CRYPTOGALACTIC

2023-04-01 14:18:48 Babel Finance Financial Creditor Protection Extension Request Paused

The ongoing moratorium of protection against creditor action for Hong Kong-based Babel Finance, which also has operations in Singapore, expires on April 5, according to Flex, who left day-to-day management in late 2021 and has since returned to oversee the company’s restructuring. Babel owes debt between $750 million and $800 million. It was one of a number of cryptocurrency businesses that encountered difficulties after the crash in digital assets last year.

A new stablecoin is a part of the restructuring strategy suggested by Babel. The strategy calls for paying back finance’ obligations with money earned from a brand-new project that issues “Babel Recovery Coins.”

Babel Finance’s reorganization plan includes a plan to pay off debts using proceeds from a decentralized stablecoin project called “Hope,” according to sources from Bloomberg. Hope will use BTC and ETH as collateral and pegged the price to USD, similar to the infamous DAI method (collateralized with USDC, ETH) or the UST method (collateralized with LUNA). The difference between Hope and Terra’s stablecoins is that the collateral is not set up by the same business that created LUNA-UST.

The court agreed to a temporary suspension until Babel’s creditor protection petition is heard again on April 17, according to Flex.

Babel Finance, a cryptocurrency lender funds by Sequoia Capital China, incurred losses while using customer cash for its own proprietary trading, leading the lender to halt withdrawals in June 2022 as the value of digital tokens plummeted. Open / Comment

2023-03-31 14:14:24 Do Kwon's prison conditions proved to be quite harsh

On March 23, the scandalous founder of Terraform Labs Kwon was detained at Podgorica airport with false documents. Now he is in jail, awaiting a court decision. The lawyer told about the daily life of the crypto-businessman.

"In 2020, a human rights report by the U.S. State Department detailed the conditions of treatment of prisoners by staff. Little has changed since then. However, there are some additions related to Covid-19.

You are kept in quarantine for 10 days to make sure you are not sick. The rooms are quite decent, you live in twos or threesomes. After quarantine you are transferred to a general cell, where prisoners wait for trial. The conditions here are much worse than in the isolation ward.

The rooms are 8 square meters and are very cramped, there may be 10 to 11 people, often there is not even a bed," said the lawyer.

Also, detainees can walk around the block for 30 minutes and buy cigarettes and coffee at the store.

Kwon is still hoping for extradition to South Korea or the United States, but that probably won't happen. At a press conference Wednesday, Justice Minister Marco Kovacs spoke about which country could theoretically win extradition.

"When we get several extradition requests, it depends on several factors - the gravity of the crime, the place and time, how the request was received and other conditions," Kovacs said.

It is up to the Montenegrin courts to decide, but analysts have suggested that Korea has the upper hand.

The lawyer also spoke about extradition. He said that if a deal is made, it won't be sooner than a year from now. Kwon will be tried in Montenegro first, which could take four to five months.

He added that if all charges are confirmed, the fraudster will be behind bars for a minimum of six months, and a maximum of five years. Open / Comment

2023-03-30 15:43:07 U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is raising an army against cryptocurrencies

One of the most popular U.S. senators, Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), announced on Twitter that she would "build an anti-cryptocurrency army" as part of her new campaign. She told her followers that she would actively fight against the industry. In addition, the official stressed that her future activities will be centered around this technology industry.

In her last message, Senator Warren urged her own associates and voters to join her program. She extensively touted her achievements in opposing cryptocurrencies. In addition, the politician emphasized other significant achievements, including the provision of over-the-counter hearing aids and reducing the cost of child care in Massachusetts.

Previously, the Senator has repeatedly stated that in order to maintain economic stability in the United States, cryptocurrencies should be banned entirely in the country. The Massachusetts politician has been actively advocating and fighting against the spread of digital currencies in the United States for several years.

The senator recalled that some of her efforts in countering the cryptocurrency market have already been successful. In December 2022, the Digital Assets Money Laundering Act was passed.

However, the bill has come under massive criticism from Republicans as well as Warren's Democratic Party associates. Numerous participants in the cryptocurrency industry also said that the legislation was against the development of blockchain and cryptography, and the senator herself allegedly did not understand the dangers of her actions. In February of this year, Warren promised to reintroduce a bill that would require all decentralized organizations to comply with strict anti-money-laundering requirements. Open / Comment

2023-03-29 16:04:24 Lido Finance will close DOT and KSM steaking

It has become known that decentralized finance (DeFi) staking service Lido Finance will close its betting program for Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama (KSM). This will happen on August 1, 2023, as previously announced. This was announced by the developers of Lido MixBytes in their own blog on March 29.

