Day: January 26, 2023

The White House is continuing to develop its National Digital Assets Research and Development

by Blockchain News

The National Digital Assets Research and Development Agenda is still being worked on by the administration of United States Vice President Joe Biden, who is still in office.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has issued a request for information (RFI) dated January 26 and posted by the Federal Register. The OSTP is inviting comments to assist it in determining which agenda goals should be prioritised.

By the 23rd of March, individuals and groups may submit comments that are no more than ten pages in length. After the “first-ever” Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets was presented in September, the White House made the announcement that the formulation of the agenda would be the next step in the administration’s efforts.

The president’s executive order titled “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets,” which was issued in March, was the impetus for a flurry of research work relating to cryptocurrencies, and the new agenda is a component of that activity.

According to the request for information (RFI), the agenda’s goal was to “shape an effort by the whole government” to create digital assets and distributed ledger technology.

It was also referred to be a method to “kickstart basic research” and “continue to encourage research that turns technology advances into market-ready goods.”

It said there: “Research and development (R&D) in this area has often been carried out in a disjointed fashion, with little thought given to the wider ramifications, uses, and potential drawbacks of the inventions that are at the core of the field. […] A research and development strategy that takes a more comprehensive approach would give tangible areas of emphasis that might be used to realise a holistic vision of an ecosystem for digital assets that symbolises democratic principles in addition to other major concerns.”

The adoption of the Chips and Science Act in August resulted in the creation of a specialised post within the OSTP for blockchain technology.

As part of its mandate, the office investigated the effects that digital assets have on the environment and prepared a report on those effects. Additionally, as part of the ongoing and as of yet inconclusive consideration of a digital dollar for the United States, the office compiled a survey of central bank digital currency design options.

The response to Vice President Biden’s broad framework varied from lukewarm support to vehement expressions of dissatisfaction.

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Circle Spokesperson Denies Blaming SEC for Failed $9 billion deal

by Blockchain News

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has rejected claims that it blames the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the failure of its $9 billion plan to go public in December, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

The representative of the stablecoin issuer was responding to an article that was published on January 25 in the Financial Times. The article characterised Circle as having “blamed” the securities regulator for its “derailed” listing by dragging its feet on the approval of a merger agreement. “Circle has not and does not blame the SEC for anything related to the mutual termination of our SPAC merger agreement with Concord,” the representative said, adding that any statements to the contrary are inaccurate.

Circle’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was contingent on them being able to combine with Concord, a company that was established by banker Bob Diamond through an arrangement known as a Special Purpose Acquisition Company deal, also known as a SPAC deal. This was one of the requirements for Circle to be eligible for NYSE listing.

According to the Financial Times, Circle said that the merger was unable to be completed because the SEC did not declare the relevant S-4 registration valid in a timely manner. This would have caused the agreement to become null and void on December 10th.

The spokeswoman for Circle, on the other hand, drew reference to earlier remarks made by the business in December and said that “the contract just termed out.”

However, on December 5 — the same day that it was announced that the deal had been terminated — Concord filed an 8-K form with the SEC, which revealed that it was being delisted by the NYSE due to “abnormally low trading price levels.” Prior to this, Concord had not publicly disclosed a reason for the failed business combination.

In point of fact, Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire had nothing but positive things to say about the SEC in a tweet he posted on December 5. In the tweet, he mentioned that while it was disappointing that they were unable to complete qualifications in time, the company was still planning on becoming a publicly listed one.

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Kevin Rose, co-founder of Moonbirds, falls victim to phishing attack

by Blockchain News

Kevin Rose, who is also the co-founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) collection Moonbirds, has been a victim of a phishing scam, which has resulted in the loss of nonfungible tokens with a combined value of over $1.1 million that were individually owned by Kevin Rose. Moonbirds was a collection of nonfungible tokens that were named after birds.

On January 25, the news was made to the 1.6 million people who follow the person who created the NFT and a co-founder of PROOF on Twitter. He advised those people to refrain from collecting any Squiggles NFTs until his team was able to have them marked as stolen until his team could do so. Until they could do so, he urged them to wait to acquire any Squiggles NFTs.

