Day: February 23, 2023

Former FTX CEO’s attorneys agree to pay for security expert to assist

by Blockchain News

The attorneys who are defending former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried have come to an agreement to foot the bill for a security expert who will assist the federal judge who is presiding over his fraud case in navigating modern encryption technology. This will help the judge decide whether or not to modify Bankman-bail Fried’s conditions.

On February 21, attorneys Christian Everdell and Mark Cohen of Bankman-Fried issued a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan in which they expressed their agreement with his suggestion that he get assistance from a technical specialist.

The letter states that “the defense has already begun researching and contacting possible experts and anticipates being able to propose one or more potential candidates to the court by the end of this week.” The letter also states that “the defense has already begun researching and contacting possible experts.”

At a bail hearing that took place a week ago, Judge Kaplan indicated that bail conditions should be increased when it was determined that Bankman-Fried had been accessing the internet using a virtual private network (VPN) (virtual private network).

It is common practice to use a virtual private network, often known as a VPN, in order to alter one’s internet protocol (IP) address, to provide an extra layer of protection to one’s communications, or to access information that is prohibited under authoritarian regimes.

The court has been attempting to find a middle ground between granting Bankman-Fried access to communication channels so that he may prepare his case and preventing the abuse of messaging applications and privacy software.

Judge Kaplan has placed a temporary prohibition on Bankman-Fried using any virtual private network (VPN) or encrypted chat applications until his bail conditions have been resolved.

The technical expert will assist the court in navigating challenges relating to encrypted communications, messaging programs that prioritize privacy, and virtual private networks (VPNs).

Bankman-Fried and his counsel claim that he utilized the virtual private network (VPN) on two separate occasions: first to watch the NFL playoffs on January 29 and another time to watch the Super Bowl on February 12.

The prosecution has requested that Bankman-access Fried’s to the internet and other chat platforms be severely restricted as a condition of his release on bail. They also said that the usage of a virtual private network (VPN) “created various possible issues” about the potential access to cryptocurrency sites that had prohibited users from the United States.

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Father of two facing the dire prospect of losing his family forever

by Blockchain News

After surreptitiously accumulating up $180,000 in debt as a result of his crypto trading activities, a man who admits to being addicted to cryptocurrency trading and who is also a father of two faces the terrifying potential of losing his family for ever.

Reddit user “u/Leather Opposite2135” posted his account on the forum r/relationship advice on February 21. In the post, the user indicated that he began experimenting with trading cryptocurrencies around the year 2021.

Fast forward another two years, and we find him living on the street now, having been booted out of the house by his wife and owing at least $180,000 in debt.

“At first, it was nothing more than a hobby,” said Leather. Since it deals with technology, I thought that aspect of it to be rather fascinating. Joined a number of online communities, including Discord, and after some time, saw a few individuals engaging in bitcoin trading. Afterward, I was instantly hooked.

After just one year, he had already “burned” a total of $50,000 by trading cryptocurrencies, with the majority of the monies lost coming from his software company.

“Fast ahead another year, and it got very awful,” said Leather, adding that his addiction had begun to take root as he began to support his trading via other methods, such as personal loans and credit cards. “Skip forward another year and it became really bad,” added Leather.

“I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but I found all kinds of methods to finance it, including acquiring personal loans, credit cards, and lying about all of it,” the speaker says. “I’m sure you’ve heard it before.”

“I gambled on my phone when I went to the restroom, while the kids were asleep, and on my computer when I wasn’t busy working,” the gambler said. “When I wasn’t busy working, I was gambling on my phone.”

Leather said that around three weeks ago he finally told his wife the truth about the debt they owed. His wife did not react well to the news and threatened to divorce him and seize control of the home they shared together.

Since then, he has cut himself off from the cryptocurrency market, given his wife management of their trading accounts, and has been meeting weekly with a gambling addiction counselor. However, he admits that it was initially difficult for him to break the addiction to gambling.

“Emotionally, the first two weeks were a mess for me. I was all over the place. I had to quit something cold turkey that I spent at least ten hours a day doing. While all this was going on, a still little voice on my shoulder kept encouraging me to go look at some charts.

Although Leather Opposite2135 has since removed the original post from Reddit, it is not the first nor the last tale to draw light on the potential consequences of being addicted to trading cryptocurrencies.

Alongside the treatment of addiction to alcohol and narcotics as well as mental health issues, rehabilitation clinics all over the globe have started offering treatment for compulsive behaviors like cryptocurrency trading addiction.

“In a manner similar to gambling, many of them will claim that it interferes with their day-to-day lives, that they spend a great deal of time thinking about it, and that as a consequence, they may also be suffering financial difficulty.”

