cryptocurrencies
$3.9 billion lost in the cryptocurrency market in 2022: Report
Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the Web3 ecosystem, published a report on Jan. 6 revealing that the crypto industry lost a total of 3.9 billion dollars in 2022. According to the report, hacks were found to be the main cause of the losses, accounting for 95.6% of the total, with fraud, scams, and rug pulls comprising the remaining 4.4%. Immunefi also found that decentralized finance (DeFi) was the most targeted sector, suffering 80.5% in losses, compared to centralized finance (CeFi) which suffered a loss of 19.5%. According to the report: “DeFi has suffered $3,180,023,103 in total losses in 2022, across 155 incidents. This number represents a 56.2% increase compared to 2021, when DeFi lost $2,036,015,896, in 107 incidents.” BNB and Ethereum were the mos...
NFT project accepted $3M to move its collection to Polygon
The team behind y00ts and DeGods were paid $3m to move their collections off Solana and onto Polygon, according to a January 6 announcement from the company. The statement was made on Discord and copied to Twitter by Frank III, founder of the two projects. Here is a screenshot of our latest @y00tsNFT Discord announcement. pic.twitter.com/qWxjBsexv6 — Frank III (@frankdegods) January 6, 2023 The developers had previously announced on Dec. 27 that the projects would be moving to Polygon. This was widely seen as a possible death blow to the Solana network, as the network was already under pressure due to fallout from the collapsed FTX exchange. However, there was no evidence at the time that the y00ts team had received money in exchange for making the move Let’s check the temperature on #sola...
Marathon Digital experiments with overclocking to increase competitive advantage
One of the largest Bitcoin mining operations in North America, Marathon Digital Holdings, has shared in an update that it has been experimenting with overclocking to increase its competitive advantage in the Bitcoin mining industry. Overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock speed of a computer’s central processing unit (CPU) or graphics processing unit (GPU) beyond the manufacturer’s rated maximum speed, potentially leading to improved performance in certain tasks. According to the company’s press release, it produced 475 BTC in December 2022, bringing its total mined Bitcoins in the fiscal year of 2022 to 4,144 BTC, a 30% increase from 3,197 BTC which was produced in 2021. Marathon’s Chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel commented on the company’s decision to experimen...
Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade could supercharge liquid staking derivatives — Here’s how
The crypto market witnessed the DeFi summer of 2020, where decentralized finance applications like Compound and Uniswap turned Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) into yield-bearing assets via yield farming and liquidity mining rewards. The price of Ether nearly doubled to $490 as the total liquidity across DeFi protocols quickly surged to $10 billion. Toward the end of 2020 and early 2021, the COVID-19-induced quantitative easing across global markets was in full effect, causing a mega-bull run that lasted almost a year. During this time, Ether’s price increased nearly ten times to a peak above $4,800. After the euphoric bullish phase ended, a painful cool-down journey was exacerbated by the UST-LUNA crash which began in early 2022. This took Ether’s price down to $800. A ray of hope eventually...
Bonk token goes bonkers as traders chase after high yields in the Solana ecosystem
Bonk, a meme token modeled after Shiba Inu (SHIB) that launched on Dec. 25, is skyrocketing and some traders believe the token’s trading volume is potentially driving Solana’s (SOL) price up. Over the past 48 hours, SOL price has gained 34%, and in the past 24 hours, Bonk has climbed 117%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. While the wider crypto market remains suppressed, traders are hoping that Bonk could present new opportunities during the downturn. According to the project’s website, Bonk is the first dog token on the Solana blockchain. Initially, 50% of the token supply was airdropped to Solana users with a mission to remove toxic Alameda-styled token economics. The airdrop resulted in more than $20 million in trading volume according to the Solana decentralized exchange Orc...
Ripple CEO optimistic about US ‘regulatory clarity for crypto’
Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, shared in a Jan. 3 Twitter thread he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the United States gaining “breakthrough” regulatory clarity for the cryptocurrency industry in 2023. To mark the first day of the 118th Congress, Garlinghouse shared his hopes of 2023 being the year the U.S. gained regulatory clarity for crypto and added support for regulation is “bipartisan & bicameral.” Today is the first day of the 118th Congress. While prior efforts at regulatory clarity for crypto in the US have stalled, I am cautiously optimistic that 2023 is the year we will (finally!) see a breakthrough. A thread on why… — Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 3, 2023 Garlinghouse said the U.S. was not starting with a “blank slate” for regulation, r...
