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☆ 'Ordinals' could signal the beginning of a new generation for Bitcoin. Here's what investors need to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"In a way, Bitcoin Ordinals add more diversity and utility to the Bitcoin network, which could elevate the Bitcoin network utility to that of other blockchains, such as Ethereum." There's one population in crypto, however, who have long believed the Bitcoin network could and must do more than that. Binance cited Bitcoin network congestion on Sunday as the reason for pausing withdrawals, and bitcoin dropped 7% between then and Monday. "Congestion, or lots of demand for the block space, is not just good, it's a critical thing for the future of Bitcoin," Miller added. A sneak peek Ordinals and spikes in transaction fees are just a glimpse of what may be on the horizon.

☆ Institutional interest in crypto is 'maturing,' says Cantor Fitzgerald's Han
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

It may look and feel like crypto has lost its shine for institutional investors, but their interest is still there to stay and may even be maturing, according to Cantor Fitzgerald's Elliot Han. Han, who leads the firm's crypto, blockchain and digital assets investment banking, told CNBC's "Crypto World" that those who have remained in crypto are exploring its different use cases. "There was all this crypto, blockchain hype and euphoria. Now, "we're seeing a lot more maturity," Han said, attributing it to regulation "slowly coming into place" and "more institutional players coming into the space." Most of the large banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs that began experimenting seven years ago are still in the market, Han said.

And so whenever I get one of those notifications, I know I’m going to have a good time there. kevin roose[LAUGHS]: I actually don’t think I could’ve told you what IBM stood for. kevin rooseSo I’ve thought a lot and written a lot about how and when AI actually is a threat to jobs. The third category is just the jobs that I think are going to be protected, the jobs that we won’t let AI do. But I don’t actually think the speed of it matters at all.

☆ Startups want to use blockchain technology to improve the carbon-credit markets. Here's why big names in the climate industry are warming up to the idea.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Startups including Toucan and Topl are building blockchain tools for issuing carbon credits. Several companies, including Toucan, Return, Topl, and Open Forest Protocol, are now aiming to improve the transparency and reliability of carbon credits by coupling climate initiatives with blockchain technology. Erin MurphyThe need for greater transparency in carbon marketsCompanies buy carbon credits to offset the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions their business activity generates. Aureus EarthThe potential benefits of credits on the blockchainThat's where blockchain technology comes in, Murphy and other proponents said. Despite the flaws of that initial attempt, it showed ample market demand for blockchain-based carbon credits, Hoopes said.

☆ The commercial real estate market is showing some cracks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But before we get too intergalactic, this morning we're stopping off in the commercial real estate space. In the wake of March's bank tumult, commercial real estate has frequently been noted as the next domino to fall — and one corner of the market is already showing signs of stress. A few things to remember:Higher interest rates have made it more expensive for both American households and large commercial real estate owners to buy or refinance property. Small and medium-sized banks hold 80% of US commercial real estate debt outstanding. What are the biggest risks, in your view, facing the commercial real estate market for the second quarter of 2023?

☆ LayerZero Labs valued at $3 billion after latest fund-raise
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 4 (Reuters) - LayerZero Labs said on Tuesday that it has raised $120 million in an early stage funding round, that has tripled the blockchain messaging protocol's valuation to $3 billion. The Series B fund-raise saw participation from 33 investors, including a16z crypto, Christie's, Circle Ventures, OpenSea Ventures, Samsung Next, and Sequoia Capital, amongst others. In February, Via said it bagged a valuation of $3.5 billion after a funding round led by 83North. Last year, the New York-based blockchain infrastructure provider had raised $135 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital, FTX Ventures among others that valued it at $1 billion. It has received backing from some of the strongest crypto-focused companies in the entire world, including Binance, Blockdaemon, Christie's, Circle Ventures, Coinbase, OpenSea Ventures, and many more.

