crypto
Stader Labs announce $12.5 million strategic raise, receives praise from Terra founder Do Kwon
On Thursday, Stader Labs, a crypto firm building decentralized finance, or DeFi, products for proof-of-stake blockchain networks, announced that it raised $12.5 million in a private sale. The funding round was led by Three Arrows Capital with additional participation from Blockchain.com, Accomplice, DACM, GoldenTree Asset Management, Accel, Amber, 4RC, Figment, and anger investors. This puts Staber Labs at a valuation of $450 million. Amitej Gajjala, CEO of Stader Labs, issued the following comment regarding the development: This capital will be strategically deployed to accelerate our cross-chain expansion, as well as to nurture our growing ecosystem of third-parties developing staking applications with decentralized Stader infrastructure. Stader Labs’ two core products are Stake Po...
Wiki continues to accept crypto donations despite pressure to stop
Following a proposal from users to stop accepting crypto donations to Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit confirmed that it would proceed with crypto donations. Contributors banded together to urge the foundation to disable the option to donate in crypto because of environmental concerns. However, while the organization will continuously monitor the conversations around crypto within its communities, it will not budge on accepting crypto donations. Elise Flick from the Wikimedia team told Cointelegraph that Wikimedia’s fundraising approach is meeting donors where they are. Flick mentioned that the foundation aims to “provide the most desired payment options in different parts of the world.” This includes catering to the requests that the foundation received from donors requesting to b...
The SEC has issued $2.4B in crypto-related penalties since 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a total of approximately $2.35 billion in penalties against participants in the digital asset marketplace since 2013 according to a Jan 19 report by Cornerstone Research. The report, SEC Cryptocurrency Enforcement: 2021 Update, found that the SEC brought a total of 97 enforcement actions worth $2.35 billion between 2013 and the end of 2021. Fifty eight of the total of 97 were actions litigations and the remaining 39 were administrative proceedings. Of the total $2.35 billion raised by the litigations, $1.71 billion was charged in litigation and $640 million in administrative proceedings. Allegations in SEC Cryptocurrency Litigations. Source: Cornerstone Research. The majority of those charged were “firm respondents only,” racking up $...
The SEC has issued $2.4B in crypto-related penalties since 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a total of approximately $2.35 billion in penalties against participants in the digital asset marketplace since 2013 according to a Jan 19 report by Cornerstone Research. The report, SEC Cryptocurrency Enforcement: 2021 Update, found that the SEC brought a total of 97 enforcement actions worth $2.35 billion between 2013 and the end of 2021. Fifty eight of the total of 97 were actions litigations and the remaining 39 were administrative proceedings. Of the total $2.35 billion raised by the litigations, $1.71 billion was charged in litigation and $640 million in administrative proceedings. Allegations in SEC Cryptocurrency Litigations. Source: Cornerstone Research. The majority of those charged were “firm respondents only,” racking up $...
Union Bank of the Philippines selects Metaco and IBM to facilitate digital asset custody operations
On Thursday, Metaco, an enterprise cryptocurrency platform for securing, trading, issuing, and managing digital assets, announced the addition of UnionBank as its latest client. Founded in 1982, UnionBank is one of the largest banks in the Philippines, with a collective $15 billion in assets under management. UnionBank will be also be deploying its digital asset management services on the IBM Cloud, which are fully integrated with Metaco’s solutions. Through the integration, UnionBank will be able to improve the insurability of assets with FIPS 140-2 Level 4 certified controls for managing and migrating keys. FIPS 140-2 is the highest level of U.S. government computer security standard. In addition to detecting and responding to all unauthorized attempts at physical access, the proto...
Union Bank of the Philippines selects Metaco and IBM to facilitate digital asset custody operations
On Thursday, Metaco, an enterprise cryptocurrency platform for securing, trading, issuing, and managing digital assets, announced the addition of UnionBank as its latest client. Founded in 1982, UnionBank is one of the largest banks in the Philippines, with a collective $15 billion in assets under management. UnionBank will be also be deploying its digital asset management services on the IBM Cloud, which are fully integrated with Metaco’s solutions. Through the integration, UnionBank will be able to improve the insurability of assets with FIPS 140-2 Level 4 certified controls for managing and migrating keys. FIPS 140-2 is the highest level of U.S. government computer security standard. In addition to detecting and responding to all unauthorized attempts at physical access, the proto...
