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Hotbit Shuts Down Trading, Deposit, and Withdrawal Services Indefinitely

Mark Brennan
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Hotbit Shuts Down Trading, Deposit, and Withdrawal Services Indefinitely

 

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Hotbit has announced that it will be suspending some of its important services indefinitely. 


According to the exchange, services such as trading, deposits, withdrawals, and funding will be halted until further notice. 

Hotbit noted that the stringent move was implemented following an ongoing criminal investigation the exchange is currently facing. 

Authorities have frozen the exchange’s funds amid the investigation, Hotbit noted. 

The frozen funds have made it difficult for Hotbit to go about its day-to-day operations, thus prompting the exchange to shut down normal operations until further notice. 

What Happened

Trouble started for the exchange after a former Hotbit management employee was involved in a fraudulent project last year, considered a gross violation of criminal laws by the authorities. 

Based on this unfortunate development, law enforcement agents have subpoenaed several Hotbit senior employees since last month. 

“Hotbit and the rest employees of Hotbit’s management are not involved in the project and have no knowledge of the illegal information involved in the project,” the exchange said. 

 

US SEC and CFTC Require Hedge Funds To Disclose Their Bitcoin and Crypto Holdings

Mark Brennan
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US SEC and CFTC Require Hedge Funds To Disclose Their Bitcoin and Crypto Holdings

Regulators may want hedge funds to report crypto exposure.



According to the Wall Street Journal, regulators may require hedge funds to disclose their bitcoin and cryptocurrency holdings.

According to a story published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a joint proposal that is scheduled to be announced on Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would mandate hedge funds with more than $500 million in net assets to reveal their exposure to cryptocurrencies, including portfolio holdings and borrowing arrangements, via a private file known as Form PF.

Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said in a statement that collecting information of this kind will assist the Commission and financial-stability authorities in better observing how major hedge funds interact with the massive cryptocurrency sector.

“Gathering such information would help the Commissions and [financial-stability regulators] better to observe how large hedge funds interconnect with the broader financial services industry.”

Report: $540 Million Laundered by Crypto Criminals Through RenBridge

Mark Brennan
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Report: $540 Million Laundered by Crypto Criminals Through RenBridge

 

A new report shows that over half a billion dollars were laundered by crypto criminals through a service called RenBridge.


According to a recent study conducted by Elliptic, a company specializing in blockchain analytics, criminals have utilized the cross-chain bridge RenBridge to launder more than $540 million in illicitly obtained cryptocurrency since 2020. 

Ransomware payments of $153 million are included in that amount, indicating that hackers use RenBridge when they breach into business networks and demand ransom payments from the organizations to regain access to their data. According to Elliptic, RenBridge played a significant role as a facilitator for ransomware groups with ties to Russia.

David Carlisle, vice president of policy and regulatory affairs for Elliptic, told CNBC that these cross-chain bridges are actually a bit of a gift and a curse at the moment. They assist in extending the crypto market in the same manner that so many other successful crypto products do by providing users with additional options for crypto transactions.

He added that:

“The flipside is they’re effectively ungoverned and so very vulnerable to hacks, or to being used in crimes like money laundering.”

Elliptic believes that North Korea was the culprit behind the theft of other cryptocurrencies that were laundered via RenBridge. The Conti cybercrime gang, which is responsible for a recent cyberattack on the Costa Rican government that resulted in the declaration of a national state of emergency, also made use of the platform. According to the findings of Elliptic’s study, Conti has used RenBridge to launder more than 53 million dollars. 

RenBridge is an open protocol, which means that it does not function with a CEO, CFO, or any other controlling leader. As a result, it is an ideal solution for those who are looking to launder stolen crypto.

Recall that Treasury Department blacklisted Tornado Cash on Monday after finding the service responsible for laundering digital assets worth more than $7 billion since 2019.

Vitalik Buterin, Justin Sun, Binance, FTX Join 440 Addresses Receiving 0.1 Ethereum From Sanctioned Tornado Cash

Mark Brennan
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Vitalik Buterin, Justin Sun, Binance, FTX Join 440 Addresses Receiving 0.1 Ethereum From Sanctioned Tornado Cash

 

Binance and FTX Join the 440 Addresses That Received 0.1 ETH From Sanctioned Tornado Cash.


