Archives

Binance Labs, the incubator and investment arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said it invested an undisclosed amount in Salus Security, which provides blockchain smart contract audits and automated smart contract vulnerability detection. See related article: Binance’s US$7.5 billion woman sees plenty of promise in bear markets Fast facts Binance Labs said in a […]

Amid the worsening relationship with China, one Australian Senator is trying to address possible national security concerns that may arise from Beijing’s Central Bank Digital Currency project.

Self-described crypto influencer charged with violating SEC regulations by trading and promoting an initial coin offering under undisclosed financial terms.

WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, said it has stopped deposits of stablecoins USDC, USDP and TUSD, and will automatically convert users’ existing balances to Binance’s USD-backed stablecoin BUSD at a 1:1 ratio.  See related article: India’s WazirX introduces new ‘learn and earn’ campaign with The Sandbox Fast facts WazirX will begin the […]

Britain’s internal divisions could thwart its crypt ambitions, writes Nick Saponaro of Divi Labs. Will it be eclipsed by crypto-friendly Dubai?

South Korea’s official media regulation agency met with Andy O’Connell, vice president of product policy and strategy of Meta Platforms, Inc. on Monday to discuss ways to boost user protection on the metaverse. See related article: South Korea will not rule the metaverse with game laws, science ministry says Fast facts Ahn Hyoung-hwan, the vice […]

Bitcoin rose above US$19,000 in early Tuesday morning trading in Asia after falling below that resistance level overnight for the first time in almost two weeks. Ethereum showed signs of shaking off the post-Merge slump as it gained along with the rest of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. See related article: Ethereum’s PoW […]

South Korean prosecutors are in the process of requesting Interpol to issue a red notice for Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Kwon Do-hyung, also known as Do Kwon, according to media reports.  See related article: Terra CEO Do Kwon faces ‘illegal alien’ status in Singapore as Seoul cancels passport Fast facts An Interpol […]

Hong Kong has invited firms interested in security token offerings (STO) to share their proposals with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the regulator’s Fintech department head Elizabeth Wong told digital assets industry representatives last week, according to a press release published on Monday.  See related article: Hong Kong regulator: ramp up oversight of virtual […]

The global crypto market cap for cryptocurrency dropped over 7% in Monday evening trade in Asia, nearing US$900 billion. Bitcoin fell to a 24-hour low of US$18,390.32 at 5 pm Hong Kong time, while Cardano led losses within the crypto top 10 by market capitalization, followed by Ethereum.  See related article: Markets: Bitcoin back below […]

The argument centers around if Ripple’s XRP sales were offerings of unregistered securities.

Already a big part of global finance, interest rate swaps can be a boon for DeFi — if it can overcome these challenges, writes Simon Jones of Voltz Labs.

These PoW forks were created to keep revenue flowing for Ethereum’s miners, but plummeting prices put that plan at risk.

Aptos, a public chain launched by former members of failed Meta stablecoin project Diem, announced Friday a prize of up to US$1 million to encourage developers to find major vulnerabilities in the blockchain network, as the launch of the highly-anticipated blockchain fell slightly behind schedule. See related article: Binance makes additional investment in Aptos  Fast […]

WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, has introduced a “learn and earn” campaign with The Sandbox, one of the biggest Ethereum-based metaverse game platforms.  See related article: WazirX launches India’s first NFT marketplace Fast facts The campaign started Sept. 19, and the top five winners will get free passes for The Sandbox’s recently […]

Maja Vujinovic, founder and CEO of OGroup, a financial services company with a focus on artificial intelligence and blockchain, spoke to Forkast about the future of digital assets at StartmeupHK Festival 2022.

Yi He, who manages the multibillion-dollar portfolio at Binance Labs, is looking to invest in Web 3.0 projects from infrastructure, application and data to analytics and security.

A decentralized application (dApp) “XCM DOT Autostake” developed by a team called Entity 54 won the grand prize at Polkadot’s North American hackathon, Polkadot announced on Sunday. See related article: Polkadot Defi hub Acala burns some 1.3 bln mis-minted stablecoins Fast facts See related article: Polkadot to hold first hackathon centered in Latin America 

Bitcoin fell back below US$20,000 in early Monday morning trading in Asia after breaching that support line overnight, while Ethereum led the losses in the crypto top 10 by market capitalization, which were all trading lower. See related article: Markets: Bitcoin dips below US$20,000; Ether, ETC fall post-Merge Fast facts Bitcoin fell by 3.4% in […]

Many believe Ethereum is destined to overtake Bitcoin’s dominance in an event known as “The Flippening.” Find out if Ethereum’s reign is inevitable in this Forkast explainer.

