Tether posts record Q1 profits as USDT keeps growing May 3, 2024 The second quarter of 2024 has been off to a rocky start for crypto. Currently, down around 20% from Bitcoin’s $73,700 high, the market has been hurting from threats of world war three, sustained US inflation and what seems like an onslaught of attacks from the US government. One crypto company in particular will be missing Q1 after they just released details of its incredible performance.
Former Binance CEO faces four months behind bars May 2, 2024 On Tuesday, crypto took another blow from the US as industry icon “CZ” was sent to prison. This time it was Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and former CEO of Binance, crypto’s largest centralised exchange, feeling the wrath of the US government. CZ received a four-month federal prison sentence for his role as CEO of the exchange and for breaching the Bank Secrecy Act. He will be the first CEO to go to prison for non-compliance with this act.
EigenLayer’s airdrop disappoints through “non-transferable” clause May 1, 2024 There is no doubt EigenLayer, and the “restaking” narrative it has introduced, has attracted a lot of attention. The protocol has absorbed over $15 billion in staked Ethereum and has become a major talking point. On Monday, the protocol released details on its eagerly anticipated token and airdrop.
Consensys swings first at the SEC April 30, 2024 So far, US-based court cases have littered this cycle, and the number of cases continues to grow. Previously, we saw Greyscale’s success in court enable the Bitcoin spot ETFs and fuel crypto’s move to new all-time highs. Currently, there is an ongoing feud between the SEC and exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. Recently, the regulator also picked a new nemesis in DeFi, suing decentralised exchange Uniswap.
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.
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.