MixBytes representatives said that this decision was not easy, but "it had to be made." They stressed that there were several reasons for stopping the service at once. Specialists assured: the introduction and growth in popularity of the product did not meet the "expectations of the business case for maintaining investment.

"Challenging macroeconomic factors and the related lack of liquidity in Polkadot's decentralized finance ecosystem have undermined the value proposition of liquid-stacking," MixBytes wrote. They noted that they will continue to develop new products and collaborate with Polkadot.

Lido Finance is a liquid-stacking protocol. It allows users to use staking ether (stETH) in other blockchain networks to simultaneously receive rewards for bets and have additional income.

Thus, representatives of the Lido Finance development team confirmed that all deposits are no longer accepted on the Polkadot and Kusama networks as of today. In addition, the assets will be automatically unlocked on June 22 of this year. According to analyst trackers, a total of $4 million worth of DOT tokens have been placed in the Lido protocol. As for the canary network, for it the figure was a modest $75 thousand.

As of 14:00 Moscow time on March 29, 2023, Polkadot cryptocurrency quotations were fixed at $6.24. The value of DOT coin increased by 6.7% over the past 24 hours. The market capitalization of the virtual asset stood at $7.3 billion. Open / Comment

2023-03-28 19:45:57 Damien Karem: Amendments to EU law on money laundering do not imply a ban on cryptocurrencies

Damien Carême, a member of the European Parliament and one of the initiators of the bill, told reporters that the proposed amendments are not intended to completely block cryptocurrency transactions. Limits on the amount of a single transaction of 1,000 euros (about $1080) are introduced for anonymous payments.

"We absolutely do not prevent cryptocurrency transactions, but we limit their volume for cases where user identification is not possible," said Damien Karem.

Karem explained to reporters that the provisions of the updated EU law on money laundering will affect the entire spectrum of cryptocurrency transactions, including payments for goods and services in metacities. According to the MEP, it is crucial to prevent "the flow of dirty money, prohibited by banking laws, into other areas of the crypto-economy.

Earlier, the Council of the European Union agreed on an amendment to the data law, according to which smart contracts should provide for the possibility of compulsory termination. By doing so, lawmakers intend to enable data and event management similar to the control of Internet of Things (IoT) consumer electronics software. Open / Comment

2023-03-27 15:03:28 American got 4 years in prison for $21 million ICO fraud

A court sentenced the CEO of Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS), Michael Alan Stollery, to four years and three months in prison. This was reported by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In July 2022, the California resident pleaded guilty to participating in a fraudulent ICO scheme that raised $21 million.

Between 2017 and 2018, the founder of TBIS promoted the platform as a "cryptocurrency investment opportunity."

According to the DOJ, Stollery was a "key figure" in the conspiracy. He lured investors to buy the BAR token through "a series of false and misleading statements."

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took TBIS to court in May 2018. The regulator charged Stollery and his company with violating anti-fraud regulations and federal securities laws.

American also failed to register a coin offering as required by the SEC. In addition, he posted fake customer reviews on the site and assured a business relationship with the Federal Reserve.

During the hearing, Stollery admitted to falsifying aspects of the white paper, including the purpose and technology of the coins, the differences from other tokens, and the profitability prospects.

The TIBS founder faced up to 20 years in prison in the case.

As a reminder, in July 2021, the founders of the cryptocurrency project Dropil pleaded guilty to nearly $1.9 million in ICO fraud.

In December 2022, the SEC charged the Thor Technologies project and its principals with an unregistered $2.6 million securities offering. Open / Comment

2023-03-26 22:48:58 XRP tops on two South Korean exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb

According to CoinMarketCap, XRP has taken the lead in trading volume on South Korea's two largest exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb. In the last 24 hours, XRP's combined trading volume on the two platforms reached nearly $348 million.

That figure was achieved when paired with the South Korean Won. As a result, the volume of XRP traded on Upbit exceeded the volume traded on the Binance cryptocurrency exchange by nearly 100 million tokens.

This fact did not go unnoticed by members of the XRP community, especially amid a reddened crypto market, the token's price rose 9%.