The Fed will continue its CBDC research as Republicans pressure the central bank to clarify its stance on digital dollar issuance.

A member of the prosecuting team tells Forkast additional charges are likely to be leveled against Terraform Labs Chief Executive Officer Do Kwon following this week’s issuance of an arrest warrant for violating the country’s Capital Markets Act.

Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has made a follow-on investment in Aptos Labs, as a part of a broader fundraising round by the blockchain startup. See related article: Aptos raises US$150 mln from FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto Fast facts Aptos will use the funds to expand its team and […]

The Sandbox, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands Corp. Ltd., the Hong Kong-based game software and venture capital company, will be taking its Hong Kong metaverse strategy to a new market in Dubai, launching a “Dubaiverse,” the company said at the 62nd edition of the True Global Ventures Conference on Thursday.  Animoca Brand’s Dubai-themed metaverse will […]

Bitcoin continued trading below the US$20,000 support line in Friday afternoon trading in Asia. Ether fell in a “sell the news” mood after the Ethereum network completed the network Merge on Thursday. Most other coins among the top 10 by market capitalization dropped. See related article: Markets: Bitcoin dips below US$20,000; Ether, ETC fall post-Merge […]

Prosecutors investigating the man behind the US$37 billion wipeout of the Terra-LUNA cryptocurrency project are raising the stakes to get him back to South Korea.

Three Ethereum chains that support mining — Ethereum Classic, ETHPoW and Ethereum Fair — together accounted for about 30% of the peak hashrate of Ethereum before “the Merge.”

The crypto labor force skews heavily male, which could impede the industry’s future growth, writes Lottie Wells of Wirex. Here are some ways to increase women’s participation.

When is a cryptocurrency a security and when is it not? Financial regulators around the world are raising that question. The answer that comes out of the U.S. may set the tone, but South Korea is also ahead in tackling it.

Amid its bankruptcy proceedings, crypto lender Celsius Network LLC has sought court approval to sell and/or exchange its stablecoin holdings for U.S. dollars in order to generate liquidity and help fund its operations.  See related article: Goldman Sachs said to raise US$2B for Celsius assets: report Fast facts “Celsius currently owns eleven different forms of […]

ETHPoW, the Ethereum hard fork blockchain intended to preserve proof-of-work after the native chain transitioned to proof-of-stake, is facing technical difficulties despite months of anticipation.  See related article: Ethereum says Merge upgrade successfully completed, more to come Fast facts Prior to the fork, it was announced that ETHW tokens would be airdropped to Ethereum holders. […]

Mining pools F2Pool, Poolin and Antpool have launched their ETHW (EthereumPoW) mining pools, according to their respective websites, while a few other large mining pools have also said they would support the mining of the fork token. See related article: Ethereum says Merge upgrade successfully completed, more to come Fast facts F2Pool said on Thursday […]

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) governor Lee Bok-hyun says he disagrees with the view that crypto cannot be seen as financial investment products or securities, while revealing he assisted local prosecutors in designating Terra-LUNA tokens as securities, according to local media reports. See related article: Securities or not? South Korea to evaluate Terra’s LUNA […]

Bitcoin fell below the US$20,000 support line in Friday morning trading in Asia, while Ether saw a sell-off following the long-awaited network “Merge” on Thursday. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell below US$1 trillion as all top 10 tokens were trading down. See related article: Ethereum says Merge upgrade successfully completed, more to come Fast […]

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is preparing for the future of finance by exploring distributed ledger technology use cases, such as asset tokenization and cross-border payments, the city-state’s Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Thursday at an event organized by the central bank.  See related article:  Filecoin service provider RRMine leaves China for […]

SBI Digital Markets Pte. Ltd. (SBI DM) has received a Capital Markets Services (CMS) license from Singapore’s central bank, which allows it to provide custodial services and offer capital markets products. See related article: Singapore’s MAS says needs to do better job explaining crypto policy Fast facts SBI DM plans to launch a digital asset […]

The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has prohibited cryptocurrency companies from offering digital assets lending and staking products, or depository services.  See related article: Thailand’s SCBX scraps plan to buy 51% stake in crypto exchange Bitkub Fast facts The regulator said in a press release on Thursday that the decision was made to protect […]

The bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network’s native CEL token suddenly spiked to US$4.26, during Ethereum’s much-anticipated Merge, according to data from CoinGecko. See related article: Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky floats restructuring as custody business amid bankruptcy proceedings Fast facts CEL’s price has since dropped to US$1.94, making it the 61st largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, […]

The last block on the proof-of-work (PoW) Ethereum chain before The Merge was filled by a VanityBlocks non-fungible token (NFT) minted for 31.5 ETH, which was succeeded by the first NFT in the post-Merge proof-of-stake (PoS) chain minted for 36 ETH.  See related article: Fungible after all? Duplicates may disrupt NFT industry after Ethereum Merge […]

APAC is leading in crypto use and adoption, according to a new report from U.S. blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis released on Wednesday, with China returning to the report’s top 10 countries for crypto adoption after it fell out of the list last year. APAC accounted for six of the top 10 countries in the index. […]

Chinese Ethereum mining rig maker Sunlune has concluded its Series A fundraising with “tens of millions” of US dollars from Intel Capital, in an announcement two days before the completion of the Ethereum Merge.  See related article: Why Ethereum Merge will be game-changing for DeFi and crypto investing Fast facts See related article: Crypto miners […]

Crypto exchanges in India say the number of female investors isn’t huge, but it is growing even as prices slide and new taxes eat into revenue.

Cryptocurrency markets trended higher in Thursday afternoon trading in Asia, with global market capitalization up 0.4% in 24 hours, trading at US$995.9 billion, still under the US$1 trillion benchmark it dropped below last night. All cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market cap, with the exception of Bitcoin, strengthened.  See related article: Markets: Bitcoin little […]

The Merge is a milestone in slashing electricity use on the Ethereum blockchain, but there are plenty more upgrades in the pipeline.

Polkadot will hold its first hackathon that focuses on Latin America starting Sept. 26 to engage local developers in the network and promote the uses of blockchain around the world. See related article: Polkadot is top crypto held by VCs and hedge funds in Q4 2021 Fast facts See related article: Polkadot-based Acala Dollar burns […]

Cryptocurrency advocacy group Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC) has sought to be an amicus curiae (Latin for friend of court) in the lawsuit between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple Labs. See related article: Ripple opposes SEC request to seal expert witness identities in XRP lawsuit Fast facts CDC Wednesday filed several documents in […]

South Korea will issue a guideline for regulating the metaverse instead of applying existing law on video games, the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced at a government briefing on Wednesday. See related article: S.Korea’s science ministry announces ethical principles for the metaverse Fast facts The guideline that will be used to better promote […]

Seongnam, the 12th most populated city in South Korea, is planning to recreate the city in the metaverse and will issue non-fungible token (NFT) citizenships to give access to municipal information, according to local media reports. See related article: South Korea’s capital city launches first stage of “Metaverse Seoul” Fast facts The city will finalize […]

Bitcoin was little changed while most of the crypto top ten by market capitalization rose, edging the entire crypto market cap back above US$1 trillion in Thursday morning trading in Asia. Ether and Cardano led the gains after Wednesday’s slump on inflation concerns in the U.S. See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Ether drop on CPI […]

London-based Ownera has raised US$20 million in a Series A funding round from investors including banking giant JPMorgan and private asset management firm LRC Group. See related article: Tokenized assets may make up 10% of global GDP by 2030: report Fast facts The funds will be used to deploy a global interoperability network to unlock […]

Diamond Standard Co. has raised US$30 million in a Series A funding round led by Left Lane Capital and Horizon Kinetics, the company announced in a statement.  See related article: De Beers to use Tracr blockchain to assure sourcing of diamonds Fast facts The blockchain startup allows institutional and retail investors to trade tokenized counterparts […]

Top blockchain and crypto news: Binance bets on Ethereum Merge. What does Terra’s sudden resurgence mean? China seeks to expand e-CNY ecosystem.

Tencent Cloud, the cloud computing services arm of the Chinese tech giant, on Tuesday, announced it signed a memorandum of understanding with Web 3.0 firm Strange Universe Technology to create and host virtual reality (VR) spaces for businesses. See related article: Tencent Cloud continues blockchain expansion with two new platforms  Fast facts See related article: […]

Global investment firm KKR has partnered with digital assets securities firm Securitize to offer tokenized positions for its clients with at least US$5 million in investible assets, exposing them to its US$4 billion health care equity fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. See related article: Guide to tokens and NFTs: what is ‘tokenization’ and how […]

Cryptocurrency markets continued their skid in Wednesday afternoon trading in Asia, with the global market capitalization dipping to around US$997 billion, down 6% in the last 24 hours. All cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market cap fell. Solana led the losers, with Bitcoin coming in second. Stock markets slumped. See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, […]

Ethereum post-Merge will be much more attractive to institutional investors keen on ESG and earning stable yields, writes Wei Zhou of Coins.ph. Here’s why.

