Recently reported planned enforcement action against Paxos by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over Binance USD (BUSD) has many in the community questioning how the regulator could see a stablecoin as a security. Blockchain lawyers told Cointelegraph that while the answer isn’t black and white, there exists an argument for it if the stablecoin
Cryptocurrency
A crackdown by the United States securities regulator on crypto staking could have unintended consequences for decentralized finance, according to the head of business development at Lido DAO. Jacob Blish — who leads business development at Lido’s decentralized autonomous organization — told Bloomberg in a Feb. 13 report that the most significant risk would be if the SEC
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has now made at least two substantial contributions to help the victims of last week’s devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The Turkey-Syria 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck on Feb. 6. Its death toll has now risen to 33,000 — one of the world’s worst in decades. Over the week, the Ethereum
The ill-gotten crypto from one of the industry’s largest exploits is on the move again, with on-chain data showing another $46 million of stolen funds has just shifted from the hacker’s wallet. The Wormhole attack was the third-largest crypto hack in 2022, resulting from an exploit of Wormhole’s token bridge in February 2022. Around $321 million
For the first time in centuries, paper money, or fiat, found its true competition in the internet era. When Bitcoin (BTC) debuted in 2009, the fiat ecosystem was not only challenged with proving its worth in day-to-day transactions but also safekeeping the investment ecosystem it helped build. Over the years, the crypto ecosystem attracted people
A major Brazilian bank is offering a new and convenient option for taxpayers to settle their dues using cryptocurrencies. According to a statement published by Brazilian bank Banco do Brasil on Feb. 11, it is now “possible” for Brazilian taxpayers to pay their tax bill with crypto, in a joint initiative with Brazilian-based crypto firm
Top Stories This Week Kraken reaches $30M settlement with SEC over staking as IRS seeks user information Kraken has agreed to stop offering staking services or programs to United States clients after reaching an agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Along with ceasing operations, the crypto exchange will pay $30 million in
The Ethereum Foundation team announced another milestone on the road to the Shanghai upgrade, with the Shapella fork on the Zhejiang testnet moving into the final pre-launch sequence, according to a blog post on Feb 10. The Shapella transition includes “many features,” and “most importantly to stakers and the consensus-layer, is the enabling of withdrawals,”
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission is ramping up pressure on the crypto sector. On Feb. 9, the SEC reached a $30 million settlement with Kraken over the centralized staking program it offered to its users. The news of the crackdown sent the price of Bitcoin (BTC) to a three-week low as investors became
In the latest episode of NFT Steez, Thomas Webb, the founder of the interoperable avatar game Worldwide Webb, discusses the integration of interoperability in Web3 and the Metaverse. By definition, interoperability is a feature of Web3 whereby a product or system can work seamlessly across platforms with other products or services. Webb defines interoperability simply
Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), saw its worst daily performance of the year as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stopped Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, from offering crypto staking services. On Feb. 9, Kraken agreed to pay $30 million to settle the SEC’s allegation that it broke securities rules by offering crypto staking
Paxos Trust Company — the New York-based stablecoin issuer behind Binance USD (BUSD) and Paxos Dollar (USDP) — is reportedly being investigated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). A “person familiar with the matter” told Bloomberg in a Feb. 10 report that the exact motive behind the probe is currently unclear. An NYDFS
Members of the crypto community seem outraged over the recent charges laid against crypto exchange Kraken in relation to its staking-as-a-service program in the United States. On Feb. 9, the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it had settled charges with Kraken over “failing to register the offer and sale of their crypto asset
According to data from DefiLlama, Ethereum staking service Rocket Pool reached $1 billion in total value locked (TVL) on Feb. 9. The move comes less than two years after the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol launched its mainnet on Nov. 9, 2021. Dubbed a liquid staking solution for Ethereum, Rocket Pool allows users to join an
As the crypto industry attracts more users, developers are laser-focused on improving user experience, a major pain point for most new users. Artificial Intelligence has often been seen as a technology that could improve how people use and interact with crypto. In the latest episode of Hashing It Out, the integration of AI with crypto
Five years from its inception, fan token platform Chiliz has launched its own layer-1 Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain ecosystem to support its growth. Chiliz’s fan token ecosystem has long been powered by Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens, but the validation of the Chiliz 2.0 blockchain genesis block sees the ecosystem shift to its own layer
The CEO and co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, believes that banning retail crypto staking in the United States would be a “terrible” move by the country’s regulators. Armstrong made the comments in a Feb. 9 Twitter thread which has already been viewed over 2.2 million times, after noting they’ve heard “rumors” that the
Robinhood’s board of directors has approved a plan to buy back the $578 million stake in their company that was bought by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX co-founder Gary Wang last year. Robinhood confirmed in its fourth-quarter report, published Feb. 8, that it had received board approval to buy back the stake. “Our Board
The Graph (GRT) price slipped on Feb. 8 alongside a broader correction across the top crypto assets. GRT price skyrockets with other data management tokens GRT’s price plunged nearly 14.5% intraday to $0.18, showing signs of short-term upside exhaustion after rising over 200% earlier in the year. At its sessional high, the token was changing
Artist name: Justin AversanoLocation: Los AngelesDate minted first NFT: Feb. 15, 2021Which blockchains? Ethereum Bio: Unintentionally, the healing process of losing his twin sister at birth sparked Justin Aversano’s career to become the poster child for NFT photography. His most famous collection, “Twin Flames,” has 5,900 ETH in total sales volume on OpenSea and multiple
The hunt for the controversial founder of the now-collapsed Terra ecosystem, Do Kwon, has intensified with South Korean officials reportedly confirming they sent at least two people to Serbia to track him down. According to a Feb. 7 Bloomberg report, the prosecutor’s office in Seoul said the reports “aren’t false” regarding members of its team