Business

More than $150 million has been lost this week in separate security breaches at DeFi projects MonoX and BadgerDAO. Multi-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) MonoX (MONO) suffered a cyber attack on Nov. 30 leading to about $31 million in losses. BadgerDAO (BADGER) suffered a front-end attack that was discovered on Dec. 2 with estimates of Badger’s losses hitting more than $120 million. The MonoX DEX platform suffered a single attack on Nov. 30. In this attack, a bug in the smart contract allowed for a discrepancy to exist between prices of assets, when manually changed. Rekt News explained that hackers were able to inflate the price of MONO via the smart contract, then buy up other assets from the protocol with MONO. “The hacker created a loop in which the price of tokenOut would overwrite t...

A groundbreaking five-year study into whether crypto token incentives can improve health outcomes for patients with HIV/AIDS will be launched in Kenya by the end of the year. On Nov 1, the blockchain-powered healthcare ecosystem Immunify.Life and the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) announced they had secured the approval needed from an ethics committee and the national commission to launch the study. Together they will conduct a five-year study on HIV/AIDS starting before the end of 2021 in the Kakamega County region of Kenya, before extending throughout the rest of the country. The first major project of this collaboration is a groundbreaking study in #HIV/#AIDS to investigate the effectiveness of incentives and paperless tracking systems on HIV treatment adher...

According to reports from local media, the Indian government will not move for an outright ban on crypto and will instead regulate the sector. On Nov. 23, Cointelegraph reported that the Indian government was considering a bill proposing the creation of an official digital currency while imposing a ban on all “private” cryptocurrencies. The news sparked panic selling on local crypto exchange WazirX the following day, and the vague wording on the bill and lack of clarification from the government have since left many onlookers divided on the prospects for crypto in India. But Indian news outlet NDTV reported on Dec. 2 that it had obtained details of a cabinet note circulating in the government regarding the proposed crypto bill. NDTV reporter Sunil Prabhu said that the note contained sugges...

On Thursday, Adidas announced it was entering the Metaverse in collaboration with Bored Ape Yacht Club, gmoney NFT, and PUNKS comic. In an article posted on the Adidas mobile app, the developers behind the initiative said the following: This autumn, Adidas, known for celebrating ideas at the bleeding edge of originality, it settling in at the frontier of creativity: The Metaverse. Our goal there? To see every one of its inhabitants thrive. The Metaverse is where anyone can express their most original ideas and be their most authentic selves, in whatever form they might take. And thanks to the blockchain [and NFTs], those pioneers can own a piece of what they create. Today we leap Into The Metaverse with @BoredApeYC, @gmoneyNFT & @punkscomic. It’s time to enter a world of limitless poss...

Bitcoin (BTC) price is down this week, and naturally, bears will always find some reversal signal whenever the price shows strength, such as the 8% gain on Nov. 28. Of course, technical analysis is not an exact science, so there is a margin for interpretation and most traders look at multiple timeframes to find a narrative that suits their bias.  Currently, BTC price is in a descending channel that started on Oct. 31, and if this pattern plays out, Bitcoin could drop to $50,000 in the short term. Bitcoin/USD price on FTX. Source: TradingView Cryptocurrency markets crashed on Nov. 26 after concern over a new COVID-19 variant sparked a global market sell-off. As Bitcoin dipped below $54,000, bears saw a $215 million potential profit on Dec. 3’s options expiry, but that changed after BTC...

Speaking publicly for the last time as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Randal Quarles urged regulators to exercise restraint on stablecoins. In a prepared statement for his speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Dec. 2, Quarles expressed concern that regulations could hamper innovation in the digital asset space, particularly when it comes to stablecoins. According to the Fed governor, some of the approaches on stablecoin regulation from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ November report are unnecessary, including “limiting wallet providers’ affiliation with commercial entities.” “It is one thing to say that a stablecoin issuer itself must be a regulated bank — I think that is probably overkill, as there are perfectly e...

After Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday comes Giving Tuesday, a day that encourages contributing to charity. 2021 saw a rise in crypto-philanthropy thanks to The Giving Block’s initiative of Crypto Giving Tuesday, which initially began in 2019. The organization that equips nonprofits to accept cryptocurrency donations raised $2.4 million dollars in crypto this year, a 583% increase from Crypto Giving Tuesday 2020.  From charities, universities, faith-based to other mission-driven organizations, 1,071 total nonprofits participated. And the average donation size was $12,600. The majority of donations were done in Ether (ETH), with Bitcoin (BTC) and USD Coin (USDC) in second and third place, respectively. It can be noted that ETH overtook BTC for the top spot in total ...

Bitcoin (BTC) was on repeat on Dec. 2 as markets watched another attack on $60,000 end in defeat. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView “Nothing has changed” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD back at $57,000 Thursday, having come full circle in 24 hours. The pair had briefly hit $59,000 into the Wall Street open the day prior, this failing to hold as another round of macro triggers skewed sentiment to the downside once more. Bitcoin thus fell in line with stocks reacting, it seemed, to continued concern over the new coronavirus omicron variant. The S&P 500 ended the day down 1.2%. With a sense of frustration pervading crypto markets, analysts took the opportunity to reassert a longer-range perspective. “It’s very simple. Below $60K...

Bitcoin Capital AG released two new exchange-traded products on the SIX Swiss Exchange: the FiCAS Active Bitcoin ETP (BTCB) and FiCAS Active Ethereum ETP (ETHB), which are actively managed by FICAS AG. Institutional investors, professional, and private investors in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the European Union (excluding Hungary) can now invest in the new offerings via their bank or broker just as they would with other listed financial assets such as equities or bonds. “Our purpose is to grant investors safe and easy access to digital assets and are convinced that crypto assets will soon be part of the diversification strategy of many investment portfolios,” says Dr. Luca Schenk, chairman of Bitcoin Capital AG. “The two new products with the most relevant crypto...

United States-based companies are increasingly listing cryptocurrency-based investment products in Europe, with asset manager WisdomTree getting another listing for its crypto basket exchange-traded product (ETP). On Dec. 2, WisdomTree listed its Crypto Mega Cap Equal Weight ETP on Euronext exchanges in Paris and Amsterdam. Trading under the ticker symbol MEGA, the investment product is backed by physical crypto assets including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) with a quarterly rebalance. Launched in November 2021, MEGA was previously listed on Deutsche Boerse’s digital exchange Xetra and Swiss SIX exchange. Apart from MEGA, WisdomTree also launched two more crypto ETPs recently, including WisdomTree Crypto Market (BLOC) and WisdomTree Crypto Altcoin (WALT). BLOC provides exposure to a basket...