Crypto
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Third parties could return FTX funds directly to customers: Law firm
More than one million creditors of failed crypto exchange FTX have been waiting to be made whole since before the firm’s bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11, but according to one expert, recipients of donations and contributions may have a legal means of returning the funds directly to investors and customers. Louise Abbott, a partner at United Kingdom-based firm Keystone Law, told Cointelegraph it was “extremely unlikely” FTX would have a legal leg to stand on in its demands for the voluntary return of political campaign donations, grants, and other contributions the firm made prior to its bankruptcy. However, many individuals and organizations — likely the result of public scrutiny — have already returned or pledged to return an estimated $6.6 million to FTX, a fraction of the millions th...
North Korean hacking activity ceases after regulators implement KYC – Report
According to a new press report published by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), North Korean hackers have stolen more than 800 billion Korean won ($620 million) worth of cryptocurrencies from decentralized finance, or DeFi, platforms this year. The agency also revealed it blocked a daily average of 1.18 million attacks perpetrated by national and international hacking organizations in November. However, a NIS spokesperson revealed via local news outlet Kyunghyang Shinmun that all of the $620 million stolen by North Korean hackers through DeFi exploits occurred overseas, adding: “In Korea, virtual asset transactions have been switched to real-name transactions and security has been strengthened, so there is no damage.” Many funds have been lost ...
SBF received special treatment inside Bahamian jail: Report
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was remanded to the notorious Fox Hill Prison in Nassau, Bahamas, pending an investigation into the collapse of his exchange, had a different experience than many other prisoners. According to the Financial Times, Bankman-Fried was held in the sickbay where he had access to a toilet, running water, a TV, local newspapers, crossword puzzles, and many other perks, including vegan food. Anonymous prison officials disclosed that the former CEO spent his days watching the news and reading articles about himself. SBF’s prison experience appears to have been very different from what many other prisoners endure in their overcrowded, poorly ventilated, rat-infested prison cells, where they are forced to sleep on the floor using makeshift cards. Unlike oth...
US Senator Toomey introduces stablecoin bill as congressional session wraps up
Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who is set to retire from U.S. Congress at the end of the term, has used one of his last few weeks in office to introduce a new stablecoin bill, aimed at creating a regulatory framework for “payment stablecoins.” Toomey — who also serves as the ranking member of the U.S. Banking Committee — said the Stablecoin TRUST Act of 2022 would serve as a framework for stablecoin regulation for his fellow senators, who are looking to pas stablecoin legislation in 2023. In a Dec. 21 statement, the senator called stablecoins an “exciting technological development that could transform money and payments,” adding: “By digitizing the U.S. dollar and making it available on a global, instant, and nearly cost-free basis, stablecoins could be widely used across the physical...
British Columbia to halt new power connections for crypto miners
A state-owned electric utility provider in the Canadian province of British Columbia is set to halt all new electricity-connection requests from cryptocurrency miners for a period of 18 months. The British Columbia government made the announcement in a statement on Dec. 21 stating that the pause will allow the government and BC Hydro to develop a permanent framework that can better balance the needs of crypto miners and both its residents and businesses in the region. Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said that the move was made to preserve the clean energy it provides for its residents and businesses that create jobs and are more environmentally friendly. “Cryptocurrency mining consumes massive amounts of electricity to run and cool banks of high-pow...
Alameda’s Caroline Ellison and FTX’s Gary Wang hit with additional fraud charges
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have hit former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX co-founder Gary Wang with fresh fraud charges. The new charges from the SEC and CFTC come as the pair plead guilty to federal fraud charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier on Dec. 22. SEC states that Ellison and Wang were charged for their role in the “multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX,” with the SEC also investigating whether other securities laws were violated as well. The SEC alleges that Ellison, under the direction of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, furthered the scheme by manipulating the price of FTX Token (FTT), which is described as a crypto security toke...
