Regulatory crackdowns, banking collapse and persistent inflation should have created problems for the crypto industry, but prices are only rising in 2023.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is up 72%, recently breaking the $30,000 threshold. (It has since fallen below $28,500 as inflation and rising interest rates spooked investors).
US Congressman says he will introduce legislation to fire Gary Gensler
Congressman Davidson will introduce legislation to fire SEC Chief Gensler for exceeding his authority in the cryptocurrency space.
In an April 15 tweet responding to Coinbase legal chief Paul Grewal, the cryptocurrency-friendly congressman announced his intention to have Gensler removed from office. This comes after the SEC's latest announcement to revise its proposed new definition of "exchange."
Users have withdrawn 1 million Ethers since the Shapella update
Over the same period of time, the price of Ether has increased - at the time of writing it is around $2,100.
The Shanghai hard fork is part of an update called Shapella. It was launched on April 12 at block 6209536.
This update allowed Ether stakeholders to withdraw their rewards and the Ethers themselves. The total amount of ether withdrawn currently stands at 1.02 million coins, according to data from token.unlocks.
This unexpected decision was presented by the official fund, which caused a wave of discontent.
The Arbitrum Foundation released a statement in which representatives addressed the crypto community. This opus states that out of 50 million ARB tokens, 40 million ARB were allocated as a “loan to one sophisticated player in the financial markets.”
Tech and media executives see the potential the metaverse can bring to business economically
“The majority of TMT executives who responded to our survey believe the metaverse is still several years away from a thriving commerce ecosystem,” KPMG said.
UK banks limit relationships with crypto companies and exchanges – Bloomberg
The agency's report clarifies that HSBC and Natwest have limited the amount of money that customers can transfer to crypto exchanges. Barclays has also suspended transfers to Binance in 2021.
As we know, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has grandiose plans to create a real crypto hub and promote mass adoption, but apparently the UK banks have other plans.
Japan issues warning to 4 cryptocurrency exchanges
Bybit, Bitget, BitForex and MEXC Global were hit by Japanese regulators for operating without the required registration.
This Friday, the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) published a statement in which they spoke about four exchanges that, as it turns out, have been operating for an impressive amount of time in Japan without registration.
Hacker used exploit to extract $9 million from Safemoon liquidity pool
On Wednesday, nearly $9 million leaked from the Safemoon token liquidity pool after attackers exploited a smart contract vulnerability.
Blockchain data shows that multiple tokens were exchanged in the wee hours of Wednesday in a single transaction, and the attacker ended up stealing billions of Safemoon SFM tokens locked in the LP (liquidity pool).
The new subgrid of the Polygon project has been released on the mainnet
Polygon has released its second-level blockchain, built on zero-knowledge proof technology
In fact, Polygon became the second company in four days to make the so-called “zkEVM” available to the general public.
Second-layer blockchains, also known as rollups, collect and compress user transactions before adding them to the Ethereum blockchain. This significantly reduces the cost of each transaction and increases the number of transactions Ethereum can process.
Burger King hints at the possibility of paying with DOGE cryptocurrency on its Twitter
Yum-yum-yum, motherfucker! The British branch of the global fast food giant Burger King responded to the message about accepting Bitcoin and, in principle, cryptocurrency payments at Burger King Paris with a rather unexpected answer: “We need doge.”
One user commented: "I'll gladly pay Burger King in a dog." This is not the first time Burger King and Dogecoin have interacted. In July 2021, Burger King Brazil announced that Dogecoin would be accepted as a form of payment for its Dogpper snack.
The UK has shelved plans to launch a government-backed "NFT for Britain" that was originally proposed by crypto-friendly Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The launch of the project was planned for the summer of 2022, but in the end they did not meet the deadline (yes, already 2023).
Responding to a question from the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee on March 27 about whether there was still a plan for the Royal Mint to issue an NFT token, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith noted the following:
Sam Bankman-Fried banned from using online messengers
The story of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried continues to evolve as lawyers and the court continue to argue over Bankman's bail conditions.
Well, this is not surprising, the little man bankrupted the state due to the high cost of running his business and untangling the loose ends.
Sam's lawyers have reportedly reached a new bail agreement with the US Attorney's Office, allowing him to remain at home, but legal officials have decided to cut back some of Sam's ties to the outside world.
Euler, who hacked the decentralized platform, returned $90 million
Previously, on March 13th, the Euler Finance protocol lost $200 million due to a flash loan exploit attack.
Interesting! Less than two weeks after the nine-figure Euler Finance hack, the attacker has recovered nearly half of the stolen assets by sending 51,000 Ether back to the credit protocol wallet.
Silvergate Bank Announces Termination of Cryptocurrency Support and Voluntary Liquidation
Silvergate previously announced that it would delay the results of its K-10 report by several weeks, which caused concern among investors.
The warning signs continued to emerge last week when Silvergate announced it was shutting down its crypto payments network, one of the bank's main selling points for cryptocurrency exchanges.
The US President will propose changing the rules for taxation of cryptocurrencies
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Joe Biden will introduce changes to crypto taxes in his upcoming budget plan.
The well-known publication, the Wall Street Journal, reports that the president will propose changes to the rules of taxation of cryptocurrencies in order to combat “laundering” operations.
Binance's NFT marketplace will now support the Polygon network
The Binance NFT marketplace now supports depositing, withdrawing, and listing NFT tokens from the Polygon network.
Despite this announcement, Binance has taken a rather cautious stance regarding NFT listings. The marketplace stated that not all collections will be available at this time.
Now ten collections have been added, they were hand-selected, and support the ERC-721 standard on the Polygon network. The platform plans to regularly integrate new ones.
Jack Dorsey launches the project. It's called Bluesky and it's a decentralized Twitter.
Nothing new - before this, Dorsey sponsored Damus, built on the Nostr protocol, and now he’s doing something of his own. This platform is currently being tested. It can be downloaded from the App Store, but only if you are invited to the closed beta test.