Dr. Hronis pointed out that addiction to cryptocurrency trading is comparable to that of online gambling since both include a “easy of accessibility” that may be “very harmful for people.”

It is possible to see a person going about their typical day-to-day activities, such as going to work, spending time with family and friends, participating in hobbies, and so on, while at the same time trading alongside those activities. This indicates that a person’s addiction may genuinely progress to a significant level before anybody else in that person’s life becomes aware of it.

“Considering how recently cryptocurrency trading has emerged, I believe that therapy is still playing catch-up to some degree. “While the broad concepts of treating an addiction may undoubtedly be applied here, there are peculiarities with crypto trading that would benefit from being better understood in order to better advise clinical therapies,” Dr. Hronis noted. “There is a lot of room for improvement in this area.”

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LinksDAO and Spey Bay Golf Club

by Blockchain News

LinksDAO, a golf business run by a decentralized autonomous organization, is considering making a bid to buy the recently placed up for sale Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland, which is estimated to be worth approximately $900,000.

After a few weeks of informal discussion, the proposal vote was officially opened on February 20 by LinksDAO, which describes itself as a “global group of golf enthusiasts” with the goal of building the “world’s greatest golf community.” This event followed the official opening of the vote on February 20.

It would be the very first time that the DAO has ever purchased a golf course.

At the time this article was written, more than 88 percent of the 4,100 LinksDAO tokenholders had already voted in support of the proposal. The voting period will officially end on February 22 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

The proposal stated that the LinksDAO acquisition committee will meet with the relevant parties required to construct a “compelling offer” for the purchase of the club “with the full intent of successfully purchasing the golf course” in the event that the final tally remains in favor of the purchase.

The authors of the proposal, who identified themselves as “Bez,” “Jim,” “cbruce,” and “nickwalkermsu,” explained that even though the majority of the DAO’s research efforts have been focused on locating an appropriate golf course purchase in the United States, “this listing was too special to ignore.”

“During the course of our hunt for a golf course to buy, we came across a potentially advantageous piece of real estate in Scotland known as the Spey Bay Golf Club. The purpose of this vote is to decide whether or not we should proceed with making an offer and working toward purchasing the course.

The writers also said that the course is “playable now,” and they mentioned that the course’s high ceiling in comparison to its inexpensive price makes it a worthwhile investment.

According to the authors’ explanation, “even a price that is quadruple the ‘recommended price’ would be lower than most subpar courses we have reviewed so far in the United States.” 

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Alexis Ohanian bought 50000 ETH

by Blockchain News

According to reports, Alexis Ohanian, one of the co-founders of the social media website Reddit, purchased 50,000 Ether (ETH) coins during the presale of the cryptocurrency in 2014 for only $15,000, which works out to a price of about 30 cents per coin.

Ohanian, who had left the social media giant in 2020, stated in an interview with Forbes on February 21 that he found the concept of a decentralized store of value to be very appealing, in part due to his Armenian heritage. This led him to take an early gamble on Ethereum. Ohanian left the social media giant in 2020.

“Any group of people who have in their consciousness or in their collective history some idea of persecution, especially by a state, makes the idea of a store of value that is not controlled by any one state very attractive.” [Citation needed] “Any group of people who have in their consciousness or in their collective history some idea of persecution, especially by a state.” And so, in some respects it was ingrained in me at the time, and this made me open to the concept of a decentralized currency in a manner.

According to CoinMarketCap, the value of this investment has skyrocketed to an astounding $82.5 million at today’s rates, marking a growth of 549,589% from its initial value.

He went on to describe how Turkish forces had taken the ancestral carpets that had been passed down through his family during the Armenian genocide that occurred during World War I. This is what sparked his interest in “unseizable property.”

Ohanian is a strong supporter of self-custody, perhaps as a result of his distaste to having his property seized. He keeps some of his most valuable crypto-related assets off exchanges, which makes them less susceptible to the prying eyes of governments. He is in charge of managing the secret keys to these investments.

Ohanian said that he recognized the possibility for developers to construct a broad variety of possibly unseizable assets on top of Ethereum when he first heard about it during a meeting with the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Some examples of these types of assets include nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

As a direct consequence of this, he made his first investment in Ether; nevertheless, he later said in an interview that “in retrospect, I didn’t invest nearly as much as I should have.”

Ohanian used the money he made from his early investments in Ether and Coinbase to launch his own venture capital company, which he called 776, in the year 2020. The company has financial stakes in 29 cryptocurrency-related firms, and in February 2022, it successfully secured $500 million to fund more investments of a similar kind.

