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Showing posts from April 8, 2021

GBTC Holder Says Not Enough Being Done to Eliminate Discount on Shares— Proposes an Alternative Solution

A privately-held investment firm from Chicago, Marlton Partners, has urged Grayscale Investments to embrace the modified Dutch auction tender offer for GBTC shares. According to Marlton, such a tender offer “would materially narrow — if not eliminate — the discount to net asset value (NAV).” This, in turn, offers stockholders confidence “in the sponsor’s ability to manage the fund’s discount.” Billions in Lost Value Despite GBTC’s competitive advantage as the world’s largest bitcoin fund, GBTC shares continue to trade “at a significant discount to NAV.” According to Marlton Partners, this discount on NAV “currently represents over $3.1 billion in lost value to trust stockholders.” Meanwhile, in an open letter addressed to the Grayscale Investments management, Marlton Partners’ managing member, James C. Elbaor, insists that current efforts to eliminate the discount have been proven to be inadequate. To bolster this argument, Elbaor points to Digital Currency Group (DCG)’s recent an...

Ledger faces class action from phishing scam victims

Ledger and Shopify are facing a class-action lawsuit over sensitive information regarding 270,000 of Ledger's customers' that was stolen by Shopify employees. Ledger and Shopify have been hit by a class action lawsuit over a major data breach that saw the personal data of 270,000 hard wallet customers stolen between April and June 2020, Phishing scam victims John Chu and Edward Baton filed the lawsuit in California against the crypto wallet provider and its e-commerce partner Shopify on April 6. The Plaintiffs alleged that the firms “negligently allowed, recklessly ignored, and then intentionally sought to cover up” the data breach. The data was stolen when rogue employees of Shopify accessed the company’s e-commerce and marketing database for Ledger, with the hackers then selling the data on the dark web. “Had Ledger acted responsibly during this period, much of that loss could have been avoided,” they claim. The pair are seeking redress for the damages caused by the ...

DeFi Yield Protocol (DYP) Witnesses Massive Growth Following Binance Smart Chain Integration

DeFi Yield Protocol (DYP) continues to attain popularity within the decentralized finance sector. Since the launch of the staking dAPP three months ago, DYP Protocol has experienced massive growth in its community. DeFi Yield Protocol The yield farming platform has over $39 million locked in its ETH staking contract and has paid 7,064 ETH worth over $14 million to liquidity providers. DYP has also experienced a 20x increase in liquidity on popular decentralized exchange Uniswap. At the moment, more than $21,000,000 in liquidity on Uniswap on the DYP/ ETH . DYP has also expanded its ecosystem with the integration of Binance Smart Chain (BSC) in February. DeFi Yield Protocol (DYP) allows users that provide liquidity to earn decent returns. It also utilizes an anti-manipulation feature that prevents whales from manipulating the price of its native token, DYP. This is by converting all DYP rewards into ETH daily and sending distributing it directly to holders wallets. This ensures ...

'ETH has outperformed BTC by 250% since inception': Raoul Pal triggers debate

Real Vision’s Raoul Pal believes that altcoins with an active ecosystem of devs and apps will likely beat out Bitcoin over time. Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal has sparked a spirited debate after predicting that Ethereum and other coins with "network effects" will outperform Bitcoin over time. Pal shared a chart of Ether’s price relative to BTC since Aug. 7, 2015 — six years after Bitcoin was created — showing that “ETH has outperformed BTC by 250%.” Fascinating to see that since inception ETH has outperformed BTC by 250%. It only fell below its initial price in BTC for the first 5 months of its existence in 2015. Let that put rest to the idea that all other tokens trend towards zero in BTC terms. pic.twitter.com/ulCpsjG8up — Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) April 7, 2021 According to TradingView’s Bittrex chart, ETH began trading for roughly 0.006 BTC on Aug 10, 2015. It is currently sitting at 0.0359 BTC. ETH price in terms of BTC. Source: Trading View Bitcoin...

Spanish Travel Compensation Firm Signs Deal With Domestic Exchange to Reimburse Travelers With Cryptos

Spanish travelers will soon be available to fill out claims for incidents related to airline delays, baggage losses, overbooking, among others, and be compensated with cryptocurrencies. The possibility is now a reality thanks to a partnership between a domestic crypto exchange and an airline platform. Platform Allocated Euros in an Account on the Crypto Exchange to Arrange Payments According to El Mundo Financiero , Criptan, based in Valencia, Spain, signed an agreement with Wings to Claim– a Spanish legal association that owns a platform specialized in handling travel-related incidents and now could compensate travelers cryptos instead of euros. The platform allocated euros within an account using the crypto exchange Criptan. If any customer entitled to compensation wants to receive money in cryptos, the exchange will reimburse the money in coins such as bitcoin ( BTC ). Among the reasons behind incorporating cryptos into Wings to Claim, the platform argued that they didn’t want ...