☆ 12 crypto projects supporting AI development as mega-cloud giants like Amazon dominate the space, according to a research analyst
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

"Despite the seemingly smooth progress of AI development, there are underlying challenges and bottlenecks that must be addressed. His recent report points to crypto projects that are developing decentralized machine learning compute networks. Crypto projects lowering the barrier to AIThere are five main stages in the development of AI, according to the report. The two crypto projects that currently have the ability for this are gensyn and together however their blockchains are not yet live. Both of the above tasks aren't as strenuous as model training, so more crypto projects can support them.

☆ Premarket stocks: Banking chaos has been bittersweet for crypto and wine
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

But it also gave the fine wine and crypto industry a big boost as panicking investors rushed out of the financial sector and into alternative assets. Bittersweet banking: SVB lent over $4 billion to winery clients since 1994, with over 400 wine industry clients (including wineries, vineyards and vendors) working with the bank’s premium wine division, according to the bank’s website. Recent SEC filings, meanwhile, indicated SVB had about $1.2 billion in outstanding loans to high-end wine clients when the bank collapsed. Circle, the company behind popular stablecoin USDC, said it had about $3.3 billion of its $40 billion in reserves at SVB. The collapse of Signature Bank, a major crypto lender, also had serious implications for the industry.

☆ How U.S. Regulators Are Choking Crypto
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Katie Haun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Some financial regulators appear to have seized on a series of high-profile meltdowns to go around Congress and try to freeze an entire industry out of banking services. I spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor on some of the worst threats our country faces—organized crime, the opioid epidemic, political corruption and terrorism. In my final years at the Justice Department, I shifted to cases involving emerging technology, including the then-nascent crypto category, from the Mt. Public blockchains, the foundational technology of the ecosystem, are an important set of tools that reflect breakthroughs in cryptography and distributed computing. In addition to early financial-use cases, this sector provides new ways to develop, monetize and govern all kinds of software.

☆ Scammers are creating fake “ChatGPT” and “Bing” crypto tokens—here’s how to protect yourself
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Cheyenne Devon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Scammers are trying to cash in on the hype surrounding popular artificial intelligence chatbots including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing AI. A search on DEXTools, an interactive crypto trading platform that tracks prices, reveals about 287 tokens that mention "ChatGPT" in their name. They then promote the coin and convince investors to pour money into it in order to drive the price higher. The firm has identified at least one of those digital coins as having been created by a user notorious for "pump and dump" crypto schemes. Scam crypto tokens are commonly deployed on "permissionless blockchains" also known as public blockchains, says Chen Arad, chief operating officer at Solidus Labs, a cryptocurrency risk monitoring and market surveillance company.

☆ US digital asset fund, venture capital firm to raise $100 million for two new blockchain funds
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, March 8 (Reuters) - Alpha Sigma Capital, a U.S.-based digital asset fund, and Transform Ventures, a venture capital firm, will raise $100 million for two new funds focused on the blockchain and so-called decentralized Web 3.0 ventures, Alpha Sigma founder and Chief Executive Officer Enzo Villani said on Wednesday. Transform Ventures, founded by crypto investor Michael Terpin, also merged some of its assets with Alpha Sigma's parent to form a new holding company called Alpha Transform Holdings. Truglia along with other participants stole 3 million tokens from Terpin's cellphone account in early 2018. The second fund, a closed-end venture capital firm called the Aegean Fund, is still in the process of being established, Villani said. "A lot of things that are happening right now (in the crypto and blockchain space) may be challenging.

[1/2] A representation of the virtual cryptocurrency Bitcoin is seen in this picture illustration taken October 19, 2021. Crypto payment specialists have also seen strong volumes. Nonetheless, proponents say bitcoin offers lower transaction costs and quicker speeds than traditional cash, especially for cross-border transfers. For others, though, growing interest in CBDCs is evidence that blockchain payments tech is here to stay. Traditional finance firms looking to embrace crypto payments have also shrugged off recent market volatility.

NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The creator of a marketplace for National Basketball Association Top Shot non-fungible tokens must face a lawsuit claiming that the tokens are securities, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan rejected Dapper Labs Inc's bid to dismiss a proposed class action by purchasers of NBA Top Shot Moments, which are digital video clips of NBA game highlights. The lawsuit said Dapper should have registered the NFTs as securities because their value was tied to the success of Dapper's blockchain. It says there are more than 1.5 million users of NBA Top Shot, with sales exceeding $1 billion. The case is Friel v. Dapper Labs Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No.

☆ G20 watchdog homes in on decentralised finance after FTX crash
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

FSB member countries will now "proactively" analyse vulnerabilities from DeFi as part of regular monitoring of crypto markets, the report said. The collapse of FTX last November exposed vulnerabilities in intermediaries and DeFi, the report said. FSB DeFi Graphic 1SUPERVISION GAPSThe most worrying vulnerability in DeFi relates to "mismatches" in liquidity from different maturities in liabilities and assets, the report said. Until the sharp retreat in bitcoin prices and the FTX crash, regulators had largely focused on cryptoassets rather than related technology. FSB DeFi Graphic 2Reporting by Huw Jones Editing by Helen PopperOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Paxos ordered to cease minting Binance stablecoin by New York regulator
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Cryptocurrency firm Paxos will cease issuing new Binance USD, or BUSD , stablecoins under the direction of New York state's financial regulator, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said Monday. "We were informed by Paxos they have been directed to cease minting new BUSD by the New York Department of Financial Services," Zhao said on Twitter. Paxos' BUSD product is related to, but separate from, Binance's self-issued Binance-pegged BUSD. "The Department has not authorized Binance-Peg BUSD on any blockchain, and Binance-Peg BUSD is not issued by Paxos," NYDFS said. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled with crypto exchange Kraken over allegations of unregistered offering and sale, in connection with Kraken's crypto staking platform.

The checking is not done by individuals, but by computers in the blockchain network, often via third-party staking services. Nearly all of the major crypto exchanges offer staking services to their customers for a variety of tokens, including Coinbase (COIN.O), Binance, Crypto.com, Gemini, Huobi and OKX. The SEC has said most staking providers fail to provide customers proper disclosures about how their cryptocurrency will be used and should register their staking services with the agency. In its settlement with the SEC on Feb. 9, Kraken neither admitted nor denied the SEC's claim that its staking service should have been registered. Kraken said it would continue to offer staking to customers based outside of the United States.

☆ Crypto protection and insurance startup Coincover just raised $30 million in fresh funds. Check out the 18-slide pitch deck it used to land the cash.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Cryptocurrency protection and insurance startup Coincover just raised $30 million in funding. Check out the 18-slide pitch deck it used to land the fresh capital below. A startup that offers protection to crypto users against issues like loss of access to their digital assets has raised $30 million in fresh funds. The deal takes Coincover to $41.6 million in funds raised to date. Check out the 18-slide pitch deck Coincover used to raise the funds below:

☆ Coinbase CEO points to rumors that the SEC could ban this popular crypto income-generating technique for US retail investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Coinbase's Brian Armstrong flagged rumors that the SEC may want to ban crypto staking for retail investors. Staking is a popular way for customers to earn yield in exchange for locking up their crypto assets. The SEC has repeatedly stated that most digital tokens could be regulated as securities. For the unititated, staking gives a crypto holder financial rewards for locking up their assets and confirming transactions on a blockchain's network. It allows users to participate directly in running open crypto networks," Armstrong tweeted.

☆ Crypto investors lost nearly $4 billion to hackers in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( Cheyenne Devon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Cryptocurrency hackers stole $3.8 billion in 2022, according to the blockchain analytics firm's report — up from $3.3 billion in 2021 . Take smart contracts, for example. These digital contracts are the key underlying technologies that allow crypto transactions to be made. Within DeFi, smart contracts are publicly viewable sets of instructions that allow users to borrow, lend or make transactions without an intermediary. Once a user meets the smart contract's terms and conditions, the transaction happens automatically, similar to a vending machine.

