Tag: decentralized finance

U.K. Seizes NFTs in Fraud Probe as Authorities Hunt for Illicit Digital Assets 

ERROR In a move that demonstrates how digital assets are being targeted in legal cases, British authorities have seized three NFTs linked to a criminal fraud investigation, according to a Feb. 14 report in the BBC.  Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the equivalent of the IRS in Britain, seized three NFTs and roughly £5,000 […]

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SEC Says BlockFi Misrepresented Risk to Crypto Depositors In $100M Order

ERROR The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges that crypto lender BlockFi inaccurately described the level of risk its depositors were exposed to, in an order explaining a $100M settlement between BlockFi and federal and state securities regulators.  “BlockFi made a material misrepresentation to BIA [BlockFi Interest Account] investors concerning the level of risk […]

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Why Startup Founders Should Check In With Their Investors About Compliance

ERROR There are over 4,000 words in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s rule describing all the documentation that a registered investment advisor needs to maintain. And more and more venture capital firms investing in the blockchain industry are getting large enough that they have to become registered investment advisors (RIAs), and this dramatically increases […]

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Gas Prices Slam Buyers in Cool Pets NFT Drop as Transaction Fees Soar 7,000%

ERROR Demand for NFT avatars is showing no signs of slowing down. Collectors seeking to mint Cool Pets, the latest drop from the Cool Cats development team Cooltopia, paid extreme fees to secure a token from the project’s public drop yesterday. In its documentation, Cooltopia said it had “put measures in place to deter a […]

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Gnosis Votes on Whether to Spin Out DeFi Infrastructure Project as Independent DAO 

ERROR In a move that could change the structure of one of the most important pieces of DeFi infrastructure, the community behind Gnosis is voting on whether to spin out Gnosis Safe, its popular multi-signature digital asset management platform. Gnosis Safe supports the Ethereum and Web3 ecosystems. Many leading crypto protocols, including Curve, Aave, and […]

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Smooth Love Potion Soars 70% in 24 Hours Behind Axie Infinity Update

ERROR Smooth Love Potion, a token earned by playing Axie Infinity, has been a white knuckle ride in recent months.  In its latest turn, the token has soared almost 70%,  to $0.034 in mid-morning trading U.K. time. The momentum pushed Smooth Love Potion’s (SLP) market cap to $1.1B.  SLP’s 14-day chart. Source: CoinGecko The token […]

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Cancel Culture Comes to Crypto as Offensive Tweets Trigger Flurry of Ousters

ERROR For years, crypto has floated along in its own bubble, replete with risque anime characters, profane observations, and lots of provocative opinions about politics and society.   There was little concern about offending others and definitely no worry about crypto leaders being jettisoned from projects because of something they said.  That appears to be […]

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Bancor TVL Drops 30% After Suspending Protection from Impermanent Loss

ERROR Total value locked (TVL) in Bancor, one of DeFi’s first decentralized exchanges, has plummeted 30.2% since the protocol paused impermanent loss protection on June 19, according to data from The Defiant’s newly released chart feature.   In contrast, each of the top four Ethereum DEXs in terms of TVL has seen the value of assets […]

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Uniswap To Integrate Sudoswap To Access Deeper NFT Liquidity

ERROR Uniswap is diving deep down the NFT rabbit hole.  The automated market maker is integrating decentralized NFT marketplace Sudoswap to allow for efficient NFT swaps when it launches its NFT platform. The news was shared by Scott Gray, head of NFT product at Uniswap Labs. The integration will allow users to purchase NFTs using […]

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Feds Turn Up the Heat on Crypto with Insider Trading Case Against ex-Coinbase Employee SEC Defines 'Digital Assets' as Securities in Complaint

ERROR The U.S. Justice Department’s crackdown on crypto just ratcheted up a notch. On Thursday, Federal prosecutors accused a former employee of Coinbase, the leading crypto exchange, and two others in the first-ever case of insider trading involving cryptocurrencies.  In a 22-page indictment, prosecutors in New York allege former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi, his […]

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Proposal To Turn On Uniswap ‘Fee Switch’ Gains Early Support

ERROR When will Uniswap, DeFi’s leading decentralized exchange in terms of trading volume, start to make money for itself? It’s a question that people have asked since Uniswap V2, the second iteration of the protocol, was launched in May 2020. V2 included code to capture .05% of trading volume, but that function, also known as […]

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ZK Roundup: Ethereum Scaling Projects Are Forging Ahead

ERROR On Wednesday, a trio of unaffiliated companies said they have made progress toward building zero-knowledge protocols capable of scaling Ethereum. Ethereum sidechain Polygon released the source code for its Polygon zkEVM, short for zero-knowledge Ethereum virtual machine. Matter Labs, the company behind zkSync, unveiled a roadmap for zkSync 2.0 and plans to launch “the […]