Fidelity’s Tom Jessop says crypto has hit a ‘tipping point’

Rock bottom interest rates and fiscal stimulus has driven momentum in the crypto sector the Fidelity executive said. Executives at investment giant Fidelity are confident that cryptocurrency market momentum will continue for the foreseeable future. Speaking to MarketWatch on April 8, Tom Jessop who heads the investment firm’s crypto division said that he believes crypto has opened a new chapter in traditional finance circles and things have reached a tipping point for the industry. Jessop stated that the maturation and adoption of crypto assets as an investment class will continue at a rapid pace in the coming years. There are a number of reasons according to the finance manager, one of which is extremely low interest rates in traditional finance. This, coupled with an environment stimulated by monetary policies, has driven momentum for crypto markets. The Fidelity executive said that this environment is unlikely to change any time soon: “I think we’ve reached a tipping point. I...

Signal under fire over MobileCoin partnership

Signal is facing criticism over its integration with MobileCoin, with eyebrows raised over a 450% increase in the price of MOB ahead of the announcement. Controversy surrounds Signal’s recently announced MobileCoin integration, with users expressing concerns over ties between Signal’s founder and the cryptocurrency, opacity surrounding the coin’s issuance, and suspicious gains leading up to the partnership’s announcement. Signal is an encrypted messaging application that has been embraced by the privacy and security-conscious community since launching as Open Whisper Systems in 2013 and rebranding two years later. MobileCoin was founded in 2017, issuing roughly 15% of its supply to private investors after its entire supply was minted at launch. The messaging app announced it had launched payment functionality through MobileCoin on April 4 , with Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike stating it chose MobileCoin due to it requiring little storage space and providing fast transactions wi...

Our Man in Shanghai: Scandal as $45M of stolen government funds allegedly lost on 100X leverage

The Chief Marketing Officer a blockchain security company has been charged with embezzlement; Peter Thiel calls Bitcoin a 'weapon' of China (but no one cares), and CZ’s net worth rises to $1.9 billion. Blockchain security company Beosin has been the focus of a major scandal after its Chief Marketing Officer Gao Ziyang was taken into custody and charged with embezzlement of state-owned assets. He is alleged to have been using government funds to unsuccessfully short BTC, resulting in a massive liquidation of over 300 million renminbi, or $45 million dollars. Beosin, also known as Lianan Tech, had a working relationship with Chinese authorities and was helping them investigate fraudulent fundraising schemes. After the seizure of funds back in 2020, Beosin was tasked with storing and selling the assets, to be later returned to the state treasury. Instead of selling the assets, CMO Gao Ziyang allegedly opened a short position in late August, hoping to increase the size of the p...

Mati Greenspan warns SEC's latest action could threaten future of all cryptocurrencies

Quantum Economics founder Mati Greenspan has sounded the alarm over the damage the SEC’s case against LBRY could do to crypto. Quantum Economics founder Mati Greenspan has warned the SEC’s latest action against decentralized content platform LBRY could threaten the future of all cryptocurrencies. According to the complaint filed by the SEC on March 29, LBRY is alleged to have offered and sold millions worth of unregistered securities through LBRY Credit tokens since 2016. The company has disputed the SEC’s accusations, as they state their tokens are utility-focused and not for speculation. In today’s newsletter , ominous titled “Don’t let them kill crypto,” Greenspan asserts that if the SEC’s lawsuit against LBRY is successful, it will have dramatic consequences: “Should the court side against LBRY, it would literally put the future of all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ether, in question.” Greenspan notes that the U.S has fallen far behind on crypto regulation and ...

NFT Roundup: A Closer Look at Key Developments Over the Last Week

Another exciting week in the NFT universe has unfolded as Kiwie digitizes graffiti in new collectibles, the original meme makes its way to market, and a new integration between Videocoin and Filecoin supports video-based NFTs. The Fat Monster Meets the Mint Latvian-based art collective Kiwie is bringing its iconic Fat Monster character to the blockchain as it becomes the first group to create and auction NFTs from physical graffiti installations. The new initiative designed to connect the online and offline art worlds will involve building virtual 3D models of spray-painted figures. Each will be accompanied by a geotag to connect ownership of art to the NFT. Auction winners will also receive a metal card denoting a claim to each Fat Monster NFT. From there, the NFTs can be traded, and if the physical art installation is ever removed or erased, the NFTs become unique “Ghost Monsters.” On April 13th, the first batch of five existing Fat Monsters will be minted and auctioned on Rarib...

