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Crypto’s Biggest Concern

There’s always the possibility of a bigger scam or a bigger hack this year than the ones we saw in 2022. So what can the crypto industry do to survive 2023?

South Korea regulator recommends unified crypto disclosure system to protect investors

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service has recommended a unified system for mandatory disclosure from issuers of cryptocurrencies.

What we must learn from FTX so that history does not repeat itself

Tighter regulations are necessary but not enough. The industry also needs to address its issues with custody and transparency, writes Chen Zhuling of RockX.

A crypto regulatory storm front is coming in 2023. Are we ready for it?

Laws to prevent another FTX blowup, crackdowns on crypto tax cheats, and a ruling on Ripple are likely imminent. A bull’s eye is also on DeFi, writes Gergo Varga of SEON.

China’s Hainan province to step up NFT supervision

Hainan province, a popular tourist destination in South China, published a notice on Sunday vowing to step up oversight on non-fungible tokens, or “digital collectibles,” which authorities said come with risks of fraud, money laundering and illegal fundraising.

Biden administration urges U.S. congress to pursue crypto regulation

Four senior officials in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration called for Congress to “step up its efforts” in regulating the cryptocurrency market.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s family members are not cooperating with FTX attorneys, court documents claim

Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother and brother are not cooperating with the FTX legal team’s investigations into the Bahamans-based exchange’s bankruptcy and misappropriation of customer funds

Bankrupt BlockFi asks court to approve bonuses to keep staff

BlockFi said it needed bonus payments to keep employees from fleeing the company. But creditors argue the plan is excessive when compared to other crypto bankruptcies.

Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin rebounds above $23,000. Can it maintain momentum?

Bitcoin this week broke through the US$23,000 price ceiling for the first time since Aug. 2022. Can the benchmark cryptocurrency maintain its momentum? Industry commentators share their views with Forkast on what the market is telling investors and the signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rates.

Blockchain as Enabler

The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting has come to an end. What key takeaways were there for the crypto industry?

Apple, New York Times, Hong Kong Government listed among FTX creditors

Lawyers for the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.com, filed a document with a list of its institutional creditors on Thursday, which included major technology firms, publications and government bodies.  

World Economic Forum’s digital asset head expects real-world blockchain adoption in 2023

Cryptocurrencies post the Terra-Luna, FTX failures were a debated topic at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in the week through Jan. 20, with some authorities calling for a doubling down on regulations. Others had a more nuanced view.
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DCG-owned Luno exchange to axe 35% of its staff

Cryptocurrency exchange Luno, the London-based trading platform owned by venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), will let go of 35% of its global workforce

EU looks to place limit on banks holding crypto

European Union lawmakers have voted in favor of a draft bill that imposes stricter capital requirements on banks holding crypto assets.

Will Genesis meet its maker amid creditors closing in?

Top blockchain and crypto news: Genesis bankruptcy begins. FTX chief ponders a reboot. China’s CBDC gets a smart-contract upgrade.

Regulators should not legitimize ‘purely speculative’ crypto activity: Singapore’s monetary authority chief

Regulators should not legitimize “purely speculative” activity in crypto markets following the collapse of FTX, said Monetary Authority of Singapore Chairmen.

Ethereum’s Shanghai Mainnet moves one step closer as “Shadow Fork” goes live

Software developers for Ethereum, the world’s second-largest blockchain, on Monday said they successfully deployed a copy of the blockchain — or “shadow fork” — to run tests of the upcoming Shanghai hardfork upgrade scheduled for March.

Why Islamic finance is thriving despite global market storms

While much of the world economy remains mired in winter doldrums, it’s springtime for the Islamic finance sector. Mohammed AlKaff AlHashmi of Islamic Coin explains why.

India’s CoinDCX exchange says crypto tax rules are reducing government revenue

India announces its full year budget on Feb. 1, the last before general elections in 2024, and the cryptocurrency and digital asset industry is lobbying the government for changes in tax rules, among others.

Crypto ads should include risk warnings, says South African advertising regulation group

Crypto ads airing in South Africa must warn potential investors of risks, according to new guidelines by the country’s Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB).

