Crypto
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Researchers use zero-knowledge to address privacy, AML concerns in stablecoins
Researchers from German crypto blockchain-based payments fintech etonec and other organizations have proposed using zero-knowledge proofs to ensure regulatory compliance and privacy in stablecoins. They have created a design that allows fiat-based stablecoins to be used like cash, within limits. The researchers’ design allows a number of limits, including on transactions, balances and turnover, and enables Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) compliance with the use of zero-knowledge proofs, particularly zk-SNARK (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge). Below the preset limits, transactions would be invisible to third parties. According to the researchers’ report: “In essence, our goal is to create a stablecoin that provides si...
Crypto.com continues its worldwide registration push with Brazilian EMI license
Crypto.com has received a Payment Institution License (EMI) from Banco Central do Brasil, the central bank of Brazil. The license will allow it to “continue offering regulated fiat wallet services for customers in Brazil,” according to an announcement on the company’s website. Crypto.com has offered a Visa card in Brazil for purchases in cryptocurrency or fiat since last year. The Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange recently added a proof-of-reserves page to its website. It has received approvals in several countries in recent months, including France, the United Kingdom and South Korea, the announcement states. It has provisional approvals in several more jurisdictions, including Singapore, Dubai and Ontario. It also had an agreement with the city of Busan, South Korea, whic...
Metropoly Pre-Sale Raised 300k After Releasing Beta
British Virgin Islands, BVI, 15th December, 2022, Chainwire The Metropoly presale for the METRO token has started successfully, with seven stages sold out and only three remaining. The METRO token presale started at $0.033 and will launch at a fixed price of $0.1. Metropoly has already managed to raise over $300,000 in its presale. The blockchain-based project aims to transform the real estate industry’s operations, bringing it into the digital age. Interest in Metropoly’s presale can be attributed to the fact that more investors are looking for alternative investment opportunities. Real estate-based projects are seen as a strong hedge against inflation and fluctuating market prices. Implementing crypto in the real estate industry could disrupt one of the oldest industries in the world. It...
Project alleges unreturned listing deposit as Binance announces delistings
On Dec. 15, cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced that four tokens — Mithril (MITH), Tribe (TRIBE), Augur (REP) and Bitcoin Standard Hashrate Token (BTCST) — would be delisted from the exchange effective Dec. 22 due to not meeting the “high level of standard we expect.” Immediately after the announcement, decentralized social media protocol Mithril, whose token had a market capitalization of less than $10 million at the time of publication, posted the following statement on Twitter: “Today, Binance has announced that it will delist MITH. As part of the MITH listing, Binance required a 200,000 BNB deposit, which was never returned. On behalf of the Mithril community, we ask @cz_binance to return this deposit so that Mithril may continue to operate.” At the time of the initial ...
Ethics 101: Should crypto projects ever negotiate with hackers?
“A highly profitable trading strategy” was how hacker Avraham Eisenberg described his involvement in the Mango Markets exploit that occurred on Oct. 11. By manipulating the price of the decentralized finance protocol’s underlying collateral, MNGO, Eisenberg and his team took out infinite loans that drained $117 million from the Mango Markets Treasury. Desperate for the return of funds, developers and users alike voted for a proposal that would allow Eisenberg and co. to keep $47 million of the $117 million exploited in the attack. Astonishingly, Eisenberg was able to vote for his own proposal with all his exploited tokens. This is something of a legal gray area, as code is law, and if you can work within the smart contract’s rules, there’s an argument saying it’s perfectly legal. Alt...
Coinbase launches tool to recover ‘mistakenly sent’ ERC-20 tokens
Major cryptocurrency platform Coinbase has offered an asset recovery tool for users who “mistakenly send unsupported tokens” to exchange addresses. In a Dec. 15 announcement, Coinbase said users who sent any of roughly 4,000 ERC-20 tokens to a Coinbase address could recover their previously unrecoverable funds by providing “the Ethereum TXID for the transaction where the asset was lost and the contract address of the lost asset.” The exchange said certain ETC-20 tokens including Wrapped Ether (wETH), TrueUSD (TUSD), and staked Ether (STETH) would be eligible for recovery, with a 5% charge on transactions of more than $100. “Our recovery tool is able to move unsupported assets directly from your inbound address to your self-custodial wallet without exposing private keys at any point,” said ...
