Crypto
Wazupnaija – Naija Entertainment blogs & Forums – Business – Crypto
Polkadot incentivizes its community to fight scams through an “anti-scam bounty”
Polkadot, a protocol that connects blockchains, has announced its latest initiative to help its ecosystem fight scams. According to the company, relying on security-minded individuals within its community to fight scams has proven to be an effective method of safeguarding its ecosystem. To incentivize the members of its community to continue to do the work, Polkadot consistently rewards them with bounties paid in USDC. Polkadot shared that its bounty is currently managed by the general curators, which for now, consists of three community members, and two people from the W3F Anti-Scam department. However, in the long term, Polkadot hopes that the bounty will be eventually managed exclusively by the community. As part of the community-led anti-scam initiative, community mem...
BinaryX Releases Concept Art for World Building MMO CyberLand
Singapore, Singapore, 24th November, 2022, Chainwire BinaryX has confirmed that it is working on a new free-to-play, play-to-own game, CyberLand, an open-world MMO powered by blockchain technology. The team just released the concept video which gives a first look of the terrains and features of the game. Free-to-play, Play-to-Own CyberLand marks BinaryX’s official transition away from play-to-earn models, and is their first-ever play-to-own game in the metaverse. As a play-to-own game, players have a high degree of freedom in resource production. Players can choose to develop their own assets, construct their own buildings and farm their own products and materials to build their empire. These assets can also be fully traded on the open market. The team wanted to make a game that is not onl...
UAE regulator revokes FTX license amid the exchange collapse
As the FTX debacle still creates waves in the crypto industry and beyond, the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has suspended the license which allows FTX to make preparations to service the local market. In an announcement posted on its official website, VARA mentioned that it has revoked the approval of FTX MENA’s Minimum Viable Product (MVP) license. Citing the bankruptcy filing of FTX-related entities including FTX exchange and Alameda Research, VARA confirmed that FTX MENA’s license was suspended before any clients were exposed. According to the regulator, FTX MENA was still in the preparatory phase. The authority clarified that the firm had not yet received the approval required to start its operations and onboard clients. In addition, the regulator hi...
UK bank Starling bans crypto-related purchases and deposits citing high risk
Starling — a digital bank based in the United Kingdom — is the latest financial institution to ban crypto-related transfers and activities for its cardholders. Starling customers will no longer be able to purchase cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) or receive incoming transfers from crypto exchanges or merchants. The online bank announced the news in a statement to customers as well as on Twitter, citing the perceived high risks of crypto trading. Hi there We always review our position in relation to financial crime. We consider crypto activity to be high risk. We’ve taken the decision to prevent all card payments to crypto merchants and to implement further restrictions on outgoing and incoming transfers. — Starling Bank (@StarlingBank) November 22, 2022 The bank also described cryptocur...
Binance aims to allocate $1 billion for crypto recovery fund
Binance intends to allocate $1 billion for a proposed industry recovery fund while its CEO revealed intent in a new bid for assets of bankrupt cryptocurrency lending firm Voyager by its U.S.-based business. Speaking to BloombergTV on Nov. 24, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao touched on a number of topics in what has been a tumultuous month for the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Chief among them was Binance’s proposed industry recovery fund which is aimed at providing financial support to promising projects in financial distress. The exchange’s founder introduced the idea in the wake of FTX’s now-infamous collapse. Related: Binance CEO denies report firm met with Abu Dhabi investors for crypto recovery fund Zhao said that details of the fund were due to be published on the exchange’s blog in the comin...
First time Bear market? Advice from Bitcoin Bull Michael Saylor
First-time bear market? It’s also the first Bitcoin (BTC) bear market for Michael Saylor, one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin bulls. Executive chairman of one of the world’s largest pro-Bitcoin companies, Saylor took a moment out of his busy schedule at the Los Angeles Pacific Bitcoin conference to speak with Cointelegraph. Crucially, Saylor told Cointelegraph that when it comes to Bitcoin, “you have to take a long frame time perspective.” “If you’re buying [Bitcoin] and you’ve got less than a four-year time horizon, you’re just speculating in it. And once you’ve got more than a four-year time horizon, then the obvious thing is you dollar-cost average.” Dollar-cost averaging is a way of reducing exposure to the volatility of an investment. Saylor continued, “You buy the asse...