Why Europe’s DORA regulation is a band aid but not a cure

EU’s new Digital Operational Resilience Act aims to help firms withstand cyberattacks. Monica Oravcova of Naoris Protocol explains why it doesn’t go far enough.

2023 Should be the Year of Web3 Security

Despite 2022’s turbulent impact on the crypto industry, Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador believes this year could encourage better Web3 security.

Indian Budget Ahead

India’s crypto tax laws have caused local trading volume to plummet and the industry is hoping for better news in the upcoming budget session.

Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin up over 21% in best weekly performance since Feb. 2021. Bull run or bull trap?

Bitcoin’s price has had its best weekly run up since February 2021 in the seven days through Jan. 18, but is that the start of a bull run or setting up the optimists for a sucker punch? Experts share their predictions with Forkast.

Stuck in stone? Why DLT transactions should be reversible

Why insist that ‘code is law’ when the reality is riddled with human error, sloppy design and tampering? Paul Madsen of HBAR Foundation reexamines one of the central tenets of blockchain technology.

Markets: Bitcoin bounces back above US$21,000, Cardano gains amid CoinDesk speculation

Bitcoin and Ether rebounded Friday morning in Asia along with all of the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies. Cardano and Ripple led the gains.

S. Korean city Busan to launch digital commodities exchange, shelves crypto

Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, announced Thursday that it will launch a digital commodities exchange in the second half of this year.

Singapore-based crypto unicorn Amber Group slashes Hong Kong workforce, SCMP reports

Singapore-based digital asset manager Amber Group has cut its Hong Kong staff by half to 40 to weather a slump in cryptocurrency prices and a cascade of bankruptcies in the industry.

Why crypto crashes are just like Nascar collisions

Small details can make a big difference on performance, and one careless error can lead to calamity. How should those in crypto drivers’ seats navigate their path?

Genesis, Gemini face US charges over unregistered securities sales

Top blockchain and crypto news: SEC frowns on Genesis, Gemini. Solana soars. Will China tighten its embrace of WeChat Pay and Alipay to push its CBDC?

CFTC commissioner calls for clearer crypto regulations

Caroline Pham, commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner, has urged regulators to develop clearer crypto industry standards.

Silvergate reports US$1 billion loss, attributes to “crisis of confidence” in crypto sector

U.S.-based cryptocurrency bank Silvergate Capital Corp., which saw clients withdraw more than US$8 billion late last year, on Tuesday reported a US$1 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2022, a slump it attributed to a “crisis of confidence” in the sector resulting from several large bankruptcies.

FTX says US$415 mln in crypto hacked since bankruptcy filing

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX told creditors that it lost around US$415 million worth of cryptocurrencies to hacks since it filed for bankruptcy.

China NFT platforms expand into Hong Kong in face of compliance risks on mainland

Hong Kong’s new digital asset-friendly policies could set the city up as the home for secondary NFT marketplaces from China as trading of ‘digital collectibles’ remains a gray area on the mainland.

Thailand’s SEC issues new regulations for crypto custody services

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand issued new rules for cryptocurrency custody services on Tuesday.

CryptoSlam, Forkast.News merge to form Web3 data intelligence platform

Web3 media company Forkast.News and blockchain data analytics firm CryptoSlam are merging to establish Forkast Labs, a media intelligence platform for the digital economy that will combine on-chain data analytics and journalism.

Crypto’s data problem: Rebuilding trust in a trustless environment

Price is the wrong measure of Web3’s true value, writes Angie Lau, editor-in-chief of Forkast. To recover from Crypto Winter, we need metrics that are less prone to whims and manipulation.

Your fitness app knows a scary lot about you. How secure is your data?

Being on the watch, your tracker knows where you live, when you sleep and how healthy (or not) you are. What happens if your data is sold — or hacked?

What does the future hold for digital assets in 2023?

NFTs, tokenization and blockchain-based cross-border payments will see big paradigm shifts, but their success will depend on regulation, investment and adoption, writes Stephen Richardson of Fireblocks.

CEO of South Korea’s V Global US$2 bln crypto pyramid scheme gets 25 years in prison

Lee Byung-gul, the CEO of V Global, will serve 25 years in prison after his conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Korea on Friday.

