Crypto news
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...
Crypto winter? DeFi, Metaverse, and NFT job market still hot — Recruiters
The ongoing crypto winter has seen budgets and jobs slashed, but the search for top-tier talent hasn’t stopped across several Web3 verticals, according to some crypto recruitment firms. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Kevin Gibson, founder of crypto recruiting firm Proof of Search said that the majority of staff cuts in the crypto market have been from centralized exchanges, most notably the 18% staff cut at Coinbase in June, 10% cuts at Gemini in July, and the 5% cut at Crypto.com. Despite this, he said there is “still a great deal of demand” for crypto job seekers to get work with “Game-Fi, Metaverse, De-Fi and NFT-oriented companies.” Gibson explained that crypto job boards continue to be dominated by developer and engineer roles, adding there is also “a shortage of experienced CTO, CMO...
Ripple’s plan to tokenize Colombian land stalls amid new administration
A partnership between the Colombian government and Ripple Labs to put land titles on the blockchain appears to have stalled following the project being “deprioritized” by the new administration. The project was initially announced by the outgoing government’s Ministry of Information Technology and Communications just two weeks before the newly elected president Gustavo Petro was sworn into office. According to an Aug. 30 report from Forbes, the interim director of the National Lands Agency Juan Manuel Noruega Martínez said the project is not part of the agency’s strategic priorities for 2022, stating: “This isn’t one of the projects defined in the PETI [Strategic Plan for Information Technologies]” The shift comes as something of a surprise considering Colombia’s ne...
Helium devs propose ditching its own blockchain for Solana
Internet of Things (IoT) blockchain network Helium could transition to the Solana blockchain following a new HIP 70 governance proposal launched on Aug. 30. The Helium core developers said the need to “improve operational efficiency and scalability” was required in order to bring “significant economies of scale” to the network. The Helium network operates by users installing a Helium Hotspot to provide decentralized wireless 5G network coverage for internet users in their area. Helium uses a unique consensus mechanism — proof-of-coverage to verify network connectivity and distribute HNT tokens to Helium Hotspot providers when coverage is verified. The proposal comes as Helium developers have emphasized the need to fix a number of technical issues in order to improve the network’s cap...
AngelBlock, DeFi protocol for crypto-native fundraising, announces it’s Startup Grant Program and platform launch
Warsaw, Poland, 31st August, 2022, Chainwire AngelBlock is a platform dedicated to bringing together vetted, noteworthy crypto and FinTech startups with knowledgeable investors. The aim is to allow frictionless providing of financing and support by investors to new ventures in the crypto, blockchain, and FinTech space focusing on early-stage investments, in a manner that’s fully on-chain and decentralized. The team prepares to launch the fundraising platform in Q4 later this year, and they want to support three promising startups with a 90,000 USDT grant program. Winners of the grant will not only get 30,000 USDT each but will also be listed on the platform for fundraising and have access to the core AngelBlock team for mentoring. Grants applications will open on August 31 and close on Sep...
US Federal Reserve discussion paper takes cold, hard look at DeFi, gives it mixed review
There are more than 1,400 DApps in operation and their number is growing rapidly, according to a United States Federal Reserve Board discussion paper dated in June but released on Aug. 30. Ethereum is their biggest host with 470, or 31%, of them. Those decentralized finance (DeFi) products represent a very small share of the global financial system, but may still pose risks to financial stability, the authors said. The cumulative gross value of DeFi products ranged from $78 billion to $224 billion at the beginning of the second quarter of 2022, depending on how DeFi was defined, the paper said. Those figures have fallen dramatically since then, as the crypto winter descended. At the same time, technological developments are improving DeFi’s processing capacity. The authors speculate that w...