In a decision involving Litecoin, a Chinese court says there are no rules ‘that negate the protectability of cryptocurrency itself as virtual property.’

South Korean prosecutors investigating the collapse of Terra-LUNA have issued an arrest warrant for Terraform Labs cofounder and chief executive officer Kwon Do-hyung, also known as Do Kwon, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office told Forkast. See related article: Securities or not? South Korea to evaluate Terra’s LUNA token Fast facts “Violation of the capital […]

Amid its bankruptcy proceedings, crypto lender Celsius Network LLC, one of the major players in the contagion that struck the industry earlier this year, plans to reorganize as a crypto custody business, according to audio shared by a customer of the company and a report by the New York Times. See related article: Celsius files […]

Over a month after placing the Ethereum coin-mixing tool Tornado Cash under sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department announced a way for Tornado Cash users to recover their funds on Tuesday.  See related article: Tether says didn’t freeze sanctioned Tornado Cash addresses so as to not interfere in investigations Fast facts The new guidance provides a […]

South Korea’s Cytown Metaverse is holding a virtual poll and discussion on the topic of giving the members of K-pop megagroup BTS a special exemption from the country’s mandatory military service. See related article: Google approves South Korea’s Cyworld metaverse app Fast facts Cytown opened a public poll on the topic in Cy-agora, the virtual […]

Bitcoin mining difficulty rose by 3.45% on Wednesday, reaching an all-time high, according to data from BTC.com. See related article: Argentinian tax agency conducts first-ever raids on illegal crypto mining farms Fast facts The mining difficulty reading was at 32.05 trillion, as of block height 753,984, the data showed. The difficulty level, which changes about […]

EDX Markets Crypto Exchange, backed by Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital and Virtu Financial, seeks to settle trades on the blockchain for greater speed and efficiency at lower cost, eliminating the need for bilateral settlements, according to a press release on Tuesday. See related article: FTX agrees to help South […]

Global cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global announced it will sign a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s Busan city on Wednesday to help the city establish its first crypto exchange and promote its blockchain ecosystem. See related article: Binance to help S. Korea’s Busan build first city-backed exchange Fast facts The agreement entails Huobi providing technical […]

Bitcoin fell almost 10% with Ether close behind in Wednesday morning trading in Asia as the August U.S. consumer price index, a key inflation indicator, came in higher than expected overnight, driving down equity markets and pointing to more agressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve. All cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market […]

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped over 4% at 9.40 p.m. Hong Kong time, after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the consumer price index (CPI) had inched up 0.1% in August from July.  See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Solana continue rally, Ether slips in anticipation of Merge Fast facts The […]

Tighter restrictions on cryptocurrency usage in China have prompted leading storage service platform RRMine Global to close its mainland China operations and move its headquarters to Singapore. See related article: China has seen blockchain’s future and it doesn’t include cryptocurrencies Fast facts “As Singapore has been one of the world’s most open economies for a […]

Argentina’s tax collection agency (AFIP) has concluded its first-ever operations against illegal and “clandestine” crypto mining farms operating within the country, the agency announced last week. See related article: Crypto miners should disclose energy data, US lawmakers say Fast facts The AFIP conducted four raids on crypto farms that were under the guise of other […]

The Crypto Fraud and Asset Recovery Network (CFAAR), which calls itself the first global network of its kind, has launched a Hong Kong-based chapter in collaboration with seven local finance, law, and crypto regulation experts.  See related article: Australia establishes federal crypto police unit Fast facts The Crypto Fraud and Asset Recovery network began in […]

Identifying characteristics of securities in Terra’s tokens could help South Korea with new charges on Terraform Labs and CEO Do Kwon.

The Merge is the most anticipated event in the crypto industry in years, but could the multibillion dollar non-fungible token industry become an unexpected casualty?

Bitcoin and Solana continued their rallies in Tuesday afternoon trading in Asia, both up over 10% in the past week. However, Ether continued to slip as the market awaited the upcoming Etherium “Merge.”  See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Solana lead gains in crypto top ten, Ether slips ahead of Merge Fast facts Bitcoin was up […]