Following Ohanian’s line of thinking that investors may take advantage of the opportunity to purchase assets at lower prices during a bear market, the company has seen the most recent market slump as the ideal moment to place long-term bets on the cryptocurrency business.

The company now has more than 750 million dollars’ worth of assets under management.

Ohanian made the observation that while cryptocurrencies are incredibly unpredictable, “there are enough of individuals who have the generational awareness of experiencing enormous inflation,” which makes the volatility of cryptocurrencies much more tolerable.

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US Congress needs to take control of crypto legislation

by Blockchain News

According to Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, a prominent U.S. crypto industry nonprofit, the United States Congress needs to take control of crypto legislation and make it a more “open process” where the entire marketplace is looked at “comprehensively.” This recommendation comes from Smith, who serves as the president of the Blockchain Association.

During an interview with Bloomberg on February 22, 2019, Smith said that the cryptocurrency business need U.S. politicians to lead crypto legislation, despite the fact that this would make the process “extremely long.” In the meanwhile, regulators will “step in.”

Smith mentioned that despite regulators “moving very quickly,” progress on legislation is happening “behind closed doors,” implying that it is essential for more industry involvement in a “open process,” which would involve Congress. He said this to suggest that it is vital for more industry involvement in a “open process.”

Smith is of the opinion that “very particular facts and circumstances” are at the root of the problem with legislators taking the lead on legislation via enforcement actions and settlements.

She stated that it is a tough situation for Congress to be in at the present due to the fact that many people in Washington, D.C. who “were close” to the former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX feel “burned” and “betrayed” over the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022.

Smith is optimistic that stablecoin legislation will soon be implemented in the United States because, according to Smith, Congress has been looking into it “since 2019” and “the work has been done.” She said that it “came close” to occurring the year before, just before to the failure of FTX.

She went on to say that the dangers associated with cryptocurrencies are distinct from those associated with conventional financial services, and that as a result, regulators need to spend more time looking at market regulation and “tailor to those risks.”

Smith suggested that stablecoin and “market side” regulation should be a higher priority than focusing on legislating crypto-related criminal activity, saying that public ledgers make it “much more transparent” than what we see in the traditional financial system. This idea stemmed from Smith’s assertion that stablecoins and “market side” regulation were more important than focusing on legislating crypto-related criminal activity.

This comes after the chief policy officer of the Blockchain Association, Jake Chervinsky, took to Twitter on February 15 to state that regardless of how many enforcement actions the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission bring, they are “bound by legal reality.” Chervinsky also stated that “neither” has the authority to “comprehensively regulate crypto.” This news comes after Chervinsky made these statements.

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Payments giant PayPal and Galaxy raise $20 million

by Blockchain News

They are based in New York City and run their company from there. The cloud platform that is in charge of the upkeep of blockchains and protocols is managed by Chaos Labs, which also has the responsibility of monitoring the platform. Chaos Labs is in charge of the administration of this platform. The well-known online payment network PayPal and the investment management company Galaxy worked together in order to infuse an initial capital of twenty million dollars into the fledgling firm. This was made possible via their collaboration. We were able to do this through cooperating with one another.

In order to protect cryptographic protocols against threats that are derived from the outside world, Chaos Labs makes use of an automated risk management platform. Because of this, it will be easier to protect the protocols against threats that come from the outside world. The platform is capable of running agent-based simulations as well as scenario-based simulations; using any of these two types of simulations helps to the platform’s capacity to protect protocols against economic vulnerabilities and market manipulation events. Due to the aforementioned reason, the platform is in a position to accomplish the objective that was stated before.

The initial funding will be put toward the primary objective of the investment, which is to make it possible for Chaos Labs to increase the degree to which it is able to automate on-chain risk optimization. This will be accomplished by making it feasible for Chaos Labs to increase the degree to which it can automate on-chain risk optimization. This will be achieved by putting the money into working toward the achievement of this objective.

There were a total of 23 different companies that took part in the round of fundraising, in addition to the six angel investors who were involved. The members of this organization include a number of well-known companies and individuals, including Coinbase Ventures, Polygon, Avalanche, OpenSea UniSwap, and Balaji Srinivasan, to mention just a few examples. Balaji Srinivasan is also a part of this organization as a member of its membership.

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Tim Beiko announced Shapella upgrade

by Blockchain News

Tim Beiko, a key developer for Ethereum, has revealed that the next planned update for Shapella would take place on February 28. When epoch 56832 arrives, the Shapella network update will become operational on the Sepolia network.

