Crypto_NFT

2022-10-10 08:54:52 ​​TVL Slows Fall as ECB and Fed Heads Call for DeFi Regulation to Be Accelerated

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector continues to attract increased attention from cryptocurrency investors. ForkLog has collected the most important events and news of recent weeks in a digest.

The volume of funds blocked (TVL) in DeFi protocols fell to $54.9 billion. MakerDAO became the leader with $7.67 billion, while Lido ($6.06 billion) and Curve ($5.99 billion) hold the second and third lines of the rating, respectively.

TVL in Ethereum applications fell to $31.65 billion. Over the past 30 days, the indicator has decreased by 6% (on September 8, the value was $33.63 billion).

Decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume over the past 30 days was $40.6 billion.

Uniswap continues to dominate the non-custodial exchange market, accounting for 63.4% of total turnover. The second DEX in terms of trading volume is Curve (13%), the third is DODO (9.5%).

The heads of the ECB and the Fed called for increased regulation of the DeFi sector

During an online discussion organized by the Bank of France, the chairmen of the leading central banks called it justified to strengthen the regulation of the DeFi sector against the backdrop of its development.

The head of the US Federal Reserve (FRS), Jerome Powell, said there are structural problems in the DeFi ecosystem. In his opinion, one of them is the lack of transparency.

“The good news, I think, is that in terms of financial stability, the interaction between the DeFi ecosystem and the traditional banking system is not that great at the moment,” the Fed chairman said.

However, Powell warned that this situation "will not continue indefinitely." He pointed to "a real need for more appropriate regulation" as the decentralized finance sector expands.

The Fed chairman's speech paralleled the recent findings of Fed researchers. In their opinion, the lack of a clear regulatory framework threatens long-term financial stability risks from DeFi.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde recalled the collapse of Terra. In her opinion, this case "justifies" the tightening of regulation.

“If we do not participate in this game, if we do not participate in experiments, innovations in terms of central bank digital money, we risk losing the role of anchor that we have played for many, many decades,” she said.

The head of the Bank for International Settlements, Agustin Carstens, also hinted at the incident with Terra. He noted the role of stablecoins in DeFi and pointed out that their provision is "often inefficient". The official suggested that the sector has "structural problems and internal weaknesses." Open / Comment

2022-10-10 08:51:34 ​​Crypto exchange Huobi Global agrees to sell majority stake

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global has agreed to sell a majority stake to Hong Kong-based investment firm About Capital Management. The parties did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

“After the closing of the transaction, About Capital will control the majority stake in Huobi Global. The agreement provides only for the change of the managing shareholder and does not affect the main activities of [the company],” the message says.

According to a press release (available to ForkLog), upon completion of the transaction, the platform will implement a number of initiatives aimed at expanding the business and promoting the brand in the global market. In particular, the company plans to make "significant investments" in margin and reserve funds.

“We intend to continue to develop and modernize Huobi's operations, among our plans are the increase in risk capital, the development of institutional business, as well as global branding projects,” said Ted Chen, CEO of About Capital Management. Open / Comment

2022-10-10 08:48:21 ​​CFO of OpenSea resigned

Brian Roberts announced his resignation as CFO of NFT marketplace OpenSea. The specialist will remain with the company as an advisor.

Roberts joined the company in December 2021. He previously served as CFO at Lyft, having previously worked at Walmart and Microsoft. The manager created the OpenSea financial team from scratch.

“I had a rare opportunity to create a financial team literally from scratch and select the best specialists. […] I remain incredibly optimistic about Web3 and especially OpenSea,” he wrote.

It is not known who will take Roberts' place. The manager left the company amid a decline in cryptocurrency quotes and a drop in trading volumes on NFT marketplaces.

In recent months, many specialists from among the leaders of cryptocurrency companies have left their positions.

On September 27, Brett Harrison, president of the American division of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, announced his resignation. On the same day, Alex Mashinsky left the chair of the CEO of the Celsius Network crypto-lending platform. Open / Comment

2022-10-08 16:14:19 ​​Crypto.com cut over 2,000 employees

Cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com has cut its staff by about 40%, laying off more than 2,000 employees. This is reported by AdAge, citing sources within the company.

In June, platform CEO Chris Marszalek announced a layoff of 260 employees, or 5% of the entire Crypto.com workforce. By the end of the summer, the number of people laid off allegedly increased eightfold.

Former and current employees told the publication that they were the first to reduce the marketing division - the creative department was completely dissolved a few months after the creation.

