Stablecoins are starting to win the payments use case April 29, 2024 fter a 6-year break, Stripe, the payment giant, announced that it is re-introducing Crypto payments. This time it will not be Bitcoin, a clunky payment channel at best, but USDC, the stablecoin. It will be running on Solana and Ethereum rails and instantly convert to Fiat.
US crackdown against privacy tech continues with arrest of Samourai Wallet developers April 26, 2024 Yesterday, news broke that the United States Department of Justice has charged the Samourai Wallet co-founders with "conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business." Authorities seized the Samourai website and arrested both founders.
Latest de-peg drama highlights risks of restaking April 25, 2024 At its best, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) turns money into composable lego blocks. They can be combined together for different use cases. Players can put other legos on top of each other. The legos have high levels of liquidity, composability and can be used by anyone in a permission-less way. But these advantages come with a high and often still underestimated degree of risk.
SEC Lawyers Resign After Censure for Abuse of Power April 24, 2024 The SEC's failed case against Digital Licensing Inc., a crypto platform known as DEBT Box, is continuing to make waves. Michael Welsh and Joseph Watkins, the SEC’s lead trial attorney and the agency’s lead investigative attorney on the case, stepped down this month after SEC officials told them they would be terminated otherwise. This follows Chief District Judge Robert Shelby sanctioning and sharply rebuking the financial regulator for “gross abuse” of power.
Mango Markets judgement raises more questions for smart contract law April 23, 2024 "What are you gonna do, arrest me?", Avi Eisenberg confidently wrote on Twitter days after he had successfully exploited the decentralised lending platform Mango Markets for $110 million in October 2022. To execute his exploit, Eisenberg did not use a hack but a financial engineering attack. He artificially drove up the price of the platform's native token MNGO on various exchanges. He then borrowed a large amount against his MNGO collateral on Mango Markets and defaulted on his MNGO position as soon as the price crashed.
April is for events… and showers April 23, 2024 April is shaping up to be a monumental month for the world of Web3 as enthusiasts and industry leaders converge at various events around the globe to explore the latest developments in blockchain, crypto, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Real-World Assets on the Blockchain: Unlocking New Investment Opportunities April 22, 2024 Have you ever wanted to invest in real estate, artwork, or commodities, but found the process too complex or expensive? Enter Real-World Assets (RWA) on the blockchain – a game-changing concept that's making investing more accessible and providing efficient liquidity for everyone.
Fourth Bitcoin halving is a moment For celebration April 22, 2024 By the time you read this, Bitcoin will have completed its 4th Halving. The issuance rate of Bitcoin is designed to drop by half every 210,000 blocks, roughly every 4 years. This increases Bitcoin's scarcity and makes it harder to mine. However, no developers press a deploy button, and there is no big announcement at a tech conference - the code just executes. The last Halving will occur around the year 2140 when the last of 21 million Bitcoin is mined.
Could Runes save Bitcoin miners post-halving? April 19, 2024 At some point tomorrow, Bitcoin will experience its fourth halving. The reward miners receive for processing every 10 minute block will decline from 6.25 Bitcoin to 3.125. Bitcoin will become an even scarcer commodity with annual issuance dropping from 1.6% to 0.8%. The market appears to believe that this will be a serious loss for Bitcoin miners. Miner stocks, such as Riot, Marathon and Bitfarms, are down over 50% from their February highs.
Could DePIN be crypto’s ESG-friendly real world use case? April 18, 2024 So far in this cycle, there have been several narratives that have emerged. These include artificial intelligence (AI), real world assets (RWAs) and decentralised physical infrastructure (DePIN) tokens. Unlike meme tokens, these tokens and projects actually relate to solving a problem.