Aussies warned to avoid crypto paper wallets they find on the street
Australians have been warned to stay away from suspicious-looking fake Bitcoin paper wallets, which work by luring victims into accessing a lucrative crypto wallet but will ultimately drain them of their own crypto holdings. According to a Nov. 22 post on the Facebook page of the NSW Police Force, the scam starts as a paper cryptocurrency wallet with a QR code, which is made to appear like a legitimate Bitcoin paper wallet. These are strewn by scammers in public locations such as streets or parks. An example of the scam crypto paper wallets. Source: NSW Police Force An individual that locates the paper wallet and scans the QR code is directed to click on a link to access a crypto wallet with up to $16,000 Australian dollars ($10,000). The person is then asked to pay a withdrawal fee ...
CrossTower eyeing further crypto acquisitions outside of Voyager bid
Crypto exchange CrossTower Inc., which is currently bidding for the assets of Voyager Digital, is reportedly window shopping for other crypto company acquisitions. In a Nov. 24 Bloomberg report, CrossTower CEO Kapil Rathi revealed that the company is looking to pick up firms with a “good set of customers” and a “good balance sheet” despite the current bear market, stating: “We’re in a great place to either acquire entities who have a good set of customers with them and a good balance sheet […] so we are openly looking at different types of companies from an organic growth perspective.” In September, CrossTower was one of the companies reported to be competing to acquire the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, along with FTX and Binance. FTX Trading eventually...
FTX miniseries gets go ahead, covering the ‘most brazen frauds ever committed’
An eight-episode limited series exploring the unraveling and scandals behind sunken crypto exchange FTX and its leadership is slated to soon begin production. The series has been purchased by technology conglomerate Amazon, and will likely air on Amazon’s video streaming service Prime. It’s understood to be based on “insider reporting” from journalists covering FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried according to a Nov. 23 report from the entertainment magazine Variety. Brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, famed for directing Avengers: Endgame and multiple other Marvel-owned movies are reported to have sold the idea to Amazon and are slated to direct the mini-series. Details are sparse with what direction the series will take, the source material it will draw from, and what time period and people...
10,000 BTC moves off crypto wallet linked to Mt. Gox hack
A crypto wallet belonging to the shutdown crypto exchange BTC-e has just moved 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC), currently worth over $165 million, to various exchanges, personal wallets, and other sources on Nov. 23. A Nov. 23 Chainalysis report suggested while this withdrawal is the largest made by BTC-e since April 2018, BTC-e and WEX — an exchange which is thought to be BTC-e’s successor — both sent small amounts of BTC to Russian electronic payments service Webmoney on Oct. 26 before making a test payment on Nov. 11, then transferring out a further 100 BTC on Nov. 21. The movement of BTC belonging to BTC-e and WEX wallets. Image: Chainalysis Of the total amount sent, 9,950 BTC is thought to still be located in personal wallets, while the rest was moved through intermediaries before ending up at f...
Aave proposes governance changes after failed $60M short attack
On Nov. 23, one day after Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg attempted to use a series of sophisticated short sales to exploit decentralized finance protocol Aave, project contributors have put forth a series of proposals to deal with the aftermath. As told by protocol engineering developer Llama and financial modeling platform Gauntlet both of whom are deployed on Aave: “Over this past week, the user 0x57e04786e231af3343562c062e0d058f25dace9e [wallet associated with Eisenberg] opened a short position on CRV [Curve] using USDC as collateral. At its peak, the user was shorting ~92M units of CRV (roughly $60M USD at today’s prices). The attempt to short CRV on Aave has been unsuccessful, and the user lost ~$10M USD from the liquidations.” Llama wrote that...
OKX releases Proof of Reserves page, along with instructions on how to self-audit its reserves
Crypto exchange OKX has released a Proof of Reserves page that allows users to audit its reserves to make sure it is solvent. This comes at a time when crypto exchanges are coming under greater scrutiny after the collapse of FTX. OKX announced the new page in a tweet, as well as on its blog. Don’t trust, verify → OKX Proof of Reserves (PoR) is LIVE. To set a new standard of transparency, risk management and user protection, we’re launching our first PoR. You can now verify your assets are backed 1:1 on #OKX ⤵️ Details — OKX (@okx) November 23, 2022 The Proof of Reserves page offers two different options for users to audit the exchange’s reserves. The first allows users to get a brief summary of the exchange’s current reserves and liabilities for its top three cryptocurre...