The names Shanghai and Capella (Shapella) are now being considered for the forthcoming Ethereum hard split. On the execution layer client side, the fork is referred to by the name Shanghai, whereas on the consensus layer client side, the upgrade is referred to by the name Capella.

On the execution layer, some major Ethereum improvement proposal (EIP) enhancements include push withdrawals on the Beacon Chain and warm coinbase. Warm coinbase should not be confused with the cryptocurrency exchange. By using a new “system-level” operation type, the push withdrawals will make it possible for validators to withdraw funds from the Beacon Chain and send them to the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Warm Coinbase, on the other hand, has the potential to be a game-changer by lowering the network costs that builders must pay.

The piece of software known as Coinbase is what builders on the network use to be credited with newly issued coins. Each and every new transaction on the network is required to have many interactions with the Coinbase program. Because the program takes more time to “warm up,” the charge for the first engagement is higher than the fee for subsequent interactions, which decrease as the number of contacts increases. However, with the implementation of EIP-3651, the coinbase software will stay warm from the start, and users will be required to pay a lesser gas charge in order to access it.

The initial unique historical roots have been replaced by complete and partial withdrawals for validators, as well as independent state and block historical accumulators. These are some of the major modifications that have been made to the consensus layer.

The ability to make a partial withdrawal enables validators to continue verifying transactions while withdrawing ether (ETH) rewards in amounts greater than 32 ether. Validators have the option to entirely abandon the system, collect all 32 Ether and awards, and call it quits if they wish to make a full withdrawal.

The next update will provide validators the ability to transfer their staked Ether (stETH) from the Beacon Chain to the execution layer so that they may spend it. In addition, the update would bring about modifications to the execution and consensus layers, as well as the addition of new functionality; hence, it would be an essential upgrade after the Merge.

In order to take advantage of the Sepolia update, however, stakers and non-stakers who run nodes are need to bring their nodes up to date with the most current versions of the Ethereum client. The next phase would be the release of the Shanghai upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli test network, which is anticipated to begin in the month of March. This would be the following step after the deployment of the Sepolia upgrade.

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Binance Launches In-Store Crypto Payment Solution with Ingenico

by Blockchain News

Adoption of cryptocurrencies and services based on cryptocurrencies is continuing to gain traction, with an increasing number of businesses bridging the gap between conventional financial (TradFi) solutions and decentralized financial (DeFi) solutions.

Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, and Ingenico, a provider of credit card processing services, jointly announced on February 22 the start of a new pilot program that enables in-store cryptocurrency payments to be made using Binance Pay. At present time, the beta version of this service is only accessible via the Ingenico Axium payment terminals that are located in France.

The statement states that the application is compatible with more than fifty different cryptocurrencies. In the beginning, payments to merchants will be made using a cryptocurrency. However, in the second quarter of 2023, a crypto-to-fiat solution that will enable businesses to accept payments in fiat currency is scheduled to pilot.

Le Carlie and Miss Opéra, two merchants operating in the hotel and retail industries respectively, are coming online as part of the France trial.

The following nations on the agenda for service expansion are going to be more European countries where Binance is a licensed cryptocurrency operator. Binance has been granted authorization to do business in the countries of France, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Cyprus, Poland, and Sweden.

To begin using cryptocurrencies, in-store devices will often need some type of integration before they can be used. On the other hand, the new solution claims that it is a “all-in-one” gadget, which simplifies the onboarding process for both retailers and customers.

Binance Pay and Binance Card’s Head Jonathan Lim referred to the all-in-one gadget as a “new method to approach the market” and said that it would “accelerate access to customers.”

Binance has been working on a variety of global payment options over the course of the last year. It just just formed a partnership with Mastercard to provide a prepaid crypto card in Brazil, after a successful launch of the product in Argentina in August of 2022.

There have also been efforts made by other businesses to bridge the gap between the Web2 and Web3 payment systems. The announcement of the cooperation between Bit2Me and Mastercard to introduce a debit card that delivers bitcoin rewards was made on February 10th.

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Partnership to Tokenize Artifacts Recovered from the Titanic

by Blockchain News

A cooperation that is being developed by the business that is responsible for stewarding the sunken vessel will result in the artifacts that have been salvaged from the wreckage of the Titanic being tokenized using blockchain technology.

RMS Titanic (RMST), a business located in Hong Kong called Venture Smart Financial Holdings, and Artifact Labs, a company specializing in Web3 technology, have formed a collaboration to begin tokenizing rare relics from the Titanic in order to unleash a wide variety of Web3 capabilities.