According to media reports, in addition to withdrawing its €500 million UEFA Champions League sponsorship, Crypto.com has also terminated contracts with Los Angeles-based women's football team Angel City FC and streaming platform Twitch.

The company's press service declined to specify the number of laid-off employees. A spokesman for Crypto.com called the current events "a process of restructuring" that "allowed to strengthen the position during the bearish cycle." According to him, 60% of those laid off were freelancers.

In March, the International Football Federation announced that Crypto.com would become the official sponsor of the World Cup in Qatar.

Earlier, state optimization was announced in BitMEX, Robinhood, Gemini, Bitso and the parent company of the Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin.

Coinbase will cut staff by about 18%, blockchain platform BlockFi by 20%. According to media reports, Huobi will lay off 30% of its employees, NFT gaming studio Immutable will lay off more than 20%. Open / Comment

2022-10-08 16:11:22 ​​Changpeng Zhao: Binance could spend over $1B on deals in 2022

The head of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, told Bloomberg about the plans of the bitcoin exchange to allocate more than $1 billion for investments and acquisitions of companies in the crypto industry in 2022.

“We've been watching a lot of lenders in recent months because that's where [in this segment] all the problems are. Many of them simply take the user's money and give it to someone else. There is not much intrinsic value in this. In that case, what should you buy? We want to see real products being used by people,” he explained.

Binance has already committed $325 million to 67 projects in 2022, up from $140 million to 73 companies last year, Zhao said. The figure does not take into account the $200 million investment in Forbes and the $500 million funding to Elon Musk to acquire Twitter.

The CEO of Binance also said that the company remained profitable in 2022, but did not elaborate on specific results.

“During the bear cycle, we will see more market consolidation. There are many risks and many pains, but also many opportunities,” Zhao said.

He added that the corporation has a $7 billion fund and a mergers and acquisitions team of 30 employees. Open / Comment

2022-10-07 18:51:10 ​​Reserve Bank of India to launch digital rupee pilot project

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has published a report on national digital currencies. It says that a prototype digital rupee will be launched “soon.”

The Central Bank promised to periodically disclose information about its functions and benefits.

CBDC can be used in both wholesale and retail options as the regulator is looking into both options.

The paper says that several design models are being discussed. In a wholesale CBDC, it will be based on an account and issued by the Central Bank, in a retail one it will be based on tokens and managed by an intermediary.

The RBI mentioned the need for "reasonable privacy for low value transactions". This will ensure compliance with cash, which does not bring interest to the owners.

The Central Bank has not yet decided on the technology that will form the basis of CBDC. The document talks about the possibilities of adapting the blockchain as it develops.

The report explores various possibilities and aims to raise awareness of CBDCs with "strong arguments". The latter will make the digital rupee “as attractive as cash.”

The document also mentions the associated risks and indicates the need for a phased implementation of the pilot program. Open / Comment

2022-10-07 18:48:54 ​​Crypto developer proposes a solution to access dapps without censorship

Former developer of the Synthetix DeFi protocol, Liam Swans, has presented a solution for accessing banned decentralized applications (dapps) like Tornado Cash without censorship.

The problem, he says, is that the front-end applications interact with users through centralized DNS services and servers.

The Dappnet solution from Swans uses the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) decentralized file system and the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain name service.

The Dappnet client integrates into the browser and establishes BitTorrent-style P2P connections. The user does not need to configure anything. If the response node is blocked, there will always be another one in its place, the developer explained.

“For the first time, we can get a place on the Internet that cannot be taken from us, it does not rely on a single owner dictating what is allowed,” he wrote.

According to Lebedy, for the wide use of his solution, a number of improvements are needed, mainly on the IPFS side. It is necessary to simplify the deployment of the system node, improve development tools and create something like an accelerator for distributing content, he noted.

“It should be one click to visit deployed applications on .eth. You connect with ENS, GitHub, pay a decentralized IPFS accelerator, and boom, your dapp is available worldwide,” said Lebedy. Open / Comment

2022-10-07 18:45:54 ​​BNB Chain Team Restores Network After $100M Hack

The BNB Chain team has suspended the network amid the BSC Token Hub bridge hack. The hackers stole over $544 million worth of digital assets, but managed to withdraw only $100 million.

“The initial estimate of the funds withdrawn from BSC is between $100 million and $110 million. However, due to the actions of the community, as well as our internal and external security partners, about $7 million has already been frozen,” a Binance spokesperson said on Reddit in a statement.

BSC Token Hub is the internal cross-chain bridge of the BNB Chain ecosystem. It enables the transfer of tokens between the BNB Beacon Chain governance blockchain and the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) consensus layer.