Leading blockchain security company PeckShield revealed that 440 addresses belonging to top crypto companies and prominent individuals like Binance, FTX, and Justin Sun received 0. 1 Ethereum (ETH) from an anonymous donor through the recently sanctioned crypto mixer, Tornado Cash. 

 

Aside from Binance and FTX, the security company disclosed that the affected wallets belong to Beeple, the Mike Winkelmann non-fungible token (NFT) collection, Brian Armstrong, and a Ukrainian Non-governmental organization that receives crypto donations to fund the ongoing crisis in the country. 

The actions of this mystery crypto trader have ultimately impacted the 440 addresses of these entities into potential regulatory trouble as the wallets have directly interacted with the contract address belonging to the sanctioned crypto tumbler. 

U.S.Treasury’s Office Sanctions Tornado Cash 

Earlier this week, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado for its involvement in illicit activities. 

The popular Ethereum crypto mixer received a blow on Monday for assisting cybercriminals in laundering approximately $7 billion of virtual assets since its launch in 2019. 

The U.S. Treasury OFAC further disclosed that Tornado Cash aided the infamous North Korean hacker group dubbed Lazarus and successfully laundered more than $455 million in stolen digital assets.  

The OFAC noted that in June, hackers used the tumble to launder over $96 million stolen from the Harmony Bridge attack and $7.8 million from the August Nomad exploit.

In addition to helping support illegal activities, the U.S. Treasury pointed out that Tornado Cash failed to implement basic security measures like Anti Money Laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) policies designed to protect investors. 

 Alchemy, Infura, and Circle, Comply With Sanctions

Shortly after Tornado Cash was sanctioned for violations of financial security policies and money laundering, Infura, an application programming interface provider, and Alchemy, a node infrastructure provider, blocked RPC requests to the company. 

Additionally, Circle, a leading cryptocurrency stablecoin issuer, has complied with U.S. sanctions and banned USDC addresses associated with the mixer. The company reportedly seized 75,000 USDC linked to the sanctioned Tornado Cash address. 

Nigerians Can Now Pay Their Utility Bills With Bitcoin

Mark Brennan
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Nigerians Can Now Pay Their Utility Bills With Bitcoin

 

Cryptocurrency is now accepted for utility payments in Nigeria.



Utility bills can now be paid in crypto in Nigeria

Manilla Finance is a blockchain-based platform to facilitate utility bill payments with cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH. The platform recently shared that its customers in Nigeria can now use their Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings to pay their utility bills through a blockchain payment gateway integrated with the Nigerian power holding company PHCN.

Manilla fervently hopes that regulators will loosen some of the limits in order to make it possible for Nigeria to participate in the global digital economy without facing any obstacles. Because the use of digital currencies has skyrocketed since the previous bull run, the company has decided to take this course of action, which they feel will have a significant and good impact on the economy of Nigeria.

When it comes to the acceptance and use of virtual currencies, African nations like Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, among many others, rank very high on the global scale. The company states that it will encourage the acceptance of digital currency in nations with less adoption and use. It will position itself appropriately in preparation for the time when digital currency is completely embraced in those countries.

This news comes after Nigeria was rated the most crypto-obsessed nation in the world. The dearth of reliable financial services in Nigeria is one of the primary factors driving the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies across the African nation. 

As a result, the Nigerian people have become increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies even in the middle of a very intense bear market and high regulatory scrutiny, with phrases such as “buy crypto” and “invest in crypto” leading the highest number of searches, which resulted in a total score of 370 for the evaluation.

XRP Shuffling Continues, 375 Million XRP Moved Around Ripple, Exchanges, and Unknown Wallets 

Mark Brennan
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XRP Shuffling Continues, 375 Million XRP Moved Around Ripple, Exchanges, and Unknown Wallets 

 

Whale Alert continues to keep tabs on these large XRP movements.


 

Less than 48 hours after Whale Alert reported the movement of over 410 million XRP coins, the whale tracking service has observed yet another transfer of 375,021,363 (375.02 million) Ripple coins. The funds mostly flowed among Ripple, popular cryptocurrency exchanges, and anonymous wallets. 

According to Whale Alert, the first transaction occurred on August 9, 2022, at 16:16 UTC. Per blockchain data, a total of 75 million XRP, worth $27.68 million, were sent from leading cryptocurrency exchange FTX to an unknown address. 