Bithumb former chair Lee Jung-Hoon acquitted in the first instance
Lee Jung-hoon, the former chair of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, was found not guilty on Jan. 3 by the 34th Division of the Criminal Agreement of the Seoul Central District Court. Jung-Hoon was on trial under accusations of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment Of Specific Economic Crimes due to fraud. The case has been ongoing since October 2018, when the former chairman allegedly defrauded 100 billion won ($70 million) during negotiations for the acquisition of Bithumb from Kim Byung-gun, chairman of the cosmetic surgery company BK Group. Jung-hoon could’ve faced an 8-year sentence had he been found guilty. According to the local press, in its official response to the ruling, Bithumb said it respects the court’s decision. The exchange also clarified that it i...
Hong Kong brokers line up for SFC approval ahead of new virtual asset trading legislation
Financial services providers in Hong Kong are already taking the first steps to provide services to retail investors, according to local reports. Brokers and fund managers in the region have reportedly asked for advice on licensing requirements ahead of new legislation. Lawmakers in Hong Kong passed an amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (AMLO) in December 2022, which aligns with the region’s recent stance on broadening the possibility for crypto trading. The amendment introduces a new licensing scheme for virtual asset service providers, which will allow retail investors the ability to trade in virtual assets. Currently, virtual asset trading is restricted to professional investors or traders with proof of at least $1 million in bankable assets...
Bithumb’s largest shareholder executive found dead following allegations of embezzlement
Mr. Park Mo, the vice president of Vidente, the largest shareholder of South Korean Cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb,was reportedly found dead in front of his home at 4 am, on the morning of Dec. 30. Prior to his death, Mr. Mo had been named as a primary suspect in an investigation launched by South Korean prosecutors for his alleged involvement in the embezzling funds at Bithumb-related companies, as well as, manipulating stock prices. In October 2021, the Financial Investigation Division of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into allegations made against Mr. Park Mo, which led to the seizing of Bithumb-affiliated companies such as Vident, Inbiogen, and Bucket Studio. Vident, a KOSDAQ-listed company, is known to be Bithumb’s la...
Sam Bankman-Fried denies moving funds from Alameda wallets
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the now-defunct FTX exchange, has denied moving funds tied to Alameda wallets, days after he was released on a $250 million bond. On Dec. 30, Fried tweeted to his 1.1 million followers, denying any involvement in the movement of funds from Alameda wallets. In response to the allegations that he may have been responsible for moving funds out of Alameda wallets, he shared: “None of these are me. I’m not and couldn’t be moving any of those funds; I don’t have access to them anymore.” None of these are me. I’m not and couldn’t be moving any of those funds; I don’t have access to them anymore.https://t.co/5Gkin30Ny5 — SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 30, 2022 SBF’s tweet was in response to a news story published by Coint...
Vader will shut down stablecoin USDV, cannot find a ‘breakthrough’
The app that produces stablecoin Vader Protocol US Dollar (USDV) will be shut down, according to a Dec. 29 announcement from its developers. We are sunsetting Vader Protocol: https://t.co/C3AKHo9URj Existing $VADER and $USDV holders, please visit the webapp to redeem the treasury: https://t.co/SnRlvpXnaQ For all technical issues related to the claim, please check in at the channel on Discord. — Vader (@VaderProtocol) December 29, 2022 Vader protocol was an algorithmic stablecoin network similar to the failed Terra network. It was supposed to encourage arbitrages to keep USDV always equal to $1. When Terra assets depegged in May from the real-world assets they were supposed to represent, the Vader team paused the mint function of the app. It hoped to prevent users from exposing themselves t...
Chinese Communist Party official pleads guilty to helping Bitcoin miners
According to a report published by state-owned daily news program Xinwen Lianbo on Dec. 29, Xiao Yi, the former Communist Party secretary of the City of Fuzhou, pleaded guilty to corruption charges in the Zhejiang Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. During his tenure as director from 2008 to 2021, Yi was accused of accepting over 125 million Chinese yuan ($18 million) in bribes related to construction programs and illicit promotions. In addition to the aforementioned counts, Yi also pleaded guilty to charges related to business transactions between himself and Bitcoin (BTC) miners from 2017 to 2021. It is unclear if the series of charges were related. As reported by Xinwen Lianbo: “During his 2017 to 2021 tenure as the Communist Party Secretary of the City of Fuzhou, Xiao Yi provided sup...
