users of Gemini Earn.

In the meanwhile, creditors of Genesis have turned their attention to Digital Currency Group (DCG), the parent company of Genesis Global.

On January 24, creditors of Genesis filed a securities class action lawsuit against DCG and Barry Silbert, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.

The creditors asserted that the company had broken federal securities laws by selling unregistered securities, which they said was done in violation of the laws.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Australia Breaks Into Top 3 Nations for Crypto ATM

by Blockchain News

In spite of the bear market and the record-low dynamics of new Bitcoin ATM installations throughout the globe, Australia has broken into the top three countries internationally in terms of the number of cryptocurrency ATMs.

It wasn’t until the first few days of January that the Australians moved up to the fourth slot; since then, they’ve added another 16 computers to their network. According to the data provided by Coinatmradar, Australia now has 234 crypto ATMs, which places her in third place internationally behind the United States and Canada in terms of the number of available machines.

In three weeks it outpaced Spain, which possessed 222 crypto ATMs.

It’s all about dynamics: Australia installed 99 cryptocurrency ATMs in only the final three months of 2022, which is over half of the country’s entire number of machines.

Since the beginning of the year, Australia has added 16 new ATMs, while Spain has actually lost 4, and El Salvador, which occupies the fifth rank globally, has not registered a single new ATM. Australia leads the world in this category.

In general, the number of cryptocurrency ATMs in Australia, Spain, and El Salvador combined could not come close to matching the large number of ATMs in the United States. The United States of America is home to 33,387 machines, which accounts for 86.9% of all machines in the world.

Together with Canada (2.556) at the time of writing, they possess a remarkable 94.4% of all the crypto ATMs.

A bear market that lasted all of 2022, coupled with heightened geopolitical tensions and inflation on a global scale, led to a significant reduction in the number of cryptocurrency ATMs being installed.

Comparatively, only 94 Bitcoin ATMs were added to the global network between July and the end of 2022. This is in contrast to the 4,169 Bitcoin ATMs that were present during the first half of 2022.

The first Bitcoin ATM with integrated Lightning Network capabilities was installed in the city of Coolangatta, which is located in Australia, in the month of January 2023.

It functions in a manner that is analogous to that of conventional cryptocurrency ATMs, but the layer-2 Lightning solution allows for significant time savings.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Koris: A Smart Contract-Based Platform

by Blockchain News

The Web3 firm MetisDAO Foundation is responsible for the introduction of the smart contract-based platform known as Koris. By providing an end-to-end operational infrastructure, it makes it possible for decentralised organisations to manage and govern communities.

Even though DAO platforms already include collective decision-making and operational activities, the group is of the opinion that these platforms have the potential to be improved by the addition of technologies that aid in the expansion of Web3 firms. This is despite the fact that these platforms already include these features.

There is a growing need for decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) with greater management transparency, as stated by Chelsea Kubo, co-founder and chief operating officer of Koris.

She went on to say that “These management models and infrastructures are shown inside a DAC, and KORIS serves as a platform to aid companies in thriving in a web3 environment. DACs are used by many organisations.

Having said that, it is only a matter of time until large enterprises and web2 startups begin transitioning in the direction that is being discussed here.”

The project is currently operating in the closed beta phase at this point in time.

On the other side, the company has said that in the not too distant future, any single person will be able to create their very own DAC on Koris.

This comprises both private persons and businesses who have already established themselves as leaders in the Web3 industry and are interested in establishing their own communities.

In recent years, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) have been granted a substantial quantity of aid in order to further their growth.

In addition to Koris, the World Economic Forum (WEF) showed its support for decentralised autonomous organisations on January 17 by releasing a toolkit (DAOs).

The purpose of the paper, which is the result of contributions from more than one hundred individuals, was to serve as a jumping off point for decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) as they seek to develop effective solutions to issues of governance, operations, and legal compliance.

Source

Tagged : / /

XRP staking scam

by Blockchain News

The cryptocurrency community has raised flags about a new fraud targeting XRP (XRP) investors via a phoney staking scheme.

Online fraudsters are mimicking big cryptocurrency organisations like Ripple and Binance by constructing phoney websites and email imposters promising to provide staking services for XRP.

One of these websites has a blog post with the headline “XRP staking slated to debut January 2023 for retail customers,” in which users are invited to “stake” their XRP in exchange for returns on investment (ROI) that are implausibly high and range from 12 to 27 percent.

By claiming that a better return on investment (ROI) would be given to just the first 10,000 accounts, the fraudulent scam makes an effort to hasten the decision-making process of XRP investors.