Ripple’s Involvement in Large XRP Transfer

A few hours later, Whale Alert tracked another 75 million XRP, valued at around $27.85 million, sent from Ripple wallet to an unknown address. 

Ripple has recently been involved in these large XRP movements since the beginning of this month. Understandably, Ripple’s involvement in large XRP transactions could be related to a spike in On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) demand. 

Recall that Ripple reported a 9x surge in ODL demands on YoY, which prompted the blockchain company to purchase XRP from secondary markets to service these clients. 

More Recent XRP Transfers 

Aside from the Ripple transaction, 30 million XRP ($10.89 million) moved from an unknown wallet to Bitso exchange, a member of Ripple’s ecosystem. 

As expected, the Bitstamp exchange was also involved in the latest series of large XRP movements. Per Whale Alert, 60 million XRP worth $21.78 million at the time of the transaction were sent from an unknown wallet to Bitstamp. 

Bitstamp was also involved in another XRP transfer. This time, 45,721,363 Ripple coins ($16.64 million) were sent from the exchange to an unknown wallet. 

Lastly, 59.3 million XRP coins were also moved from the Bitso exchange to an unknown wallet. 

Ethereum Proof-of-Work Fork (ETHPOW) Driven By Miners To Abolish EIP-1559

Mark Brennan
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Ethereum Proof-of-Work Fork (ETHPOW) Driven By Miners To Abolish EIP-1559

 

EIP-1559 will be abolished in the Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) fork.


In a lengthy Twitter thread touted as the Ethereum PoW manifesto, the parties pushing for the Ethereum PoW fork as the Ethereum Medge approaches reveal that they plan to abolish EIP-1559.

ETHPOW, which will be forked by the miner organization, would be abolished. “Abolition of EIP-1559. In a truly open and inclusive system/society, there is no justification for punishing one group of participants in favor of another,” the organization writes in a tweet.

It is worth noting that EIP-1559, introduced in August 2021, reduced the volatility of Ethereum gas prices by creating a base fee for transactions. Additionally, these base fees are burned to make Ethereum which lacks a hard cap like Bitcoin, more deflationary, increasing the potential for a higher asset value in the future.

Notably, before EIP-1559, Ethereum used an auction mechanism called the first price auction mechanism. In this model, users sent in transactions with fee bids, allowing miners to choose transactions with the highest bids to add to the block. Unsurprisingly, this model led to network congestion and gas price inflation. 

Abolishing EIP-1559 in the Ethereum PoW fork creates a system where miners stand to benefit the most. 

As the Ethereum Medge approaches, Ethereum miners face possible obsoletion as the network migrates to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model. While some miners band together to push for a PoW fork, the idea has failed to receive much-needed support from stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle.

CryptoCom CEO: Crypto Industry Will Comeback Very Strongly

Mark Brennan
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CryptoCom CEO: Crypto Industry Will Comeback Very Strongly

Crypto Industry Will Come Back Very Strongly, says the world’s top exchange CEO.


Kris Marszalek, the CEO, and co-founder of the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange CryptoCom, said Wednesday that the crypto industry would come back very strongly from the current unstable market conditions. 

CryptoCom CEO is Bullish on Crypto

In an interview with CNBC, the millionaire CEO addressed the current bear market that erased billions of dollars from the entire market value of $3 trillion, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) trading as low as $17,000 and $900, respectively, noting that the market will eventually recover. 

 

Marszalek explained that the crypto space has grown to a decent size industry. Like the broader economic market, cryptocurrencies are influenced by factors like inflation, tax policies, and global conflicts that play an important in the recovery of assets.

The CryptoCom boss believes that although no one knows when or how the comeback will play out, he is confident that the crypto market will come back more robust because of the fundamental utility of the technology and how it can transform the world. 

“We just believe that eventually, markets will find their bottom, and cryptocurrency is going to come back really strong because of the fundamental utility of the technology and how it can change the world for the better, so we remain extremely well positioned. To be one of the companies that during this downturn, strengthen their position, get more market share and be ready for the bounce,” he told CNBC. 

CryptoCom Working closely with Regulators

During the interview, Marszalek also noted that crypto.com plans to establish its presence across the global market by working closely with the financial regulatory agencies across every market that matters for the cryptocurrency industry. 