Panther protocol co-founder Oliver Gale discusses bringing zero-knowledge technology to multi-chain
Privacy coins and zero-knowledge technology, which some use to obfuscate the identity of sends/receivers and transaction amounts, have gained enormous popularity in recent years due to mounting regulatory surveillance against the crypto sector. But despite their rapid rise in market cap, critics continue to scrutinize such class of assets as enablers for masking illicit activities. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Oliver Gale, CEO, and co-founder of the Panther Protocol (ZKP), elaborated on the technology behind its privacy decentralized finance, or DeFi, solutions and why it’s necessary for today’s crypto space: CT: How much did you raise from your recent token sale, and what does your roadmap look like from here? OG: We’ve raised over $30 million in total. ...
FTX announced as naming rights sponsor of Australian Blockchain Week 2022
FTX Trading Limited (FTX) will be the naming rights sponsor for Australian Blockchain Week 2022, which will run from March 21 to 25. Blockchain Australia is the peak industry network in Australia, bringing together industry, academia and government to discuss the opportunities of blockchain technology. I’m incredibly excited to announce @FTX_Official as the Naming Rights Sponsor for Blockchain Week 2022. A huge to @SBF_FTX for your support of the Australian ecosystem pic.twitter.com/B6cUWaTWIE — Steve Vallas (@stevevallas) January 17, 2022 Over 200 speakers across 75 events will present at Australian Blockchain Week, including FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Launched in May 2019, FTX is a Bahamian-based cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. At the time of publication, it had a 24-hour trad...
Crypto DAO spends €2.66M on Jodorowsky’s Dune thinking they would own its copyright, receives mass ridicule on Twitter
Late Saturday, Spice DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that owns a copy of an unpublished manuscript of Frank Herbert and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never-completed film Dune, announced its roadmap going forward. In the tweet, Spice DAO said it would “Make the book public, produce an original animated limited series inspired by the book and sell it to a streaming service, and support derivative projects from the community.” The group had previously won the Christie’s auction in November for the copy’s sale at 2.66 million euros (a little over $3 million), or about 89 times its price estimates at the midpoint. However, there was just one problem, buying a copy of a book does not grant the purchaser its copyright. In the United States and European Union, ...
University accepts Bitcoin donations to fund crypto-related activities
Back in October 2021, The Campanile Foundation (TCF), an auxiliary of the San Diego State University (SDSU), accepted its first crypto donation. Now, the university announced that it is welcoming digital currency donations in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). TCF chief financial officer David Fuhriman said one percent of the total crypto holdings would be withdrawn quarterly to fund campus activities that aim to discover how the university could interact with crypto, such as working on a system that permits broader digital transactions within the university. Meanwhile, the rest of the funds will be converted into BTC and will not be liquidated immediately, with hopes that the price will go up in the future and help more programs. SDSU accepted the university’s first cryptocu...
CoinMarketCap allegedly lists 3 fake SHIB contract addresses, Twitter firestorm ensues
A bit Twitter drama ensued on Thursday, continuing well into Friday afternoon, when developers behind popular meme token Shiba Inu (SHIB) issued a statement alleging that CoinMarketCap had listed three fake SHIB contract addresses belonging to the Binance Smart Chain (BNB), Solana (SOL), and Terra Luna (LUNA) blockchains. The staff at Shiba Inu claimed that the addresses were unsafe and that CoinMarketCap had refused to correct the alleged mistake. At the time of publication, the contract addresses are still viewable on CoinMarketCap. Official Statement regarding the recent actions by @CoinMarketCap . pic.twitter.com/DXP2wZRhYC — Shib (@Shibtoken) January 13, 2022 Earlier in the day, CoinMarketCap issued a response claiming that the contract addresses listed on the page are wormhole addres...
Stacks ecosystem becomes #1 Web3 project on Bitcoin
On the first anniversary of the launch of Stacks blockchain (STX), which seeks to make Bitcoin (BTC) programmable, the network achieved over 350 million monthly API requests, 40,000 Hiro (development tool for Stacks to build applications on Bitcoin) wallet downloads, and 2,500 Clarity smart contracts. According to a report by Electric Capital, a venture capital firm focused on cryptocurrencies and fintech, these statistics make Stacks the largest project on Bitcoin. More than 11,000 users earned more than 100 BTC rewards per month on Stacks due to its unique proof-of-transfer, or PoX, consensus mechanism. Miners bid BTC to verify transactions, execute smart contracts and mine new blocks on the STX blockchain and earn STX as rewards. Meanwhile, the BTC bids are sent to STX holders as reward...