Fidelity Says Bitcoin Adoption Will Keep Accelerating — ‘We’ve Reached a Tipping Point’

Fidelity’s head of digital assets says that bitcoin adoption will continue “at an accelerated pace,” noting that “we’ve reached a tipping point.” He explained that investors are increasingly drawn to bitcoin “Particularly, in an environment where we’ve seen unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus from central banks and governments in response to the pandemic.” The Tipping Point of Bitcoin Adoption Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets at Fidelity Investments, talked about bitcoin adoption Wednesday during an interview at Marketwatch and Barron’s “Investing in Crypto” event. Jessop is also head of Corporate Business Development for Fidelity Investments. The Fidelity executive says that the maturation and adoption of bitcoin as an investment class “will continue at a rapid pace in the coming years,” Marketwatch detailed, adding that this suggests that cryptocurrency may have turned a corner in traditional finance circles. He was quoted as saying: I think we continue ...

Atari creates new blockchain division amid leadership shuffle

The video game giant says the new blockchain division will focus on leveraging the novel tech for decentralized gaming. Atari has announced the creation of a new blockchain division as part of an organizational shuffle within the company. In a press statement issued on Tuesday, the gaming behemoth revealed the creation of two new divisions — Atari Gaming and Atari Blockchain. The former will focus on continuing the developmental work on Atari’s catalog of popular retro gaming titles as well as the rebooted VCS consoles. As part of the announcement, Atari also revealed that current CEO Frédéric Chesnais will head the Atari Blockchain division while Wade J. Rosen will take over as the new company chief executive. Before the announcement, Rosen was the chairman of Atari's board of directors. For Atari Blockchain, the communique revealed that the new division will focus on tapping the emerging opportunities at the intersection of gaming and blockchain technology. With an estimat...

3 reasons Enjin Coin price surged by over 30% in a single day

ENJ, the native token of the Enjin blockchain ecosystem, is up 31% in the last 24 hours for three key reasons. The price of Enjin, the native token of the blockchain gaming and NFT-focused project, has surged by more than 30% in the last 24 hours. There are three major factors behind ENJ’s strong short-term uptrend, namely the Coinbase listing, technical momentum and the interest around JumpNet. ENJ price chart since December 2020. Source: TradingView.com Coinbase listing intensifies interest in Enji The price of ENJ has been on a gradual uptrend throughout the past month ever since the project announced the release of Efinity and JumpNet. ENJ started to see a large rally when Coinbase, the top U.S. exchange, announced it will allow users to trade ENJ, an event that was highlighted in Cointelegraph Markets Pro on Wednesday. VORTECS™ score (green) vs. ENJ price (white). Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro Additionally, the VORTECS™ score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, fl...

The chicken or the egg: Why NFTs could be fungible after all

Not to derail the hype train, but NFTs might not be as nonfungible as you think. Among the many offshoots produced as a bi-product of the ongoing cryptocurrency experiment, nonfungible tokens have turned out to be one of the most explosive. In a few short months, over half a billion dollars worth of NFTs changed hands, as celebrities (from lists A to Z) clamored to profit from crypto’s latest craze. But amid the rush to jump on the bandwagon, few have stopped to consider the veracity of the terminology applied to NFTs. After all, why would you stop to ponder semantics when there are millions of dollars to be made at the click of a button? But in lieu of said millions, we decided to ask the question: Are nonfungible tokens actually a little bit fungible after all? Fungibility An asset or good is considered to be fungible if it can be interchanged with another of the same type of equal value. Hence the United State dollar is fungible because any one dollar can be exchanged for any...

Petition Calls on New SEC Chairman to Drop Ripple Lawsuit and ‘End War on XRP’

A petition has been started calling on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman-Designate Gary Gensler to end the lawsuit against Ripple Labs and its executives over XRP tokens. The petition also demands “a thorough investigation of the matters that led to the last-minute lawsuit against Ripple, filed on the last day in office by former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton.” Petition to End SEC Lawsuit Against Ripple An XRP advocate, Thomas Hodge, has started a petition on Change.org calling on SEC Chairman-Designate Gary Gensler to “end the war on XRP .” Gensler is President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the SEC following the departure of former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “We’re asking Gary Gensler , as soon as is confirmed as Chairman of the SEC, to take a close look at the SEC’s allegations against Ripple Labs, its cofounders, and the harm the SEC’s actions have already – and needlessly – caused to holders of the digital currency XRP ,” the petition describes. The SEC filed a l...