☆ Trader Is Charged in Alleged $110 Million Crypto Manipulation Scheme
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Mengqi Sun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

He faces charges of commodities fraud, commodities market manipulation and wire fraud in connection with what prosecutors said was manipulation of Mango Markets. Mr. Eisenberg remained in police custody on Thursday and will be arraigned Feb. 14, when he would be asked to enter a plea. PREVIEWThe Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed parallel civil charges against Mr. Eisenberg last month. The CFTC, which regulates derivatives markets, said the enforcement action against Mr. Eisenberg was the first of its kind against an alleged manipulation scheme involving a decentralized exchange. He allegedly artificially pumped up the price of MNGO on three different digital asset exchanges that Mango Markets used to determine the value of the derivative contracts.

☆ Crypto's core technology has a legitimacy problem. The founder of VC firm Dao5 is seeking to shore up its cred by working with university researchers.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Tekin Salimi, the founder of the VC firm Dao5, sources many of his deals through academic research. Salimi's venture capital firm, Dao5, counts several university professors among its advisors and has backed several startups founded by academics. His budding interest in crypto eventually brought him to Silicon Valley, where he joined the crypto VC firm Polychain Capital in 2018. When he left Polychain to launch Dao5 last year, Salimi sought to build academic research into the firm's deal-sourcing process. Dao5 cut ties with Kwon after the collapse, and he never had any financial involvement in the firm, Salimi said.

☆ Record $3.8 billion stolen in crypto hacks last year, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —A record $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from various services last year, with much of those thefts driven by North Korean-linked hackers, according to a report Wednesday from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. Some of the biggest crypto hacks of the year have since been attributed to North Korea. US officials worry Pyongyang will use money stolen from crypto hacks to fund its illicit nuclear and ballistic weapons program. While crypto hacks continued to rise last year, there is some cause for hope. Law enforcement and national security agencies are expanding their abilities to combat digital criminals, such as the FBI’s recovery of $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen in the Axie Infinity hack.

☆ (OFFICIAL) FBI says N. Korea-related hacker group behind U.S. crypto firm heist
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

On Jan. 13, North Korean cyber actors used a privacy protocol called Railgun to launder over $60 million worth of ethereum stolen during the theft in June, the FBI said in a statement. A portion of the stolen ethereum was subsequently sent to several virtual asset providers and converted to bitcoin, the FBI said. The FBI said North Korea's theft and laundering of virtual currency is used to support its ballistic missile and Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. Reuters in June reported that North Korean hackers were most likely behind the attack on Harmony, citing three digital investigative firms. Reporting by Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ FBI says N. Korea-related hacker groups behind U.S. crypto firm heist
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 23 (Reuters) - Two hacker groups associated with North Korea, the Lazarus Group and APT38, were responsible for the theft last June of $100 million from U.S. crypto firm Harmony's Horizon bridge, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday. The FBI said North Korea's theft and laundering of virtual currency is used to support its ballistic missile and Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. Reuters in June reported that North Korean hackers were most likely behind the attack on Harmony, citing three digital investigative firms. Harmony develops blockchains for decentralized finance - peer-to-peer sites that offer loans and other services without traditional gatekeepers such as banks - and non-fungible tokens. Reporting by Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Bitcoin’s popularity with developers shrunk last year while Ethereum’s flourished. Here’s what that means for investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Crypto prices suffered badly in 2022, but developer activity for the year paints a more optimistic picture for investors. That puts developer growth at 9% for the year, the report showed, even as the price of ether dropped 67%, according to Coin Metrics. Its price collapsed 50% last year, but the strength of its developer community gave investors hope it would pull through. Meanwhile, bitcoin's developer population shrunk 4%, though it's still the fifth largest in the market at 300 full-time builders. Why it matters for investors Developer activity is an indicator of a network's utility and potential for end users.

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