Crypto
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Avalanche to power Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure services in Asia
Alibaba Cloud, a.k.a Aliyun, a subset of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced an integration with Avalanche blockchain to power the company’s Node-as-a-Service initiatives. Avalanche’s partnership with Alibaba Cloud will see the development of tools that enable users to launch validator nodes on Avalanche’s public blockchain platform in Asia. The integration will allow Avalanche developers to use Alibaba Cloud’s plug-and-play infrastructure as a service to launch new validators. Developers expecting high resource demands during peak hours can also tap into additional resources — computing, storage, and distribution — offered by Alibaba Cloud. APAC’s largest cloud service provider, Alibaba Cloud, has expanded support for #Avalanche! This integration enables develope...
Dems and Reps join forces to pressure SBF to testify before Congress
The leadership with the United States House Financial Services Committee have separately called on former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to appear in an investigative hearing scheduled for Dec. 13. In Dec. 2 posts on Twitter, House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat, and ranking member Patrick McHenry, a Republican, requested SBF speak at a hearing aimed at investigating the events around the collapse of FTX. It’s unclear if the U.S. lawmakers intended the former FTX CEO to appear in person or remotely from the Bahamas. “[Sam Bankman-Fried], we appreciate that you’ve been candid in your discussions about what happened at FTX,” said Waters. “Your willingness to talk to the public will help the company’s customers, investors, and others.” “As you said, [Sam B...
DXY bounces at major support, reducing Bitcoin’s chance at breaking the $17.2K resistance
On Dec. 2, the United States dollar index (DXY), an index that measures the dollar’s strength against a basket of top foreign currencies, reached 104.40 which was the lowest level seen in 5 months. To recap, the U.S. dollar’s weight against the basket of top foreign currencies grew by 19.6% in 2022 until late September as investors looked for protection against the impact of a hawkish Federal Reserve and, more recently, the rising energy costs and effect of high inflation. The U.S. dollar’s retreat may have been an interim correction to neutralize its “overbought” condition, as the 114.60 peak was the highest level in 20 years. Still, its inverse correlation with Bitcoin (BTC) remains strong, as pointed out by analyst Thecryer on Twitter: $DXY $BTC pic.t...
Opera Crypto Browser to enable instant NFT minting through launchpad
In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, the firm stated that it has partnered with Alteon LaunchPad to let beginners in Web3 or the NFT space easily mint NFTs. With the integration, users will be able to access a feature that lets them drag and drop media files into the browser, which writes a smart contract and uploads the file into a blockchain, turning the files into NFTs. According to Susie Batt, an executive at Opera, this will allow users to explore Web3 and contribute to the ecosystem. Batt explained: “Now, our users will be able to create NFTs instantly and simply with no platform usage fees, encouraging more people to explore the burgeoning NFT industry.” With the tool, the team believes that users without any Web3 experience will also be able to access the Web3 economy. This me...
FTX US ex-president reportedly seeks $6M funding to launch crypto startup
Just a month after the controversial fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange and 130 affiliated companies, a former high-ranking executive is reportedly seeking out investors to launch a crypto startup. The ex-president of FTX US, Brett Harrison, is on the lookout for $6 million in funding to launch a start-up that would build crypto trading software for big investors, according to The Information. Harrison’s funding round would be against a $60 million valuation. On Sept. 27, Harrison announced his plans to step down as the president of FTX US as he moved into an advisory role — over a month before the infamous fall of FTX. As a result, the entrepreneur was not immediately accused of having direct involvement in misappropriating users’ funds. Like most here, I was surprised and saddened ...
Never mind FTX — Fine arts institutions should still onboard to blockchain
The reality is that blockchain technology can still deliver substantial benefits, particularly within the fine arts. And for those who have been paying attention, 2022 has been a year of incredible normalization for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Simply put, major institutions across various sectors have dipped their toes into Web3. In November, Instagram announced that creators would soon have the functionality to make and sell NFTs. Apple similarly announced in September that NFTs could be sold in its App Store. Put together, that’s 3.5 billion people (2 billion from Instagram and 1.5 billion from the App Store). Although each of these major institutions has its own quirks and rules, most notably the fees associated with using their platforms, the reality is that they are still some of the l...