Just yesterday, the company secured the Electronic Financial Transaction Act and Virtual Asset Service Provider registration from South Korean regulators to better serve its customers in the jurisdiction.

The CryptoCom CEO described the South Korean market as an “important market” where the firm is committed to working with financial watchdogs to offer its regional products and services. 

The exchange had earlier obtained licenses in Singapore and Dubai as part of its plans to become an industry leader and reach a broader global market. 

Users Can Now Access Cardano dApps On Android

Mark Brennan
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Users Can Now Access Cardano dApps On Android

 

Users can now access their favorite Cardano decentralized applications (dApps) on Android.


In a tweet on Monday, Flint wallet reveals that as part of its latest update, Android users can now access their favorite Cardano dApps using the dApp browser on the app.

“The new Flint update for Android brings several new features. The top one is a dApp browser to connect to dApps in the Cardano ecosystem,” the company says in its announcement.

Unsurprisingly, the Cardano community has welcomed the news, with several users indicating interest in switching to the wallet. “I’m switching to literally any wallet that gets a dApp connector AND Bluetooth Ledger support going first!” A user wrote in the comments.

It is worth noting that Flint wallet launched the same features for iOS users last week. Notably, the announcement received support from Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. The Flint updates now mean that two of the largest mobile ecosystems offer users access to Cardano dApps from their Flint wallet app, a significant milestone.

Notably, the Cardano ecosystem has a growing dApp ecosystem with a budding community. Moreover, its dApp ecosystem is set to explode soon as the long-anticipated Vasil hard fork is just around the corner.

The upgrade promises to bring significant scalability and smart contract improvements. New features to come with the hard fork include pipelining and changes to Cardano’s smart contract programming language Plutus. Notably, over 1000 dApps in development are waiting to launch after the upgrade to take advantage of these new features.

Despite users expecting the Vasil hard fork at the end of July, developers opted to push back the launch for weeks. However, Hoskinson has assured users that he expects no further delays, saying the hard fork is in the final stages of testing.

Cardano is trading at the $0.5102 price point, down 4.52% in the last 24 hours but up 1.02% over the previous seven days.

Minswap to List MIN Token on Cardano-Based Lending and Borrowing Protocol Aada Finance

Mark Brennan
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Minswap to List MIN Token on Cardano-Based Lending and Borrowing Protocol Aada Finance

Following Minswap’s recent success, the team wants its native token listed on Aada Finance.


With Minswap becoming the most valuable decentralized exchange on Cardano, a proposal has been made by the team to list its native governance token on the Aada Finance V1 platform. 

The proposal was created yesterday for the purpose of listing Min Token (MIN) as an asset for borrowing on the leading Cardano-based lending and borrowing protocol, Aada Finance. 

Minswap Features and Success

Min token is the native cryptocurrency of Cardano’s decentralized exchange Minswap. The decentralized exchange is community-driven, allowing users to swap, provide liquidity, and yield farming. 

It is worth noting that Minswap has the most liquid AADA/ADA pool among all other Cardano decentralized exchanges. Furthermore, Minswap currently has one of the most traded liquidity pools on the Cardano network with its own native token pair MIN/ADA.

Interestingly, the platform recently attracted ADA investors’ attention after it became Cardano’s most valuable decentralized exchange, with a total value locked (TVL) of $48.59 million.  

“As such, we would like to propose the addition of the $MIN token in Aada V1 as an asset for borrowing,” the proposal reads. 

According to the Minswap team, the project has never been a recipient of venture capitalists (VC) funding, which has contributed to making MIN tokens’ distribution to be fair. 

Notably, adding MIN to Aada Finance will be beneficial to the lending and borrowing platform, given that the asset class is the most traded token in the Cardano ecosystem. 

MIN Tokenomics

Additionally, MIN has promising future prospects in terms of fee sharing and governance. The cryptocurrency has a total supply of 5 billion, with a huge portion of the tokens dedicated to the community. 

According to MIN tokenomics, 70% of its total supply is allocated to yield farmers, 10% is reserved for the core team, and 10% is distributed to the development team. In comparison, 6%, 2.5%, and 1.5% are reserved for DAO Treasury, Fiso Airdrop, and partnerships.

 

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