Bitcoin Industry

2022-11-26 20:00:08 ​​Crypto lender Hodlnaut reportedly faces police investigation in Singapore.

Hodlnaut reportedly lied about its exposure to the now-defunct Terra algorithmic stablecoin and lost nearly $190 million.

Singapore-based crypto lender Hodlnaut is reportedly facing a police probe over alleged offenses of cheating and fraud.

According to reports published in local media, the police’s commercial affairs department has launched an investigation into the founders of the exchange based on multiple complaints against the platform between August and November 2022.

The Singapore police noted that the majority of complaints revolve around false representations and misinformation regarding the company’s exposure to a certain digital token. Police also advised investors impacted by the Hodlnaut crisis to file a complaint online and submit verifiable documents of their transaction histories on the platform.

Neither the Singapore police nor Hodlnaut immediately responded to Cointelegraph’s requests for comment.

The first signs of trouble for the crypto lender came on Aug. 8 when it suspended withdrawals on the platform, citing a liquidity crisis. The suspension of withdrawals came just months after the infamous crypto contagion in the second quarter led by the implosion of the Terra ecosystem.

At the time, the platform claimed they had no exposure to the now-defunct algorithmic Terra stablecoin now called TerraUSD Classic (USTC). However, on-chain data contradicted crypto lenders’ claims and suggested they held at least $150 million in USTC.

The on-chain data was later confirmed by a judicial report in October. The report noted that the crypto lender lost nearly $190 million to the Terra collapse and later deleted thousands of documents related to their investments in order to hide their exposure.

Hodlnaut managed to keep its USTC exposure under wraps for almost three months after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem but eventually fell prey to the liquidity crunch forcing it to seek judicial management under which a court appointed a new interim CEO for the firm. Three months down the line, its directors are now facing a police probe for keeping users in the dark. Open / Comment

2022-11-25 18:00:14 ​Syntropy is building the first fully-distributed routing protocol for the Internet. Their mission is to increase internet performance so it can be Web3-ready!

Their team has created and patented a Distributed Autonomous Routing Protocol (DARP) that connects nodes across the globe and allows routing data around congestions to travel through the fast and the most optimal path.

Recent events in crypto show that every attempt to centralize something people own is designed to fail. These guys are working on a vision where the Web3 community owns the Internet, and their native $NOIA token represents the tradable bandwidth on their OBX marketplace.


Open Bandwidth Exchange (OBX) is ultimately a blockchain-based bandwidth marketplace that allows suppliers (regular people, businesses, ISPs) to monetize unused bandwidth resources.

Go and check them out!

Join their community to get more info:
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Follow their Twitter if you want to know about the state of the current Internet:
http://bit.ly/3OAb98G Open / Comment

2022-11-23 20:00:08 ​​Binance makes moves in hardware wallet industry with new investment.

Binance Labs has made a strategic investment in the Belgian hardware wallet firm Ngrave and will lead its upcoming Series A round.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is making a move in the hardware wallet industry. The firm announced on Nov. 21 that its venture capital arm, Binance Labs, made a strategic investment in Belgian hardware wallet firm Ngrave and will lead its upcoming Series A round.

Founded in 2018, Ngrave specializes in self-custody and provides a security suite comprising three major elements: connectionless hardware wallet Zero, key backup tool Graphene and the Liquid mobile app.

Yi He, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, pointed out that security remains one of the biggest challenges for crypto adoption. “Self-custodial wallets are one of the most secure methods for storing digital assets,” He said, adding that Binance is looking to continue backing startups that enhance user security.

“Binance Labs is excited to capitalize on the emerging hardware wallet sector and partner with Ngrave to bring sophisticated wallet products to both retail and institutional users,” Binance Labs investment director Tyler Z added.

Ngrave is not the first hardware wallet provider in Binance Labs’ portfolio. It previously invested in hardware wallet maker SafePal through its incubation program back in 2018. Binance has also been integrating SafePal’s solution into its platform, adding the SafePal Mini App into the Binance app in October.

In early November, Binance also partnered with hardware wallet maker Ledger to allow Binance users to purchase crypto directly through the Ledger app with their bank cards.

As previously reported, the ongoing crypto winter has accelerated the growth of the hardware wallet industry, while many centralized crypto exchanges have been scrambling to maintain operations. Unlike exchanges, hardware wallets allow users to better control their funds by securing their own private keys. According to data from several studies released in July, the crypto hardware wallet industry could grow at a faster pace than exchanges in the near future. Open / Comment

2022-11-20 20:00:09 ​Billion-Dollar Crypto Fund Grayscale Refuses to Post Proof-of-Reserves – Next Firm to Collapse?

Crypto investment firm Grayscale has refused to share its proof-of-reserves citing "security concerns." The move has stirred up speculations about the financial health of the company.