According to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, the attackers took advantage of an exploit that “led to the emergence of additional BNB.” The project team asked the validators to suspend the BSC.

Zhao stressed that "the problem is contained" and user funds "are safe." According to BscScan, at the time of writing, the network does not produce blocks.

According to DeBank, the cybercriminals’ address holds digital assets worth over $544 million — 80% of the funds (~$433 million) are in the BNB Chain network and cannot be withdrawn.

According to SlowMist, an analytics company, the attackers financed the attack from addresses belonging to the ChangeNOW cryptocurrency exchange service. After executing the exploit, they contributed 900,000 BNB to the Venus Protocol landing page to open $147 million in overcollateralized positions.

The Venus Protocol team emphasized that user funds are safe. The developers explained that the hackers would either pay off the loan and liquidity would return to previous levels, or disappear with the borrowed stablecoins and positions would be “slowly liquidated.” Open / Comment

2022-10-06 10:49:35 ​​Yan LeKun proposed to endow AI systems with "common sense"

“Autonomous” artificial intelligence, able to explore and perceive the world around them like people, needs more effective training. This conclusion was made by the vice president of Meta and the leading AI specialist of the company Jan LeKun, writes Motherboard.

Compared to humans and animals, modern artificial intelligence systems lack intelligence. This is the concept needed to develop "autonomous" AI algorithms that can learn on the fly by observing the real world, rather than through lengthy training to perform just one specific task.

LeCun published a study where he proposed a way to solve this problem. In his opinion, algorithms require more effective learning, since so far AI is “not very good” at planning and predicting changes in the real world. On the other hand, humans and animals are able to gain vast amounts of knowledge through observation and non-essential physical interactions.

Teenagers can learn to drive a car with dozens of hours of practice and still not get into an accident. To solve the same problem, AI systems need a huge amount of data.

“An unmanned vehicle will need to drive off a cliff several times before it realizes that this is a bad idea, and thousands of more attempts to learn how not to fall off it,” LeCun said during a presentation at the University of California at Berkeley.

According to him, the difference lies in the presence of "common sense" in humans and animals.

In the article, the scientist describes this concept as a set of models that can help a living being draw a conclusion about the difference between probable, feasible and impossible. Such a skill allows a person to explore their environment, fill in missing information, and provide new solutions to unknown problems.

LeCun stated that many modern training processes like reinforcement learning are “not up to par” when it comes to matching human reliability in real-life tasks.

“This is a practical problem because people really need machines with common sense. We need self-driving cars, home robots and intelligent virtual assistants,” he said.

The specialist proposed an architecture designed to minimize the actions that an AI must perform in order to successfully learn and complete the task.

LeCun described a model for creating "autonomous" intelligence, consisting of five separate but customizable modules. One of the hardest parts of the architecture will become like a simulator and will evaluate the state of the world, as well as predict imaginary actions and other sequences. This will allow using knowledge about the environment for different tasks.

Recall that in July, Google fired an engineer after he announced the "birth of the mind" in the LaMDA AI algorithm.

In January, Elon Musk promised to prevent machines from rioting against people.

In June 2021, DeepMind scientists stated that reinforcement learning is enough to achieve artificial general intelligence. Open / Comment

2022-10-06 10:44:35 ​​Do Kwon denies involvement in $39.6 million frozen by authorities

Terraform Labs (TFL) CEO Do Kwon has denied reports of his involvement with $39.6 million in cryptocurrencies blocked by South Korean prosecutors.

On October 5, the Korean edition of News1 spread information about the freezing of 56.2 billion won, allegedly belonging to Do Kwon, by the authorities.

“I don’t understand the purpose of spreading this lie – kneading muscles? But for what purpose? Once again, I don't use KuCoin and OKEx, I don't have time to trade. […] I don’t know what these funds are,” he explained.

News1 reported that these platforms have frozen 3,313 BTC associated with the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) at the request of the authorities. The organization and Do Kwon denied the latter.

Earlier, the media reported on the movement of 3313 BTC from the LFG wallet on Binance to the KuCoin and OKX platforms from September 15 to 18.

Recall that in September, a South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for the head of the company, Do Kwon, and five other people. According to media reports, the prosecutor's office appealed to the Foreign Ministry with a request to cancel their passports.

On September 17, Do Kwon stated that he was not "on the run" and was cooperating with law enforcement. He stressed that he was not going to disclose his location to strangers.

On September 19, the Financial Times reported that the South Korean authorities had submitted a request to Interpol for a "red notice" for the head of the TFL. Later, information appeared in the media that the request was granted. Open / Comment