crypto blog
Optimism loses 20M tokens after L1 and L2 confusion exploited
The honeymoon period for the Optimism layer-2 scaling solution has been cut short, as an exploit in its market maker’s smart contract led to the loss of 20 million OP tokens. The exploit took place on May 26 but has only just been reported to the community. One million tokens valued at about $1.3 million were sold on Sunday. An additional 1 million tokens valued at about $730,000 were transferred to Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum address on Optimism earlier today at 12:26 am UTC. The remaining tokens are dormant for now but could be sold at any time or used to sway governance decisions. Hey folks–in the interest of transparency, we’d like to share some details about an ongoing situation:https://t.co/915vIgRIJG Summary below — Optimism (✨_✨) (@optimismPBC) June 8, 2022...
Brandt’s bearish ETH call — But community predicts $3K before Merge
Veteran futures trader Peter Brandt has suggested that the price of Ether (ETH) could drop to as low as $1,268 in the coming month, but the consensus view of 15,500 members of the CoinMarketCap community is that the price will have hit roughly $3,131 by June 30. The Ethereum network is now in the final steps of its long-awaited Merge with the Beacon Chain and transition to proof-of-stake (PoS), with developers confirming on Wednesday that they successfully completed the Ropsten testnet merge. The Ropsten testnet has now been merged! What a historic and thrilling day for the Ethereum community and what a thrilling day for Next up, 2 more public testnet merges and then mainnet The Merge is coming — sassal.eth (@sassal0x) June 8, 2022 While the timeframe has often been subject to delays, the ...
75% of retailers eyeing crypto payments within 24 months: Deloitte
Three quarters of United States retailers plan to accept crypto or stablecoin payments within the next two years according to a new survey. It also found that more than half of large retailers with revenues over $500 million are currently spending $1 million or more building the required infrastructure to make it happen. The information was revealed in Deloitte’s “Merchants Getting Ready For Crypto” report released in collaboration with PayPal on June 8. A large majority, around 85%, of the surveyed merchants said they anticipate that cryptocurrency payments will be ubiquitous in their respective industries in five years. The survey polled 2,000 senior executives at U.S. retail organizations between Dec 3 and Dec 16, 2021 when crypto prices were still riding high, but the results have only...
‘Father’ of the Metaverse Neal Stephenson launching Metaverse blockchain
Neal Stephenson, the author who coined the term “Metaverse” 30 years ago is launching a Metaverse-focused blockchain project called LAMINA1. He has also revised his vision for the Metaverse stating the experience is likely to be geared more toward flat 2D screens and rather than virtual reality or augmented reality tech such as headsets and lenses, as in the model posited by Meta and Microsoft. Stephenson is a popular speculative fiction author who explored the concept of a virtual reality world called the Metaverse in his sci-fi novel Snow Crash in 1992. Outside of writing the 62-year-old also served as the chief futurist for an augmented reality (AR) firm called Magic between 2014 and 2020. According to a June 8 announcement from OG crypto investor and former Bitcoin Foundation chairman ...
New York state releases guidance for issuing dollar-backed stablecoins
The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) on Wednesday released regulatory guidance for U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins issued by DFS-regulated entities. According to a DFS statement, it is the first regulator in the United States to impose such expectations on a stablecoin issuer. The requirements in the guidance concern redeemability, reserves and attestation. They state that a stablecoin must be fully backed by reserves as of the end of every business day and the issuer must have a redemption policy approved in advance in writing by the DFS that gives the holder the right to redeem the stablecoin for U.S. dollars. Furthermore, the issuer’s reserves must be segregated from its proprietary assets and consist of U.S. Treasury instruments or deposits at state or federall...
Digital assets still make a lot of sense, says Codex co-founder
Co-founder and chief evangelist officer for Codex, Alex Gordon-Brander, spoke to Cointelegraph about his Bitcoin story, the real-world use cases for crypto, and the economic downturn during a World Economic Forum interview in Davos, Switzerland. Standing curbside in front of Davos’ “Crypto House” at dusk, where Gordon-Brander had just finished demonstrating Codex’s capabilities during a crypto panel, the co-founder shared an upbeat outlook on crypto. A long-serving crypto enthusiast and trad-fi veteran, Gordon-Brander told Cointelegraph he was exploring digital and energy-backed currencies prior to discovering Bitcoin (BTC). He researched a “distributed currency based on renewable energy credits and governments,” but he concedes it was “super complicated.” Around the time, a friend s...