DeFi ecosystem still haunted by FTX contagion: Finance Redefined
Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. The FTX contagion that started in the second week of November is still haunting various crypto protocols in the DeFi ecosystem. The latest to fall prey to the contagion includes the Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Serum, of which Alameda and FTX were backers. Another DeFi crypto trading firm Auros Global missed its principal repayment on a 2,400 Wrapped Ether (wETH) DeFi loan. Looking at some other key news in the DeFi ecosystem, popular DEX protocol Uniswap launched its nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace aggregator, allowing users on the platform to trade NFTs. Ankr became the latest victim of an explo...
South Korean judge dismisses arrest warrants for Terra co-founder Do Kwon’s former associates
A judge with the Seoul Southern District Court has reportedly set aside arrest warrants for Terra co-founder Shin Hyun-seong along with those of 3 Terra investors and 4 developers. According to an Dec. 3 report from South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, Judge Hong Jin-Pyo said there was little risk of Shin or the Terra associates destroying evidence related to the case against the crypto firm, and dismissed warrants that the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office issued on Nov. 29. The report added that Terra co-founder Do Kwon, also facing legal action in South Korea for his role in the firm’s collapse, was unlikely to return to the country. “The Seoul Southern District Court’s ruling on Dec. 3rd to reject South Korean prosecutors’ detention warrant requests for former Terraform Labs empl...
NFT Steez and Victor Solomon chat about building in Web3 and the Metaverse
On Dec. 2, NFT Steez hosts Alyssa Expósito and Ray Salmond chatted with Victor Solomon to discuss his journey into bridging his in-real-life artwork into NFTs and how he cultivates the community and culture that surrounds it. Solomon’s work centers around basketball, not just the object, but the sport itself. For Solomon, the inspiration for his work comes from his early childhood of wanting to play hockey, a sport that was not accessible for him, and his eventual discovery of basketball which he discovered to be more accommodating. Solomon said: “Basketball was such an inspirational platform for me since there’s no barrier to entry.” Solomon says that the open nature of basketball is an “incredible parallel for everything that’s happening in Web3&...
DAM Finance unvleis out the Moonwalkers v1 testnet
In its quest to introduce a decentralized omnichain stablecoin solution to securely address the liquidity challenges facing the broader decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, DAM Finance has launched the Moonwalker v1 testnet. The Moonwalkers v1 testnet lays the foundation for DAM’s solutions and DAM is expected to introduce its solutions on the mainnet after the testnet phase. This will provide users with a wide range of assets including yield-generating collateral. Using the Moonwalker V1 testnet The Moonwalker v1 testnet has been deployed on both Ethereum’s Goerli Testnet and Moonbeam’s Moonbase Alpha, an EVM-compatible chain built on Polkadot. DAM community members will be able to mint DAM’s decentralized omnichain stablecoin d20 directly using existing stablecoins like USDC on Ethere...
Thai VC fund acquires troubled exchange Zipmex for $100M: Report
After weeks of negotiations on a potential buyout of Zipmex, venture capital fund V Ventures has reportedly reached a deal to acquire the embattled cryptocurrency exchange. V Ventures, a subsidiary of Thoresen Thai Agencies (TTA) public company, is looking to purchase a 90% stake in Zipmex crypto exchange, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 2. The VC fund is about to acquire Zipmex for about $100 million in digital assets and cash, anonymous sources familiar with the matter claimed. Citing a court hearing on Friday in Singapore, the report says that Zipmex was offered $30 million in cash and the rest in crypto. According to the court hearing, Zipmex is planning to use cryptocurrency assets received from the transaction to unlock frozen customer accounts on the exchange by April 2023. The acquisiti...
ApeCoin risks 30% crash after APE staking debut in December
The multi-week ApeCoin (APE) market rally is nearing exhaustion owing to a mix of technical and fundamental factors. Fundamental — ApeCoin Staking launch In the past two weeks, APE’s price is up over 50% after bottoming at around $2.60. The APE/USD rebound came in line with similar recovery moves elsewhere in the crypto market. But, it outperformed top assets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as traders pinned their hopes on ApeCoin’s staking debut. The ApeCoin Staking feature will debut on Dec. 5 at apestake.io, according to its developer Horizon Labs. It will allow users to lock their APE holdings into four staking pools — ApeCoin pool, BAYC pool, MAYC pool, and Paired pool — that will allow them to earn yield periodically. The feature announcement has resulted ...