In a Saturday tweet, the company said major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which is used by Grayscale as custodian, frequently performs "on-chain validation," adding that they cannot share their proof of reserves due to security risks.

"Due to security concerns, we do not make such on-chain wallet information and confirmation information publicly available through a cryptographic Proof-of-Reserve, or other advanced cryptographic accounting procedure," the company said.

In crypto, proof of reserves is a methodology that allows users to prove whether or not an independent auditor has the reserves of a specific exchange or business. It uses Merkle Trees to capture data and get a set of fingerprints that let users verify that their funds were properly audited by a third party.

Grayscale acknowledged that its decision to keep its reserve information private would be a “disappointment” to some investors. However, the company claimed that "panic sparked by others is not a good enough reason to circumvent complex security arrangements that have kept our investors’ assets safe for years."

Nevertheless, the recent revelation has only exacerbated user confidence in Grayscale. It appears that the bulk majority of crypto users are not convinced by the company's reasoning, particularly since other major crypto exchanges, including Binance and Cryptocom, have shared their proof of reserves.

"I wasn’t concerned about GBTC solvency until reading this statement, please explain how proof of reserve is a security risk?" said ChainLinkGod.eth, a prominent member of the crypto community and a Chainlink Community Ambassador. Open / Comment

2022-11-17 20:00:18 ​​Heroic Story secures $6 million to build Web3 tabletop RPG world.

The seed round was led by Upfront Ventures with participation from Multicoin Capital and Polygon Technology.

Web3 gaming protocol Heroic Story raised $6 million in a seed round led by Upfront Ventures with participation from Multicoin Capital and Polygon Technology, the company announced on Nov. 17.

The funds will be used to hire talent, market the live beta and develop on-chain technology for a massively multiplayer role-playing game (RPG) world, the company told Cointelegraph. The round brings Heroic Story’s total financing to $7.4 million.

Other investors included strategic angels, such as a16z Games Fund One founding investor Jonathan Lai, Team Liquid CEO Steve Arhancet and Quantstamp CEO Richard Ma, alongside Miramax head of film Wolfgang Hammer and screenwriting duo Ryan and Kaz Firpo, who are cousins and co-writers of Marvel’s Eternals.

"We fell in love with the vision for Heroic Story because they are building authentic online RPG experiences for large, global audiences passionate about the tabletop RPG genre,” said Mark Suster, managing partner at Upfront Ventures.

Previous investors in the gaming company include Transcend Fund, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Kabam co-founder Holly Liu and Thirdweb CEO Furqan Rydhan.

Founded in 2019 at Y Combinator, the company offers multiplayer versions of popular tabletop role-playing games, or TTRPGs, combining storytelling and technology in immersive experiences for players.

“The intersection of storytelling and technology has been the theme of my career, from my early years as a top online poker pro and entrepreneur, to designing and directing one of the first adventure games for consumer VR,” said Jay Rosenkrantz, CEO of Heroic Story, adding that “smart contract powered platforms will transform gaming, storytelling, and community building.”

The company’s first game franchise, Legends of Fortunata, was released in 2021 with an immersive game experience that the company says “eliminates the pain points of playing traditional tabletop games online, with no stress scheduling and an exciting virtual rewards system designed to broaden the reach and appeal of TTRPG to new audiences.” Open / Comment

2022-11-17 15:00:17 Win Up To $100k For FREE With Duelbits World Cup Predictor

Duelbits is a crypto casino and sportsbook platform, aiming to narrow down the gap between bookmakers and casinos.

FREE Duelbits’ World Cup Predictor
Duelbits is giving you the opportunity to play for free and win up to $100,000 by entering your predictions for each match. The predictions game began on November 7th and will end December 18th.

For each match, there will be four questions that you need to answer. For every correct prediction, you will gain points. At the end of a round, if you finish in the paying places in one of our Leaderboards you will win one of the Cash Prizes! If a user finishes with the most points in a specific round, they will win the highest prize from the prize-pot. Duelbits will also offer daily odds boosts on the games and a cashback to all sports users, allowing them to earn up to 37.5% rakeback on the theoretical sportshouse edge of 1%.

Join Duelbits And Make Your Predictions Today Open / Comment

2022-11-15 16:00:13 Cheelee: GameFi short video platform. Watch. Play. Earn.

Cheelee is the first GameFi short video platform where the user can make money while viewing the feed. Upon registration of your in-app wallet, you receive special NFT glasses, and you can start making money.

The mechanics are based on the Attention Economy model, where user’s attention is treated as a commodity for which social networks begin to pay. I looked into WP and got to the point.

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:
1. A sustainable financial model. An extremely important indicator in the current market.

Cheelee is a social network, whose revenue is by 30% provided by advertising, in-game purchases and collaborations with brands, while for most m2e projects this figure is no more than just 1%.