Traders target $1,400 Ethereum price after ETH drops closer to a critical support level
On June 8 the Ethereum network successfully underwent the merge to become proof-of-stake on its Ropsten testnet, but the news had little impact on ETH price. With the Ropsten upgrade now looking more like a buy the rumor, sell the news type of event, most analysts have kept a short-term bearish outlook for Ether price. Let’s take a look. ETH/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Can Ether escape the head and shoulders pattern? Twitter analyst, “Cactus”pointed out a bearish head and shoulders pattern and questioned whether Ether price would be able to follow the sharp downside that typically follows the completion of the pattern. ETH/USD 1-week chart. Source: Twitter Cactus said, “This is what we are getting excited about? Hard to be bullish any t...
Information, AML/CFT steps are key to fighting international digital crime, DOJ report says
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report on international law enforcement related to digital assets Tuesday. It is the first of the approximately one dozen reports mandated in President Joe Biden’s March 9 executive order “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets.” The report, titled “How To Strengthen International Law Enforcement Cooperation For Detecting, Investigating, And Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related To Digital Assets,” was written with the collaboration of Departments of State, Treasury and Homeland Security, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Countries have varying degrees of capacity to deal with criminal activity due to the unique law enforcement challenges associated wi...
US central bank digital currency commenters divided on benefits, unified in confusion
In January, the United States Federal Reserve Board of Governors released a discussion paper on a potential U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) titled “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation.” The comment period for the paper ended May 20, with the Fed receiving over 2,000 pages of comments from individuals alongside responses from leading stakeholders. Cointelegraph read a selection of shareholder responses to the Fed paper, and it quickly became apparent that there are plenty of confidently stated opinions but little agreement among them. The main points of commonality are in the places they are all perplexed. The Fed wants to know Appropriately for its purpose, the Fed paper provides a broad overview of central bank digital currencies and CBDC-adj...
Thailand’s crypto islands: Working in paradise, Part 1
Walking into Remote and Digital’s La Casa co-working space on the tropical island of Koh Pha-ngan, you wonder how anybody gets any work done. I sip a cocktail and wait for my burrito as James Brown plays in the background.There’s a real palm tree growing at the edge of the cafe, and behind it sits shallow crystal blue water stretching off for miles, with Koh Samui’s jungle-covered mountains jutting up in the distance. Adding to the ambiance, kite surfers are getting massive air off small waves, before gently floating back to earth. 30-year-old Belgian blockchain developer Jérôme Van Vlierbergen is one of the regulars at this Ban Tai co-working space and runs his Equinox Launchpad here. He explains Koh Pha-ngan (or Koh Phangan) has a thriving crypto scene, mostly populated by digital nomads...
Edge announces confidential no-KYC digital currency Mastercard
On Wednesday, self-custody crypto exchange Edge announced a no-Know Your Customer (KYC) debit Mastercard that can be funded with Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Without KYC verification, users would be able to spend their crypto at more than 10 million merchant terminals in the United States. Currently, one can fund the Edge Mastercard using Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH) directly from the Edge app. In a statement to Cointelegraph, representatives at Edge say that the card is compliant with Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing regulations because of a $1,000 daily spending limit on the card (approx. $30,000 monthly). In addition, the card is only available for use at U.S. merchant terminals. Paul Puey, a co-founder ...
Wall Street sends BTC price to $30.8K as latest US dollar uptick fails
Bitcoin (BTC) showed strength at the June 8 Wall Street open as impatient traders waited for a trend to emerge. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Bitcoin still in “no trade zone” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD jumping to near $30,850 after the opening bell, helping claw back some of the ground lost in an overnight correction. Choppy trading conditions prevailed within a familiar range on the day, however, leading to both long and short traders seeing increased risk on low timeframes. For popular trader Crypto Chase, this was a prime period for the transfer of value to “smart money” — away from small-volume speculators and those with “weak hands.” A prior Twitter post had argued for a hands-off approach until a decisiv...