Certain items from the lost ship Titanic will be maintained as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which will enable the general public to take part in shared ownership of the artifacts. The RMST is the only organization authorized to retrieve items from the Titanic and the larger debris field that it left behind from the ocean floor in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Tokenizing the intellectual property that is associated with the artifacts will be the responsibility of Venture Smart Financial Holdings, which will be given this duty. To facilitate “compliance money raising” for the purpose of funding continued research, recovery, preservation, display, and licensing of RMST’s assets, the tokenized instruments are planned to be provided to accredited investors. This will establish an avenue for “compliant capital raising.”

Using the in-house NFT blockchain system that Artifact Labs has developed, the company will issue NFTs for each of the 5,500 objects that were salvaged from the sunken ship. It has been decided that any future items that are recovered from the location where the Titanic came to rest would likewise be issued as NFTs.

It is said that these NFTs provide collectors with a variety of special experiences, such as invitations to VIP events and exhibits, seminars led by historians, and other unique opportunities. Outside of the actual displays that will take place in Atlanta and Las Vegas, the NFTs will develop a digital method to engage with the RMST material.

The statement states that the first collection of Titanic NFTs would include an extremely limited number of digital artifacts. This will serve as the cornerstone for the Titanic Web3 community.

Artifact Labs is also aiming to establish a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called the Titanic DAO. This would provide members the opportunity to take part in a variety of activities and suggestions pertaining to upcoming exhibits at the Titanic site.

The production of educational programs, digital material and films, research, collaborations, and events will also be facilitated by the DAO. Additionally, it is anticipated that members of the DAO will have some input about the conservation and display of objects salvaged from the debris.

The treasury of the Titanic DAO will be administered by members with the use of governance tokens, and it will be financed using the revenues from the sale of NFT.

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BIS has long taken a cautious approach

by Blockchain News

Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies have been regarded with suspicion by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for a considerable amount of time. According to the BIS, however, there is no longer any need to exercise care since the “war has been won” between fiat and cryptocurrency.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the general manager of the BIS, Agustn Carstens, who is responsible for making the assertion, emphasized that “technology does not make for trustworthy money,” among other objections of cryptocurrency.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which serves as the central bank for central banks, has emphasized the need for regulation and risk management in the cryptocurrency space. However, the BIS’s assertion that the battle between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies has been won sparked outrage, satire, and corrections within the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency community.

“Want to irritate those fools to no end? Ignore their fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) bait and put all of your attention on what’s occurring in the global south and on the streets of Nigeria.

In the meanwhile, Lady Anarki, an advocate for Bitcoin who recently shut down a firm that provided Bitcoin Security Education, said that “fiat and crypto are fundamentally the same exact swindle.”

“In the case of fiat currency, it is a group of wicked elite oligarchs who are building a rigged game system in order to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. Bitcoin is a system that was created with incentives and good economic concepts in mind, and it is meant to empower anybody who contributes value to the world.

As Carstens said, this is another another allusion to the fact that Bitcoin has been proclaimed dead, dead, and dead again. It is also a reference to the reality that Bitcoin lost the “battle” for money. The bear market in 2022 and 2023 is not going to be any different, and Bitcoin supporters on Twitter have been quick to embrace the chance to ridicule financial gurus who are dancing on the fictitious grave of the decentralized currency.

Despite this, Bitcoin has gained more over forty percent from its lows in 2022, and adoption of the Lightning Network is thriving as the community looks to be becoming more outspoken.

This week, the Bitcoin Information Service (BIS) issued another incendiary remark, and the famous podcast What Bitcoin Did, which is hosted by Peter McCormack, tweeted some helpful numbers to rectify the statement. Notably, the BIS said that “almost all economies incurred losses on their Bitcoin holdings” between August 2015 and December 2022. This is an important point to note.

In spite of the BIS’ best attempts to the contrary, it seems like the price of bitcoin will continue its upward trajectory.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has been an outspoken opponent of cryptocurrencies, expressing worries about the volatility, scalability, and energy consumption of these digital assets. In contrast to Carsten’s statement in the Bloomberg interview that “technology does not make for trustworthy money,” the BIS has conducted research on stablecoins and is leading the creation of central bank digital currencies in conjunction with numerous nations.

Willem Middelkoop, an author and enthusiast for Bitcoin, recently emphasized that the conflict between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies is not yet resolved. If one were to skim over the comments on the initial tweet from Bloomberg Crypto, one would get the impression that the conflict is just beginning to heat up.

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Bitcoin (BTC) $ 27,760.44 1.71%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 1,648.01 0.19%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 64.33 1.57%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 231.89 0.88%