2. The project is focused on a wide audience of social networks, it is 4.6 billion people, and plans to reach the 1st billion in the next 4 years.

3. The Cheelee social network was not created from scratch. There are almost three years of development behind it, 100+ team members, experience and continuity in the form of NUTSon social network with more than 1.5M uploads.

4. Free project entry. You do not need to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to become a member of Cheelee, you just need to sign-up and start using the app.

5. You can earn without changing any of your habits. Just scroll through the feed, watch videos and get tokens.

All this sounds cool, but what about the prospects for the token price?

The emission of tokens is limited. There is a deflationary economic model, while the complexity of the mining will increase.

To support the token rates (there will be two CHEEL and LEE), the project has a Stability Fund, where up to 100% of profits from NFT sales and in-app transactions and 70% of advertising revenue, in-game purchases and collaboration with brands will be donated.

Now there is a chance to get WL and take a part in the giveaway of 50 000$!!!

http://bit.ly/3g0DxUw Open / Comment

2022-11-14 20:00:09 ​​Binance creates industry recovery fund to help projects struggling with liquidity.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao clarified that the project is for other potentially strong projects and not FTX, saying that “liars or fraud” would never qualify.

As the effects of the FTX crisis continue to affect the markets negatively, crypto exchange Binance is creating a fund to help potentially strong projects that are having liquidity issues.

In a tweet, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the fund aims to reduce the cascading negative effects of the collapse of FTX by helping projects that the Binance CEO described as “strong, but in a liquidity crisis.”

While Zhao did not provide all the information on which projects would qualify, he told teams who believe they may fit the criteria to contact Binance Labs, the exchange’s venture capital arm. He also called upon other industry players interested in co-investing to get in touch with them. “Crypto is not going away. We are still here. Let's rebuild,” Zhao wrote.

Seemingly confused by the announcement, one crypto community member replied to Zhao’s post, asking why FTX would qualify for the fund. To clarify, the Binance CEO highlighted that the fund is not for FTX, but for other projects within the crypto ecosystem, adding that “liars or fraud never qualify as strong projects.”

As the crypto markets continue to experience turmoil, a known crypto skeptic started to blame crypto billionaires as the reason for slowing down developments in regulating the space. United States Representative Brad Sherman said that efforts by “billionaire crypto bros” in lobbying and contributing to campaigns have been successful in deterring meaningful legislation.

Meanwhile, as Cointelegraph previously reported, FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, three former FTX executives and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison are looking for ways to flee to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, while the plan assumes that the UAE does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, both nations have signed a mutual assistance treaty for dealing with criminals. Open / Comment

2022-11-12 14:00:15 FLAG Token is here! FlagMedia owns CryptoTimesRegister, PRDailyWire & many other popular newspapers & magazines. FlagMediaMall connects vendors to buyers using FLAG for commerce. Less than 8 mil tokens in circulating supply - very high demand!

Join the project's listing on P2B:

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Telegram: @flagmedia Open / Comment

2022-11-11 20:00:10 ​​Japan’s financial regulator requests FTX Japan halt operations.

Under the orders, FTX Japan will be required to suspend OTC derivatives transactions and related margins as well as new deposits from Nov. 10 to Dec. 9 unless the FSA steps in.

The Financial Services Agency, or FSA, of Japan has requested FTX Japan suspend business orders, citing the policies of FTX Trading Limited.

In a Nov. 10 announcement, the FSA said it had taken administrative actions against FTX Japan following FTX Trading Limited’s suspension of withdrawals “without explaining the reasons clearly to investors.” The financial regulator said it had issued suspension orders and business improvement orders in accordance with Japan’s Payment Services Act and Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

“There have been reports that FTX Trading Limited is facing credit uncertainties,” said the FSA. “It is necessary to take all possible measures to prevent a situation in which the interests of creditors and investors are harmed by the outflow to affiliated companies of the company. Therefore, this situation of our company is not recognized as having the necessary system in place to properly carry out its financial obligations.”

Under the orders, FTX Japan will be required to suspend over-the-counter derivatives transactions and related margins as well as new deposits from users from Nov. 10 to Dec. 9 unless the FSA steps in. The financial regulator also ordered the exchange to hold its asset domestically over the same timeframe, properly reporting liabilities on its balance sheet.

FSA’s business improvement order requires FTX Japan to submit a plan by Nov. 16, which includes how it intends to protect investors and provide transparency on the ongoing situation with FTX:

“Until the implementation of the business improvement plan is completed, monthly progress and implementation status shall be reported in writing by the 10th of the following month.”

Formerly the Quoine Corporation, FTX Japan was launched in June by FTX to service Japanese crypto users following the acquisition of the Liquid exchange in February. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who recently apologized for not providing transparency around the “liquidity crunch” the exchange was facing, also served as the interim CEO of FTX Japan at launch. Open / Comment