Following that, sometime in the neighbourhood of two hours later, he revealed it in a following tweet.

It is believed that Rose’s non-financial assets were depleted when he authorised a bogus signature that transferred a significant amount of his non-financial assets to the exploiter. This theory is based on the fact that Rose may have been the victim of financial exploitation. This was the occurrence that resulted in Rose’s NFTs being used up completely. Because of this, Rose’s natural defence mechanisms (NFTs) were used to their utmost potential.

An independent investigation that was conducted by Arkham discovered that the exploiter stole at least one Autoglyph, which has a floor price of 345 Ether, at least nine OnChainMonkey items, each of which is worth at least 7.2 ether, at least 25 Art Blocks, also known as Chromie Squiggles, which are each worth at least a total of 332.5 ETH, and at least one OnChainMonkey item that is worth at least a total of 332.5 ETH

It is anticipated that a total of at least 684.7 ETH, which is equivalent to around $1.1 million, was successfully obtained.

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Creditors owed money by FTX

by Blockchain News

A comprehensive list of the creditors to whom the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX owed money has been made public. This list reveals the involvement of a wide variety of businesses and government organisations in the exchange’s failure.

Late on the 25th of January, legal representatives for FTX submitted the company’s creditor matrix to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

The huge document, which is 115 pages long, provides an alphabetized list of the names of the company’s debtors.

The list depicts a huge global network of enterprises, including airlines, hotels, charities, banks, venture capital firms, media outlets, and cryptocurrency startups, along with U.S. and foreign government bodies, all of whom are owed money by the failed exchange.

However, the identities of roughly 9.7 million (9,693,985) FTX users who have assets that are frozen on the exchange have been removed from the document.

Companies like as Coinbase, Galaxy Digital, Yuga Labs, Circle, Bittrex, Sky Mavis, Chainalysis, Messari, and entities of Binance are examples of notable businesses associated to cryptocurrencies and Web3 that are owed money by FTX.

A number of major businesses in the IT industry, including Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Meta, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Twitter, were also listed as creditors.

Several other news organisations, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CoinDesk, were named as possible sources.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as well as the tax offices of a number of other state agencies in the United States were included.

Creditors also include foreign government agencies, including those from Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong, amongst others.

Not only does FTX owe money to huge corporations, but it also seems to owe money to apparently smaller firms, since a pest treatment company headquartered in Nassau and a garden store are also on the list.

M Group, the previous public relations agency used by the corporation, was listed as a creditor in the documents.

FTX had engaged the business to represent them, however the company has said that it has terminated its relationship with FTX due to the latter’s insolvency.

The filing did not contain the amounts that were due by each business, and the fact that an entity was included on the list does not indicate that the entity had a trading account with FTX.

In earlier documents filed in November, attorneys for FTX predicted that the exchange may have more than a million unsecured creditors.

A former worker at FTX revealed information on the company’s “moronically wasteful” luxury spending habits in a Twitter thread that was published in December.

There are several businesses on the list that allude to the company’s previous exorbitant spending. For example, there are Uber Eats and Doordash entities from all around North America and Australia on the list, in addition to Airbnb and the names of many luxury hotels from all over the globe.

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Elizabeth Warren Wants SEC to Double Down on Crypto Enforcement

by Blockchain News

Elizabeth Warren, a senator in the United States who is well-known for her scepticism regarding cryptocurrencies, recently issued a call to action for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to “double down” on its attempts to regulate virtual currencies. She did so by urging the SEC to “double down” on its attempts to regulate virtual currencies. She is drawing attention to the fact that those involved in the bitcoin industry are now doing their business “scared” of what is going to happen by behaving in this way.

The words that Warren made were a part of an interview that took place on January 25 with the American Economic Liberties Projects. The interview was conducted by the American Economic Liberties Projects. It was Elizabeth Warren who first brought up these accusations.

The senator was of the opinion that ever since Gensler was inaugurated in as chairman of the SEC in April 2021, the Commission “has made a decent start” toward repairing some of the issues that were caused by the previous leaders of the SEC during the time that the Trump Administration was in power. This statement was made in reference to the fact that Gensler took over as chairman of the SEC in April 2021. This comment was made in response to the fact that Gensler assumed his position as chairman of the SEC in April of 2021. The senator believed that this was the case and expressed his opinion as such.

