Respected former decentralized finance (DeFi) project founder and developer Andre Cronje has resurfaced after a lengthy hiatus to call for tighter regulations on the crypto sector amid the implosion of multiple firms this year. The comments echo similar sentiments to that of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who also called for more stringent digital asset industry standards last week, including greater consumer protections, transparency and disclosures. SBF was met with strong community pushback, however, with many people accusing the CEO of trying to monopolize or censor the DeFi space, among other things. In an Oct. 25 blog post titled “The Crypto Winter of 2022,” Cronje called for greater regulation of the sector, noting that “the recent decline of the crypto-market has shown the f...
A Hong Kong-headquartered crypto investment platform, Q9 Capital, received provisional virtual asset approval from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA). The company announced its expansion to the UAE and applied for a full operating license as well. According to its press release from Oct. 27, Q9 will establish a regional hub in Dubai and start providing services to qualified investors and financial service providers once it receives a full operating license. The provisional approval from VARA gives the crypto platform the legal possibility to set up offices and provide digital asset exchange services to pre-qualified investors and financial firms. At the moment, Q9 also holds offices in Hong Kong, London and Limassol. James Quinn, a managing partner at Q9, expressed his...
Multi-chain nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace myNFT has announced it will showcase its first-ever physical NFT vending machine at this year’s NFT.London event scheduled for Nov. 2–4. The NFT platform hopes to provide an easy and accessible way for people who want to start buying and trading digital assets without needing deep knowledge of the Web3 industry. The vending machine will allow users to purchase an NFT without owning a digital wallet. Users who want to purchase an NFT through myNFT’s vending machine will need to select one of the envelopes on display, and then key in the code provided. After paying, they’ll be able to scan the QR code in the envelope, which will come with an invitation to set up a myNFT account, complete with an NFT wallet, in which they’ll receive ...
In 2018, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) wrote to the heads of the country’s biggest high street banks to emphasize the importance of due diligence when dealing with crypto businesses. That seems to have led to widespread high-risk ratings and bans on crypto-related banking, impacting both crypto businesses hoping to operate in the U.K. and investors alike. Banks are, understandably and responsibly, concerned with scams, but the current situation creates uncertainty. Crypto investors need to be able to move their money around as they like, and crypto businesses need access to payment rails for a variety of other reasons, such as paying staff and suppliers. A catch-22 that harms market competition By barring crypto businesses from accessing “mainstream” banking, organ...
Research has detailed Bitcoin’s recent record-low volatility and, while traders expect an eventual price breakout, the Oct. 26 BTC price move to $21,000 is not yet being interpreted as confirmation that $20,000 has now become support. In a recent “The Week On-chain Newsletter,” Glassnode analysts mapped out a bull case and a bear case for BTC. According to the report, the bear case includes limited on-chain transaction activity, stagnant non-zero address growth and reduced miner profits presenting a strong Bitcoin sell-off risk, but data also shows that long-term hodlers are more determined than ever to weather the current bear market. The bull case, on the other hand, entails an increase in whale wallets, outflow from centralized exchanges and hodling by longer-term investors. Stall...
The Sushi DAO, the decentralized autonomous organization behind crypto exchange SushiSwap, has approved a legal restructuring on Oct. 26 that creates three new decentralized entities, aiming to provide more flexibility to its operations. The proposal, which received 100% votes in favor, will create the DAO Foundation, Panamanian Foundation, and Panamanian Corporation, each serving different purposes. Among other things, the DAO Foundation will be able to administer treasury, grants and on-chain governance processes, and facilitate proposals and voting. The Panamanian Foundation will administer the existing Sushi protocol (including smart contracts related to the automated market maker/orderbook, Kashi and staking). Finally, the Panamanian Corporation will operate the graphical user interfa...
Prometheum Ember ATS announced the launch of its alternative trading system (ATS) on Oct. 26. The new ATS is registered by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Prometheum Ember ATS will offer digital asset securities trading, clearing, settlement and custody. The new ATS has partnered with Anchorage Digital Bank to help it provide its service, which is meant to “seamlessly integrate with legacy securities trading systems.” Prometheum stated that its ATS “enables institutions to trade digital asset securities under Federal Securities Laws.” It will initially support digital assets Flow, Filecoin, The Graph, Compound and Celo. Prometheum founder and co-CEO Aaron Kaplan said in a statement: “Prometheum sets ...
California, United States, 26th October, 2022, Chainwire Regen Network Development released its marketplace application for tokenized carbon and ecological assets, Regen Marketplace. Regen Network allows carbon project developers to originate high-quality nature-based carbon credits to markets, catalyzing regenerative finance solutions to the climate crisis. Regen Marketplace takes advantage of Regen Ledger, the application-specific blockchain which brings transparency and public governance to voluntary carbon markets, built on the CosmosSDK. Regen Marketplace is a blockchain platform for the origination, governance, and exchange of tokenized ecological assets. Climate impact projects can define, manage, mint, and sell tokenized carbon and other ecological assets in the blockchain-based re...
Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $21,000 for the first time since September after the Oct. 26 Wall Street open as buyers solidified gains. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView BTC bulls “eat” ask liquidity Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit local highs of $21,012 on Bitstamp. At the time of writing, the pair continued to explore territory out of reach for over six weeks. Liquidations also kept flowing, with the past 24 hours delivering $750 million in liquidated positions on Bitcoin alone, according to data from Coinglass. Cross-crypto liquidations totaled $1.43 billion, adding to what was already the highest tally in 2022 so far. Crypto liquidations chart. Source: Coinglass The impetus did not come from United States equities on ...
According to a new preprint conducted by researchers at the Open Universiteit, University of California Berkley, and Radboud University, the vast majority of literature on blockchain energy use from both academic and everyday sources “lacks the scientific rigor expected from a mature scientific field.” The report analyzed 128 scientific and open-source studies related to carbon emissions of blockchains such as Bitcoin. Researchers then found that an astonishing 34% of studies did not even possess an explicit research design. Meanwhile, 43% of studies did not share data, while 67% did not share source code. Finally, 79% of studies had no discussions about the reliability of external data. Several notable fallacies across studies were discovered by researchers in their analysis. ...
The detective chief superintendent for the United Kingdom’s National Police Chiefs’ Council has said all police forces in the country have officers trained for investigations involving the enforcement and seizure of cryptocurrencies. In an Oct. 25 parliamentary debate on the U.K. Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, Andy Gould of the NPCC said that the country’s police force had the capability to address economic crimes involving crypto, but not the capacity. He reported that the authorities had used £100 million — roughly $116 million at the time of publication — over the last four years to create “cryptocurrency tactical advisers across the whole of policing.” “There are now officers in every force and every regional organised crime unit who are trained and equipped to [invest...