Clearly, the rise in XRP's price and trading volume was the result of increased interest from Korean investors. However, the reasons for this behavior are difficult to explain.

South Koreans may have seen an opportunity to cash in on XRP after the token's price corrected after a 26 percent rise on Tuesday. Open / Comment

2023-03-25 19:25:44 Fed Board again rejects Custodia Bank's membership application

Federal Reserve (Fed) functionaries said that in reviewing Custodia Bank's next application for membership in the system and protesting the Federal Reserve Board's decision, it was found that Custodia's application was "inconsistent" in terms of financial, governance and corporate authority.

In particular, the Fed board was not satisfied with Custodia's approach to risk management and reinforced the regulator's concerns about a business plan focused on a narrow sector of the economy. According to the Fed, Custodia's reliance on cryptocurrencies means that the bank "does not have a substantially diversified business." The board believes that Custodia's business model does not meet the goals of the Federal Reserve Act.

In its opinion, the Federal Reserve Board explains that Wyoming's Board-accredited financial institutions are banks that accept deposits and engage in other banking-related activities with full backup and state insurance coverage.

However, in the case of Custodia Bank, insurance coverage for deposits and activities related to servicing cryptocurrency transactions is not available. Thus, the absence of guaranteed insurance coverage for Custodia's operations could increase the risk of "massive capital flight" and "firm contagion" in the event of a crisis in the digital asset market.

Earlier, Federal Reserve Deputy Chairman Michael Barr proposed the creation of a specialized group to develop regulation of crypto-assets. Michael Barr acknowledged that cryptocurrencies can transform the financial system, but the benefits of innovation can only be realized if there are rules governing the industry. Open / Comment

2023-03-24 13:44:32 MASK cryptocurrency rate jumped 15% in 24 hours

As of 12:00 Moscow time on March 24, 2023, cryptocurrency market capitalization rose 2% in the past 24 hours. All leading digital coins and tokens increased in value over the past 24 hours, with a few exceptions. The leader of the day was the Mask Network (MASK), which quotations jumped 15%. The virtual token was trading at $6.15, climbing to 89th place in the top ranking. In total, MASK rose by 43% over the week.

The cryptocurrency's total capitalization reached $467.79 million. Market participants completed transactions with the digital token worth $374.08 million during the last 24 hours. This indicator increased by 76.5% during the reporting period.

In addition, quotations of several other well-known cryptocurrencies also grew quite well. For example, Dash (DASH) gained 6.87% over the last day. It was available for purchase on exchanges at an average price of $61.69. The total supply of coins was fixed at the value of $689.75 million. Trading volumes amounted to $186.89 million for the past day.

The well-known Chinese blockchain project Neo (NEO) also pleased its investors. The native cryptocurrency became more expensive by 6.6% in the reporting time period. The crypto-asset was available for purchase at $13.01. Market capitalization was $917.86 million, and daily trading volumes were $112.2 million.

Traders and investors were pretty calm after the speech from the U.S. Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell's speech gave them a certain amount of optimism, while the quotations of the leading cryptocurrencies neither jumped nor fell after his words.

Analysts noted that the growth of bitcoin (BTC) by 40% over the past 2 weeks has already won back all sorts of positive sentiments of market participants. Many industry researchers were waiting for the correction of the rate. Open / Comment

2023-03-23 20:00:00 Liquid Mining will launch global sales on April 1st, 2023.

The presale and beta testing phases of Liquid Mining are coming to a successful end!

The multimining technology showed annual 400% ROI to users. Impressive, isn’t it?

Taking into account that public sale start and beta testing end will happen in a same span of time, users will receive their rewards for participating in the referral system during April.

Liquid Mining has already made waves in the cryptocurrency community, with a large and passionate user base spanning more than 10 languages:

Liquid Mining ENG
Liquid Mining JP
Liquid Mining RU
Liquid Mining DEU
Liquid Mining SPN
Liquid Mining HUN
Liquid Mining CHN
Liquid Mining FRA
Liquid Mining THA
Liquid Mining VNM

However, we must also mention that the GPU capacity is selling out fast, and there is a limited amount available.

The CEO of Liquid Mining is also providing users with essential educational videos on basics of cryptocurrency mining. This means that even the newbie in crypto can easily access the platform and start getting profits!

So, if you're interested in joining the Liquid Mining community and start earning from cryptocurrency mining, now is the time to act.

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