Warren stated that the previous administration of the SEC “basically gave the green light” to set up a market for cryptocurrencies that was “full of garbage tokens, unregistered securities, rug pulls, Ponzi schemes, pump and dumps, money launderings, and sanctions evasions.” Warren was referring to the fact that the market for cryptocurrencies was “filled with garbage tokens.” When Warren said that the cryptocurrency market was “packed with trash tokens,” he was alluding to the fact that the market was flooded with worthless tokens. When Warren referred to the market for cryptocurrencies as being “stuffed to the gills with garbage tokens,” he was making a reference to the fact that the market was awash with tokens that had no value.

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Mango Labs Sues Avraham Eisenberg for $47 Million

by Blockchain News

In its own legal action against the person known as Avraham Eisenberg, the firm known as Mango Labs, which is responsible for the creation of the decentralised finance (DeFi) system known as Mango Markets, has began the process. The name of the decentralised marketplace for trading financial instruments is Mango Markets.

In the complaint that was filed on January 25 with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, it is alleged that on October 20, 2022, Einseberg misappropriated its platform in order to acquire cryptocurrencies that have a value of millions of dollars. This allegation was made in the complaint that was submitted on January 25. The complaint that was handed in on January 25 included an accusation similar to this one.

It asserts that it is entitled to compensation for losses totaling $47 million, including interest dating back to the time of the event, and it uses the occurrence as the point of departure for the interest computation.

In addition, it requested that the agreement between Eisenberg and Mango’s linked decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) be declared “illegal and unenforceable” by the court so that Eisenberg and Mango’s connected DAO’s arrangement may be terminated.

Eisenberg had discussed a theory of governance, and the purpose of this agreement was in relation to that proposition. In the proposal, it was requested that the DAO allow them permission to keep $47 million, with the stipulation that Mango Markets would not pursue criminal charges for the depletion of its coffers. This was one of the conditions that was attached to the request. This was one of the requirements that had to be met in order for the request to be processed. As a condition of the agreement, Mango Markets committed to avoiding any kind of legal action about the subject.

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OpenSea NFT Marketplace Faces Legal Action for Alleged Lack of Security

by Blockchain News

A collector of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has initiated legal action against the OpenSea NFT marketplace for a number of alleged transgressions, one of which is that he was prevented from accessing his account for more than three months as a consequence of falling prey to a phishing scheme. “It took them more than forty-eight hours to reply, and by that time, the stolen goods had already been sold at a drastically reduced price since the buyer had prioritised speed above value.”

In addition, the NFT marketplace took action and locked his account to prevent any more harm from occurring.

Acres, on the other hand, claims that this was not the answer he was looking for. ” Despite my continuous requests to liberate my assets, OpenSea kept my assets for ransom for almost three months,” he stated. In addition to this, the investor claims that in order to unlock his account, OpenSea asked him to provide a statement in which he lied under oath.

The NFT investor is of the opinion that the marketplace ought to be held responsible for the losses that were sustained during the period in question.

Acres is certain that the damages that have been assessed as a result of OpenSea’s conduct total $500,000 in total.

As a result of this, Acres sought the assistance of legal counsel in order to pursue legal action against OpenSea.

The attorney verified that there are several clients struggling with the same problem.

Schaefer elaborated as follows: “On the OpenSea marketplace, I have had conversations with and represent multiple clients who have had their NFTs stolen or their accounts hacked in some way.

In some circumstances, OpenSea will take responsibility for its mistakes and make the account holder whole again.

In other cases, OpenSea chooses to just disregard the problem.

Aside from this, the attorney made the following observation: “OpenSea must not let itself be distracted by growth, investor money, or gross income; instead, it should concentrate on the individuals who purchase and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs), its consumers. The alleged theft occurred outside of OpenSea, and the products were sold before OpenSea became aware that the crime had been reported. As soon as we were made aware of the situation and received notification of it, we deactivated the products in question, and the user’s account has been unlocked ever since.”