Digital yuan campaign planned for contested island in the South China Sea

Participants will receive a discount for every central bank digital currency expenditure worth 100 yuan. South China’s Hainan Province, which administers the prefectural Sansha City on a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea, will run a two-week campaign later this month to promote the use of the digital yuan among island residents. The city, established in 2012, is on the front line of disputes over territorial claims in the South China Sea and is unusual in being both the People Republic of China’s smallest city by population and its largest by geographic reach — formally encompassing over 280 islands and their surrounding waters, reaching almost 800,000 square miles of sea and land area. Between April 12 and April 25, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s Hainan Branch, together with Haikou Branch of China’s central bank and the Sansha municipal government, plans to host a themed digital yuan consumption parade in a bid to encourage c...

More Russians are disclosing their cryptocurrency incomes: report

Consulting firms like PwC Russia said that Russians have been increasingly reporting their income from cryptocurrency operations. The number of cryptocurrency holding disclosures in Russia has been on the rise over the past several months, according to a new report. Russian news agency Izvestia reports Thursday that Russians have been increasingly disclosing their income from crypto trading for tax purposes. The report cites data from consulting and law firms like KPMG, PwC, FTL Advisers, as well as Moscow-based public policy think tank, the Center for Strategic Research. “We’ve observed that Russian residents have started voluntarily disclosing income from operations with digital assets, mainly with cryptocurrency, in tax declarations,” FTL Advisers’ partner Maria Kukla said. She noted that it’s still early to determine whether the tendency will become widespread. The currency tax reporting period ends on May 1 and, per Kukla, much could change before then. Evgeny Si...

Bitcoin price stalls as traders warn BTC could dip lower than $55K

This week's drop is not "convincing," analyst Filbfilb says, echoing others' misgivings about the likelihood of a short-term bullish continuation. Bitcoin ( BTC ) barely recovered its losses on April 9 as fresh doubts emerged about the bull run continuing this month. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: Tradingview $56,760 "not a convincing bottom" After sliding 5% on Wednesday, BTC/USD saw only a modest rebound to circle $57,000 at the time of writing, Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed. Following multiple failed attempts to crack resistance close to all-time highs, analysts were becoming wary of a further dip and a temporary halt to further price gains. Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite Decentrader, described this week’s current floor of $56,760 as “not a convincing bottom.” BTC funding rates. Source: Bybt.com As reported on Wednesday, funding rates among trading platforms call for a shakeout of leveraged lon...

New petition asks SEC chair nominee Gary Gensler to drop Ripple lawsuit

An XRP advocate started a petition to SEC chair nominee Gary Gensler, asking him to end the lawsuit against Ripple should he be confirmed as the new chair. The Ripple community has launched a new petition to “stop the war” on XRP . Crypto & Policy founder Thomas Hodge has started a Change.org petition directed at Securities and Exchange Commission chair nominee Gary Gensler , asking him to end the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple once he's confirmed as chairman of the commission. Announcing the news Wednesday, Crypto & Policy called on Gensler to investigate the potential motives of former SEC chair Jay Clayton and his SEC Director of Corporate Finance William Hinman for “favoring” Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ether ( ETH ) while harming XRP. The petition alleges that Clayton and Hinman could have had financial interests in Bitcoin and Ether: “While Clayton and Hinman were in office, they were asked if Bitcoin and Ether were securities. They said very clearly, on the record:...

Cryptojacking Activity Decreased for the First Time Since 2018, Says Intelligence Report

Cryptojacking activity seems to be losing momentum, specifically types that mine monero, as a recent report unveiled a slowdown in the illicit crypto-mining activities in the cloud. A threat intelligence firm compiled the results. Report Focused on Cryptojacking Incidents With Monero According to Unit 42 in their “Cloud Thread Report,” cryptojacking attacks have been decreasing for the first time since 2018 – the year when the firm started to trace illicit mining activities. But the study put its focus specifically on monero ( XMR ). Threat actors in cryptojacking attacks mainly mine the privacy cryptocurrency, which has been well-document in other intelligence firms’ research. Per the Unit 42 report, from December 2020 to February 2021, only 17% of organizations worldwide with cloud-based infrastructure had cryptojacking activity. It represents a decline compared to the figure from July to September 2020, where 23% of the firms reported such incidents. Although the pandemic bo...