crypto blog
Tether requests Roche Freedman to be booted from class action
USDT-issuer Tether wants law firm Roche Freedman “terminated” as counsel from the Bitfinex and Tether class action lawsuit following a motion from Kyle Roche to be removed as counsel in the case. In an Aug. 31 court order request by Elliot Greenfield of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the law firm representing Tether and Bitfinex requested that Roche’s law firm be removed from the case entirely and to certify that they’ve returned or destroyed all defendant-issued documents and have not shared them with any third-party, including Ava Labs. The request follows shortly after Roche submitted a Notice of Motion to Withdraw from the Tether class action lawsuit amid ongoing fallout from a recent CryptoLeaks expose, which alleged the U.S. lawyer had a secret pact to “harm” Ava Labs competitor...
Celsius files to reopen withdrawals for a minority of customers
Beleaguered crypto lender Celsius Network has filed a motion with the United States Bankruptcy Court yesterday to allow customers with digital assets held in certain accounts to be withdrawn. There’s a catch, however, as the motion will only apply to Custody and Withold Accounts and for custodied assets worth $7,575 or less in value. Celsius has structured their Custody and Withhold Accounts, which essentially serve as storage wallets, in a way that still enables users to maintain legal ownership of cryptocurrency. This ownership however is not extended to assets held in accounts that offer annual crypto earnings or borrowing services (Earn and Borrow accounts). The community response to the motion has been mixed, with creditors happy that Celsius Network has conceded funds held in i...
US dollar smashes yet another 20-year high as Bitcoin price sags 2.7%
Bitcoin (BTC) faced familiar pressure on the Sept. 1 Wall Street open as the U.S. dollar hit fresh two-decade highs. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Trader: DXY could hit 115 before ‘slowdown’ Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it fell to $19,658 on Bitstamp, down 2.7% from the day’s high. The pair faced stiff resistance trying to flip the important $20,000 mark to solid support, with macro cues further complicating the picture for bulls. That came in the form of a resurgent U.S. dollar index (DXY) on the day, which beat previous peaks to reach 109.97, its highest since September 2002. U.S. dollar index (DXY) 1-day candle chart. Source: TradingView Risk assets thus broadly lost ground, with the S&P 500 and Nas...
Mayo Clinic taps into blockchain technology for clinical trial design
On Thursday, Dutch blockchain startup Triall announced that it has partnered with American nonprofit medical center Mayo Clinic to optimize clinical trial design and the management of study data. Starting this September, Triall’s eClinical platform will support a two-year multi-center pulmonary arterial hypertension clinical trial that includes 10 research sites and more than 500 patients across the United States. The software will support activities such as data capture, document management, study monitoring and consent. As told by Triall, the purpose of the collaboration is to demonstrate an immutable public ledger audit trail through its blockchain technology to boost the integrity of clinical trials. Investigators, regulators and stakeholders can then review and assess such...
Former CFTC commissioner Jill Sommers joins FTX US Derivatives board
Jill Sommers, who served as a commissioner at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has joined the board of directors for FTX US Derivatives. In a Thursday announcement, crypto exchange FTX US’ derivatives arm said Sommers had become its latest board member in a move seeming to increase the company’s regulatory efforts. Sommers served as a CFTC commissioner from 2007 to 2013 under former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush and was the managing director of regulatory affairs for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. According to Sommers, FTX US Derivatives aimed to become “the most regulated digital asset exchange in the world.” She said the board would work closely with regulators, suggesting discussions with the CFTC and others within the United States government. “Add...
Cardano gets listed on Robinhood but ADA bulls are running out of steam, risking 40% drop
ThCardano (ADA) market has witnessed back-to-back pieces of good news since Aug. 31, from its listing on Robinhood, a U.S.-based retail investment platform, to the release of its first lending and borrowing protocol, Aada Finance. Additionally, Cardano developer IOHK stated that they are close to clinching “three critical mass indicators” that would lead to the launch of their long-awaited Vasil hard fork in September. Vasil aims to improve Cardano’s scalability and transaction throughput through pipelining. The upgrade could also improve the decentralized application (DApp) and smart contract capabilities by changing the Plutus script, a programming language used for smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. This week, we’re well on our way to hitting our...