Family-friendly NFTs bring the next generation of youth into Web3
Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) continue to be a dominant force within the Web3 space for increasing innovation and adoption. As the space continues to push its way into mainstream adoption will reach new demographics, including minors. Recently big name entertainment companies such as Disney, which is highly catered to children, have expanded to include crypto-savvy team members and created partnerships with the Polygon blockchain network. Such developments hint at an impending entrance into the world of Web3, however if Web3 content is to be created for minors big questions arise such as how does an NFT become kid-friendly? Or, how does true ownership work when minors are involved? Cointelegraph spoke with Jeremy Fisher, artist and founder of Lucky Ducky, a family friendly NFT collection ...
FTX Bahamas co-CEO Ryan Salame blew the whistle on FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried
A high-ranking executive at FTX’s Bahamian entity tipped off local regulators of potential fraud perpetrated at the cryptocurrency exchange just two days before the exchange was forced to close. According to Bahamian court records filed on Dec. 14, Ryan Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets (FDM), told the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) on Nov. 9 that FTX was sending customer funds to its sister trading firm Alameda Research. Salame said the funds were to “cover financial losses of Alameda” and the transfer was “not allowed or consented to by their clients.” He also told the SCB only three people had the access required to transfer client assets to Alameda: Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang and FTX engineer Nishad Singh. Ryan Salame ...
Alameda tried to redeem 3,000 wBTC days before bankruptcy: BitGo CEO
Mike Belshe, the CEO of digital asset custodian BitGo has confirmed that Alameda Research attempted to redeem 3,000 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) in the days before FTX’s bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11. During a Dec. 14 Twitter Spaces hosted by decentralized finance (DeFi) researcher Chris Blec, Belshe confirmed the firm knocked back the redemption request because the unknown Alameda representative involved didn’t pass Bitgo’s security verification process and seemed unfamiliar with how the wrapped Bitcoin burning process worked. Full convo here. This part starts at 1:09:30. https://t.co/0KQg6bzd8k — Chris Blec (@ChrisBlec) December 14, 2022 “[The security details] didn’t match the process. So we held it up and we said no, no, no, no. This is not what the burn looks like. And we need to...
Creditor offers Bitcoin miner Core Scientific $72M to avoid bankruptcy
B. Riley suggested the embattled miner’s issues were “self-imposed” and outlined a path for it to avoid bankruptcy. Financial services platform B. Riley has offered Bitcoin (BTC) miner Core Scientific $72 million in financing to avoid bankruptcy and preserve value for Core Scientific stakeholders. B. Riley, a top lender to Core Scientific with $42 million in loans currently outstanding, outlined the terms of the financing agreement in a Dec. 14 letter noting it’s prepared to fund the first $40 million “immediately, with zero contingencies.” The finance platform suggested the remaining $32 million would be conditional on the BTC miner suspending all payments to equipment lenders while Bitcoin prices are below $18,500. The last time the price of Bitcoin was above $18,500 was on Nov. 9,...
SEC approves 9 more WisdomTree ‘blockchain-enabled’ funds
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given the green light to nine more blockchain-enabled funds from $82 billion asset manager WisdomTree. None of these funds track crypto assets themselves, but the firm does utilize the Ethereum and Stellar blockchains to keep a secondary record of share ownership, thus making them blockchain-enabled or “digital funds” as WidsomTree describes them. The firm announced the SEC’s approval on Dec. 14, and outlined that the nine digital funds offer exposure to a host of different asset classes such as equities, commodities and floating rate treasuries. The funds are expected to launch via the WisdomTree Prime mobile app in the first quarter of 2023. “We believe that blockchain-enabled finance has the potential to improve the investor experien...
New OECD report takes lessons from crypto winter, faults ‘financial engineering’
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) analyzed the crypto winter in a new policy paper titled “Lessons from the crypto winter: DeFi versus CeFi,” released Dec. 14. The authors examined the impact of the crypto winter on retail investors and the role of “financial engineering” in the industry’s current problems and found a lot not to like. The paper from the OECD, an intergovernmental body with 38 member states dedicated to economic progress and world trade, concentrated on events in the first three quarters of 2022. It placed the blame for them squarely on a lack of safeguards due to “non-compliant provision of regulated financial activity” and the fact that “some of these activities may fall outside of the existing regulatory frameworks in some jurisdictions.” T...