Frozen bank account triggers switch to Bitcoin salary for a whole year
As Bitcoin (BTC) adoption continues to sow seeds around the world, more and more people are choosing to accept the original cryptocurrency as payment for their goods and services. For individuals, that means accepting BTC as their salary. A Florida-based Bitcoin advocate called SVN (not his real name) took his entire salary in BTC for the past year. Cointelegraph reached out to him to understand why he did it and if there are certain advantages to earning the world’s most recognizable cryptocurrency. SVN explained that when the bank froze one of his accounts, he turned “to Bitcoin as a solution to keep my life going while the issue got resolved.” While banks have the power to unbank customers at will, or must follow governmental instruction–such as during the Canadian trucker protest in wh...
zkEVM could be the endgame for blockchain infrastructure
Very few projects have come close to matching the security and decentralization of the Ethereum network. However, the inherent overhead of maintaining these two critical features has left Ethereum burdened by low throughput and prohibitively high costs. As a result, alternative layer-1 blockchains (L1s) — which normally sacrifice security and decentralization to provide scale — have emerged to nip away at Ethereum’s market share. However, with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-equivalent scaling solutions bringing high throughput and low transaction fees to Ethereum itself, the question is: Do we really need these alternative L1 networks? Despite a rocky year for the industry, Ethereum is still as strong as ever The risks of sacrificing security and decentralization have been largely material...
Genesis and DCG seek path for the recovery of assets amid liquidity issues
The co-founder of Gemini, Cameron Winklevoss, says that global investment bank Houlihan Lokey has devised a plan on behalf of a committee of creditors to resolve the liquidity issues at Genesis and its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG). According to Winklevoss, resolving the liquidity issues would provide a path for Gemini clients to recover assets owed to them by Genesis and DCG following the collapse of FTX. Earn Update: Today, Houlihan Lokey presented a plan on behalf of the Creditor Committee to resolve the liquidity issues at Genesis and DCG and provide a path for the recovery of assets. — Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) December 20, 2022 According to the brief “Earn Update” shared on Twitter by the Gemini co-founder, the plan presented by Houlihan Lokey on behalf of th...
10 crypto tweets that made a splash in 2022
Another year in the crypto space has nearly passed. As usual, Twitter has been a hotbed of crypto-related conversation during the turbulent year. From Terra’s collapse and the whole situation with FTX to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, 2022 has played out like a television drama, keeping people on the edge of their seats. Tweets can act like time capsules from the past, offering up memories or documenting particular historical points. Here are 10 memorable tweets from 2022. The Terra collapse The crypto space suffered several blows this year, and among them was the collapse of the Terra project. Terra started 2022 as a prevalent project in the crypto industry, with its LUNA asset sitting in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at the start of the year. In May, howeve...
Twitter quietly adds BTC and ETH price indexes to search function
Twitter has added a new crypto feature that enables Twitter users to search the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) simply by typing “Bitcoin” or “Ethereum” into the search tab. The Elon Musk-led social media platform didn’t announce the new feature to the public. However, the Documenting Bitcoin account was one of the first to highlight the update, and shared a screenshot of the new price index feature to its 853,700 Twitter followers on Dec. 21. Twitter now shows the #bitcoin price! pic.twitter.com/GWg6i3Ibkb — Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) December 21, 2022 Upon searching crypto token names on Twitter, Ether’s price also shows up too, however it appears that BTC and ETH are the only two price charts that come up on Twitter’s search tab. Other top cryptocurrencies, inclu...
Bitcoin rebound to $18.4K? BTC price derivatives show strength at key support zone
Bitcoin (BTC) price lost 11.3% between Dec. 14 and Dec. 18 after briefly testing the $18,300 resistance. The move followed a seven-day correction of 8% in the S&P 500 futures after United States Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued hawkish statements after raising the interest rate on Dec. 14. Bitcoin price retreats to channel support Macroeconomic trends have been the main driver of recent movements. For instance, the latest bounce from the five-week-long ascending channel support at $16,400 has been attributed to the Central Bank of Japan’s efforts to contain inflation. Bitcoin 12-hour price index, USD. Source: TradingView The Bank of Japan increased the limit on government bond yields on Dec. 20, which are now trading at levels unseen since 2015. However, not everything has be...