In addition, the platform said that it has made investments in equipment and employees in order to prevent and identify theft and put a stop to the resale of things that have been stolen via its platform.

The NFT marketplace implemented a new regulation regarding stolen items on August 11, 2022, with the intention of incorporating and expanding the usage of police records.

In reaction to this, a number of users have taken to Twitter to assert that OpenSea was unable to assist them in recovering their NFT after it was stolen.

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U.S. Federal prosecutors allege that Sam Bankman-Fried

by Blockchain News

The United States government may have uncovered another another component of Sam Bankman-cryptocurrency Fried’s enterprise thanks to their investigation.

According to The New York Times, federal prosecutors in the United States have accused that Bankman-Fried invested money from the FTX exchange in the venture capital (VC) business Modulo Capital using funds obtained from the FTX exchange.

It was previously stated that SBF’s hedge fund and FTX’s sister business, Alameda Research, spent a total of $400 million in Modulo in 2022. This was one of SBF’s most substantial investments, and it became one of the most prominent investments overall.

The fact that Modulo, a relatively unknown company, was able to raise a considerable amount of cash amid hard times for the cryptocurrency market drew the attention of authorities, who have shown a special interest in the fundraising.

According to the most recent information obtained by the detectives working for SBF, the investment in Modulo was most likely made using the profits of a crime or with money that had been stolen from FTX clients and placed with the exchange.

According to the authorities, Modulo had developed into an essential component of the inquiry.

As the attorneys for FTX struggle to collect the billions of dollars owed to reimburse their customers, investors, and other creditors, Modulo’s assets are apparently coming into focus for their investigation.

The location of the SBF’s 400 million dollar investment has not been revealed as of yet.

Modulo Capital was created in March 2022 by three former executives of Jane Street, a New York-based business that had employed Bankman-Fried and Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.

According to reports, Duncan Rheingans-Yoo, who was purportedly one of the founders, had just recently graduated from college.

Xiaoyun Zhang, sometimes known as Lily, was another one of Modulo’s co-founders. She had worked as a trader on Wall Street in the past and had some connections to SBF.

It is also common knowledge that Modulo operates its business out of the same condo complex in the Bahamas from where SBF operated.

The disclosure comes at a time when a commissioner for the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Christy Goldsmith Romero, is calling into question the work that venture capitalists and money managers that sponsored FTX did in terms of their due diligence.

Earlier, the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore confirmed that the investment company Temasek, which is controlled by the Singaporean government, was at risk of suffering “reputational harm” as a result of their investment in FTX.

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Tether and INHOPE Join Forces to Fight Child Abuse Material Online

by Blockchain News

Tether is hoping that by collaborating with INHOPE, it will be possible to increase the visibility of bitcoin payments used in content marketplaces that promote child abuse and make it simpler for authorities to handle these types of payments. In addition, Tether hopes that this will make it possible to increase the visibility of bitcoin payments used in content marketplaces that promote child abuse. The operator of the stablecoin will engage with INHOPE, a worldwide network that combats online child sexual abuse material (CSAM), to exchange information, interact with stakeholders, and enforce measures against criminal actors that originate from the cryptocurrency ecosystem. CSAM stands for child sexual abuse material. INHOPE is a global network that works to remove sexually abusive content from the internet that targets children (CSAM).

The chief technical officer of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, said that the business was collaborating with law enforcement agencies, financial intelligence units, legislators, and standard-setting groups from all around the world to develop “appropriate risk-mitigating approaches.” ” We have a particular interest in improving the capacity of businesses that deal in cryptocurrencies to recognise transactions that are related to online CSAM markets and to report payments of this kind to the appropriate authorities. This is something that has been occupying a lot of our thoughts in recent times.

Since the beginning of the organisation in 1999, INHOPE has maintained a communication hotline network that is comprised of nodes located all over the world. This network encompasses not just all of the nations that are affiliated with the European Union but also those of Russia, South Africa, North and South America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

The unlawful use of cryptocurrencies as a means of financing the sale of content depicting child abuse is the goal of the agreement, and its objective is to make an effort to put a stop to this practise. This objective will be achieved via the combined efforts of all of the parties that are a part of the agreement.

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