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Buterin Likes the Idea of ‘Network States’ Built Around the Blockchain

ERROR Crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State was released on July 10 and centers around creating startup societies that are founded in the cloud, use an integrated cryptocurrency, and crowdfunded physical territories. In a July 12 blog post, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on the book.  Although Vitalik disagrees with Balaji […]

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Ethereum Still On Track For Mid-September Merge

ERROR Ethereum developers have doubled down on a mid-September target for the Merge during a conference call held on Thursday.  The Merge is Ethereum’s highly anticipated transition from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It’s expected to slash the blockchain’s energy use and, therefore, carbon emissions, by as much as 99%, addressing one of […]

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StarkNet Testers Fume After Token Announcement

ERROR StarkWare, the company behind Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution StarkNet, plans to launch a native token designed to decentralize control and maintenance of the network. The token is also intended to reward developers and investors, and its unveiling comes a day after Su Zhu, the enigmatic founder of failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, […]

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Phishing Villain Targets Uniswap Users with Airdrop Grift

ERROR “Our threat intel detected a potential exploit on Uniswap V3 on the ETH blockchain…” tweeted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) on Monday evening. The news spread like wildfire across Twitter and Discord. For a few tense minutes, observers questioned what an exploit of one of DeFi’s backbones could mean for this tender market. A […]

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Celsius Continues To Rapidly Repay DeFi Loans

ERROR Embattled crypto lender Celsius Network is aggressively paying down its DeFi debts as user withdrawals remain suspended. Since July 1, Celsius has repaid Aave 146M USDC and more than 53M DAI, while withdrawing almost 6,000 wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), nearly 55,000 ETH and millions of dollars worth of other tokens posted as collateral, according to […]

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Aztec Launches Private DeFi Platform on Ethereum

ERROR Using data compression techniques called zero-knowledge rollups, privacy-focused startup Aztec aims to allow Ethereum applications to offer users improved privacy and lower costs on transactions.   With Aztec’s revamped zk.money DeFi aggregator, DeFi apps like Lido and Curve can be used privately.   “Imagine if everyone could see all of your credit card transactions–that’s Ethereum today,” […]

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Celsius Partner Details Inner Workings of ‘Ponzi Scheme’ in Lawsuit Asset Manager Claims Celsius Engaged in 'Gross Mismanagement' of Deposits

ERROR The crisis engulfing Celsius, the embattled centralized crypto lending platform, took a strange turn on July 7 when a former partner that helped manage assets for the firm accused it of running a “Ponzi scheme.” In a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court, KeyFi Inc., a New York-based asset management firm, pulled back […]

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Aave Bucks Stablecoin Fear with Proposed New Token

ERROR While Terra’s collapse may have cast a shadow over stablecoins, one big DeFi player doesn’t appear to be deterred. Aave Companies, the centralized entity that stewards the Aave lending protocol, proposed a new dollar-pegged stablecoin to the protocol’s DAO on July 7. The GHO stablecoin would be minted by borrowing against assets locked as […]

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Celsius Pays Off MakerDAO Debt, Moves $500M of Bitcoin to FTX

ERROR Embattled crypto lender Celsius Network has paid off its debt to MakerDAO, a sign the platform is recovering from its recent near-death experience.  On July 7, Celsius repaid the remaining $41.2 million in DAI it had borrowed from the collateralized debt protocol, according to data on DeFi Explore, an analytics platform. It then proceeded […]

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Industry Insiders Weigh In On dYdX’s Planned AppChain

ERROR dYdX’s decision to deploy its own blockchain took much of the crypto world by surprise. On June 22, the derivatives trading protocol laid out plans to use Cosmos’ SDK and the Tendermint Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol. Both these technologies are fundamental to the broader Cosmos ecosystem and fall outside of the Ethereum-centric DeFi space.  dYdX’s […]

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Celsius Pays Down 183M DAI in Debt to Stave Off Liquidation

ERROR Celsius, the embattled CeFi lending platform, is aggressively paying down its debt and freeing up assets previously locked in MakerDAO, a collateralized debt protocol. This month Celsius paid down 183M DAI owed to MakerDAO and withdrew 2,000 Wrapped Bitcoin, worth nearly $21M, according to DeFi Explore, an analytics platform. Celsius still owes about 41.2M […]

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Ethereum Closes In On Proof-of-Stake After Sepolia Testnet Merge The Sepolia testnet activated PoS consensus on Wednesday at block number 1,450,409.

ERROR Ethereum is one step closer to The Merge, the network’s highly anticipated transition to a  proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet activated PoS consensus on Wednesday at block number 1,450,409. Sepolia is the second of three testnets to merge their proof-of-work (PoW) execution layers with their PoS consensus layers before the upgrade can […]

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