The phoney website offers an accurate clone of Ripple’s website, ripple.com, by reproducing the actual website’s style and typefaces and connecting to some of Ripple’s earlier blog articles.

The impersonators also sought to add more credibility to their postings by including information on the significance of self-custody utilising major hardware wallets, such as Ledger or Trezor. This was done in an effort to make the posts seem more legitimate.

The fraudulent website has a large number of mirror domains, many of which finish in “.org.th” or “.com.ve,” and it is designed to defraud users of XRP from all over the globe.

Imposter letters purporting to be from Binance and claiming a return on investment (ROI) of up to 31% can be seen accompanying the fraudulent XRP staking website.

On January 21, a member of the industry who goes by the handle RipplePandaXRP came to Twitter to alert the XRP community of a fraud. ” Do not transmit your XRP to an unknown address, and always verify the address to determine if it is a legitimate site,” RipplePandaXRP said in a post on its website.

Having said that, the genuine Binance exchange does, in fact, include decentralised finance (DeFi) staking for XRP into its Binance Earn programme.

On the other hand, the XRP DeFi staking scheme that Binance offers only enables users to make up to 1.4% annually.

It is essential to keep in mind that XRP does not employ a proof-of-stake (PoS) method like other prominent proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, such as Ether. As a result, XRP cannot be staked (ETH).

Instead, the processing of XRP transactions is dependent on a network of “unique nodes” that reach a consensus over which transactions may be executed inside the network.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /

The U.K. government is recruiting for a head to its central bank digital currency project

by Blockchain News

The economic and financial ministry of the United Kingdom’s government, known as His Majesty’s Treasury, is in the process of hiring a head of central bank digital currency (CBDC) to oversee the creation of a digital version of the pound.

It has been said that the task is “important, difficult, and cross-cutting,” and that it would “need considerable collaboration within and beyond the HM Treasury.”

The argument for a digital pound is being investigated, as stated in the LinkedIn post, by the CBDC Taskforce, which is a collaboration between the Bank of England and the Treasury of the United Kingdom.

It is possible that the position of head of CBDC will bring the government of the United Kingdom one step closer to achieving its goal of implementing a CBDC.

A CBDC, often known as a digital pound, is not too distant from this.

Numerous nations all over the globe are investigating this and attempting to comprehend the advantages of this system in comparison to the one that is now in place; it is reasonable to assume that this will eventually take place.”

Indeed, the shift toward a digital pound is consistent with the trend of central banks all over the globe to investigate the possibilities presented by CBDCs.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has been doing extensive research on the possibility of a digital version of the euro, and many countries, like Sweden and Denmark, are also investigating the possibility of developing their own national digital currencies.

CBDCs make the claim that they can provide a variety of advantages, such as expanded financial inclusion, decreased costs for companies and customers, increased security and efficiency in the payment system, and so on.

Tony Yates, who served in a senior advisory role at the Bank of England in the past, has expressed his opposition to CBDCs.

We are concerned that there may be political pressure brought to the process that ignores or significantly downplays the risks that a CBDC poses to society. Resonating the thoughts of Dewar, he questioned the motivations behind the global rollouts of CBDCs, calling them “suspect”. In general, we are concerned that there may be political pressure that is brought to the process.”

The “digital” nature of money is another component that is called into question.

The United Kingdom is becoming an increasingly cashless and digital society: According to the Bank of England, less than 15% of payments are done using physical cash, and as many as 23 million individuals, which is almost one-third of the population in the United Kingdom, did not use cash at all in the year 2021.

When Scott questions the Treasury about a digital pound, Scott says, “Don’t we already have one?” 

Therefore, as soon as they have completed their exploratory phases, I would love to see a list of the advantages and new features that a CBDC will provide to the general population.”

Scott will “continue to concentrate on Bitcoin and establishing a worldwide, interoperable system that everyone can participate in” in the interim.

Dewar suggested that there is still a chance for Bitcoin and the government of the United Kingdom by saying, “The role description notes that the emergence of private sector money—such as Bitcoin—offers exciting opportunities for U.K. businesses and consumers, and we would very much agree with that at Bridge2Bitcoin.” There is still a chance for Bitcoin and the government of the United Kingdom.

Although there is currently no formal timetable in place, the Bank of England CBDC is intended to be made accessible to citizens of the United Kingdom.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /

Injective Launches $150 Million Ecosystem

by Blockchain News

Layer-1 blockchain technology Injective, which was established in 2018, has announced the introduction of a $150 million ecosystem fund to help developers that are developing on the Cosmos network.