KPMG and HSBC Report Names Conflux as One of Asia’s Leading Crypto Projects
Shanghai, China, 1st September, 2022, Chainwire Conflux, the only regulatory-compliant public blockchain in China, was recently named one of the ‘Leading 100 Emerging Giants in Asia Pacific’ in a report released by KPMG and HSBC. Conflux was among just five crypto startups to make it to the report’s top 100 startups list alongside Hyperchain Technology, Stader Labs, Maicoin, and Catheon Gaming. The KPMG HSBC report sheds light on the diversity and depth of innovators in various emerging sectors across the Asia Pacific region, including SaaS, sustainability, fintech, blockchain, and more. The two financial institutions analyzed over 6,000 startups operating in the Asia Pacific region to identify the next potential unicorns — a startup valued at over $1 billion. As the only regulatory-compli...
Tech giant Meitu loses over $43M of its crypto investment in bear market
Hong Kong tech giant Meitu made headlines in April last year after it reported nearly $100 million in crypto holdings. However, with the advent of the bear market, the tech firm has lost nearly half of the valuation of its crypto holdings. According to a local media report, Meitu reported an impairment loss of over 300 million yuan, approximately $43.4 million, on their crypto holdings. An impairment loss is a loss in value of an asset when it falls below the carrying value of the investment. The financial filing revealed that the impairment loss has more than doubled from the last quarter, something the firm had anticipated earlier. The tech giant has said that its crypto holdings could impact the net loss of the company by the end of the first half of the year. In a July exchan...
Tens of Celsius clients ask US court to recover $22.5M in crypto
The bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius is facing more legal issues as disgruntled clients are taking action to recover their funds after the platform froze withdrawals in June. An ad hoc group of 64 custodial account holders at Celsius on Wednesday filed a complaint with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in order to recover their assets. According to court documents, the creditors are seeking to recover a total of more than $22.5 million worth of cryptocurrency assets collectively held in Celsius’ custody service. The ad hoc group is represented by bankruptcy-focused law firm Togut, Segal & Segal. The plaintiffs noted that Celsius has “not honored any withdrawals from any programs,” including custody services. According to the complaint, that contradic...
Indonesia plans to set up its crypto bourse by the end of 2022
The government of Indonesia returned to its plan to set up a digital assets exchange, publicly announced first time back in 2021. A so-called “crypto bourse” is planned to be established by the end of 2022. According to DealStreetAsia, Indonesia’s deputy trade minister Jerry Sambuaga confirmed during the NXC International Summit 2022 in Bali that the country is still planning on the crypto bourse’ launch, while the whole project has been delayed due to additional preparations: “We will make sure that every requirement, procedure and the necessary steps have been taken.” Sambuaga also described some inevitable preparatory tasks ahead of the launch, such as an assessment of entities that “could be included in the bourse” and setting the minimum requirements for them. CEO of Tokok...
DeFi protocol shuts down months after the Rari Fuse hack
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Babylon Finance has finally announced that it will shut down after months of trying to recover from the negative momentum that the Rari Fuse exploit caused. In a statement, founder Ramon Recuero explained that the platform experienced an insurmountable negative streak despite their team’s efforts to endure the domino effect caused by the hack. According to Recuero, the protocol lost $3.4 million in the hack. Following this, the total value locked within the platform went from $30 million to $4 million. To make matters worse, the Fuse pool was abandoned, taking out the lending market worth $10 million, Recuero noted. The bearish sentiment situation in the broader crypto market also added salt to their wounds. The DeFi protocol founder said th...
Sneaky fake Google Translate app installs crypto miner on 112,000 PCs
Crypto mining malware has been sneakily invading hundreds of thousands of computers around the world since 2019, often masquerading as legitimate programs such as Google Translate, new research has found. In an Aug. 29 report by Check Point Research (CPR), a research team for American-Israeli cybersecurity provider, Check Point Software Technologies revealed the malware has been flying under the radar for years, thanks partly to its insidious design which delays installing the crypto mining malware for weeks after the initial software download. .@_CPResearch_ detected a #crypto miner #malware campaign, which potentially infected thousands of machines worldwide. Dubbed ‘Nitrokod,” the attack was initially found by Check Point XDR. Get the details, here: https://t.co/MeaLP3nh97 #crypto...