The so-called ecosystem group is supported financially by a large consortium of venture capital and Web3 companies. These companies include Pantera Capital, Kraken Ventures, Jump Crypto, Kucoin Ventures, Delphi Labs, IDG Capital, Gate Labs, and Flow Traders.

According to Injective, the consortium has amassed the most members out of all those that have been formed inside the greater Cosmos ecosystem.

According to Injective, developers who are chosen for the fund will get help in the form of “bespoke token and equity investments”, in addition to mentoring, technical assistance, business growth, and marketing.

The greatest attention will be given to projects that are developing decentralised financial infrastructure (DeFI) and interoperability infrastructure.

The construction of trading platforms, scalability solutions, and proof-of-stake infrastructure are all initiatives that will benefit from the allocation of these funds “

In terms of stage, the organisation is generally interested in early-stage enterprises (seed to Series B), but it is open to the possibility of considering follow-on investment on an individual basis as well.

The amount of financing that is granted to each project will vary according to the stage it is currently in and the requirements it must meet in order to achieve the overall aim of ensuring that each project is successful.”

Injective is a decentralised smart contracts platform that was constructed using the Cosmos SDK, which is a development kit that encourages speedier and more cost-effective infrastructure than Ethereum. Injective is also known as the Injective Protocol.

According to Chen, in comparison to other blockchains, Cosmos has more adaptability, opportunities for customisation, and horizontal scalability.

According to CoinMarketCap, Cosmos is the 20th biggest blockchain network due to its market value of over $3.7 billion.

The term “decentralised finance” first appeared in public discourse in the summer of 2020, at the same time when a number of noteworthy projects initiated a bull market in cryptocurrencies not long after Bitcoin’s quadrennial halving.

Even though decentralised finance (DeFi) activity has slowed down over the course of the last year, the industry as a whole has been mostly immune to the problems that have been afflicting centralised finance (CeFi) platforms.

According to Chen’s additional explanation, “the decentralised structure of DeFi protocols provides for better transparency and actual control over assets,” which will always be a fundamental benefit over centralised finance.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Nifty Gateway Founders Resign

by Blockchain News

Duncan Cock Foster and Griffin Cock Foster, who were both co-founders of the nonfungible token (NFT) auction platform Nifty Gateway, announced their resignations in a thread that was posted on Twitter on January 25. Their departure is effective immediately.

In an attempt to justify their departure, Duncan said that “Griffin and I are entrepreneurs at heart, and we want to create another firm.” “When @Gemini purchased NG in 2019, Griffin and I agreed that if everything went well and we were happy in our new roles, we would each remain for a total of four years before launching a new venture.

The fact that we ended up staying the maximum length of time that we had anticipated being feasible is evidence of how enjoyable this trip was.”

This decision was made in the midst of a legal dispute between Gemini, the parent company of Nifty Gateway, and Genesis Global, a cryptocurrency lender that has since gone bankrupt.

After Genesis Global put a stop to withdrawals in November 2020 due to “extraordinary market circumstances,” Gemini claims that Genesis Global owes its members $900 million as part of the Gemini Earn programme that Gemini offers. Gemini is suing Genesis Global.

I have some news to share: after nearly four years, my colleague @gcockfoster and I have decided to leave @gemini and transfer the torch to @niftygateway.

This trip has been an amazing adventure, but Griffin and I are entrepreneurs at heart, and we want to launch another successful business together.

accompanied by some ideas down below:

— duncancockfoster.eth | Related Links The Nifty Gateway (@dccockfoster) Tweet of the Day for January 25, 2023 Nifty Gateway was established in 2018, and Gemini purchased it the following year.

Duncan said that in spite of the challenging financial situations at the parent firm, they have been “preparing for this transition for months” and that Nifty Gateway “is in excellent hands.”

In his writing, “Cameron [Winklevoss] and his brother Tyler Winklevoss are visionaries who saw the potential in NFTs a significant amount of time before nearly anybody else.

Nifty Gateway will continue to flourish because of the leadership provided by them.

“

As part of the shift, Eddie Ma will take over as “technical leader” for Nifty Gateway, while Tara Harris will move into the role of “leader” for non-tech operations. “It is common knowledge that transitions may bring about an increased sense of unpredictability about the future.

To that aim, in the weeks ahead, we will provide the general public with a road map and a strategy for the development of Nifty’s future.

In order to guarantee the smooth continuation of the mission after our departure, we want to maintain a connection to it in the capacity of advisors.”

Source

Tagged : / / / / /
Bitcoin (BTC) $ 27,601.40 2.70%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 1,666.42 3.88%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 66.38 2.23%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 241.92 0.85%