U.S. House of Representatives forms new cryptocurrency subcommittee

The U.S. House of Representatives has created a new congressional subcommittee focused on digital assets, as one of its first moves under the control of the Republican Party.

Alameda liquidators get liquidated while consolidating funds on DeFi lending platform Aave

Alameda Research liquidators were liquidated for US$72,000 from an on-chain position on decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Aave while trying to consolidate funds

Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin rebounds above US$18,000, Ether gains over 13%

Bitcoin rallied above the US$18,000 mark for the first time in nearly a month. Is this the start of a bull run or just another relief rally on the back of easing inflation pressure?

Why is it harder to arrest Terra-Luna founder Do Kwon than FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried?

South Korea’s attempts to extradite the founder of the collapsed Terra-Luna stablecoin will remain hamstrung while the courts in Seoul dispute the charges against him.

Crypto.com announces 20% cut in headcount, cites post-FTX market conditions

Crypto.com will lay off 20% of its workforce, its co-founder and chief executive officer Kris Marszalek said Friday in a Twitter post.

Shanghai Two Sessions: metaverse development requires stronger supervision

Shanghai Two Sessions’ delegate urges stronger supervision in the metaverse industry, as metaverse fever continues.

Binance obtains approval in Sweden to fuel Europe expansion

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has received regulatory approval from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority to operate as a financial institution to manage and trade in virtual currency, as part of the exchange’s continuing expansion in Europe.

Binance says it plans to expand hiring by as much as 30% in 2023 as rivals cut jobs

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, is planning to increase staff by as much as 30% this year.

CBDCs may drive more funds into DeFi protocols, says Immunefi’s Mitchell Amador

Immunefi founder Mitchell Amador believes the future security risks of CBDCs will highlight the benefits of DeFi.

Hong Kong crypto exchanges to follow same laws as traditional finance

Hong Kong has passed a new licensing regime on for crypto exchanges that will subject providers to the same legislation and rules as traditional finance.

Digital Currency Group in spotlight over suspicious fund transfers

Top blockchain and crypto news: DCG under investigation. Lido DAO surges as Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade looms. Hong Kong burnishes crypto credentials.

India’s CoinSwitch exchange to add non-crypto products amid punishing taxes on digital asset trading

Indian cryptocurrency exchanges faced a flurry of taxes on trading last year that saw volumes across most platforms drop as much as 90%, slashing income from trading fees. What’s a crypto exchange to do? Maybe sell mutual funds?

Bitcoin named dirtiest crypto of 2022, tops major tokens in carbon emissions: Forex Suggest

A Bitcoin transaction produced close to a metric ton of carbon emissions, while XRP was the most energy-efficient among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization last year.

Binance’s BUSD-peg stablecoin has not always been fully collateralized: report

Binance Global, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has acknowledged flaws in its systems that allowed its BNB Smart Chain-based BUSD stablecoin to be under-collateralized by up to US$1 billion on at least three occasions, according to a Wednesday report from Bloomberg.

Coinbase to cut 20% of its remaining workforce

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., will be letting go of about 950 employees, or about 20% of its current workforce, as part of “a further restructuring plan,” which is expected to be “substantially complete” by the second quarter of 2023. 

Stopping Scalpers

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was met with a series of ticketing nightmares as scalpers tried to resell tickets for as high as US$22,000. But could NFTs have solved that problem?

India’s Decimal Point Analytics gets US$750,000 grant funding to develop tokenization solutions

India’s Decimal Point Analytics (DPA), a research and data analytics firm, has received grant funding of up to US$750,000 from The Hashgraph Association, a Switzerland-headquartered non-profit organization, to develop an asset tokenization platform on Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) network. 

Can human psychology help save blockchain gaming?

NFTs in gaming have drawn mixed reactions, including gamer backlash and vitriol. What can the sector do to better meet gamers’ innermost needs?

Markets: Bitcoin, Ether extend rise; Cardano leads gains in top 10 cryptos

Bitcoin, Ethereum extended gains in afternoon trade in Asia on Monday along with the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Cardano rose the most in the last 24 hours, followed by Polygon, BNB and Dogecoin.

Where is the stablecoin market heading in 2023?

FTX’s collapse triggered a stablecoin sell-off, but we will need them to survive the Crypto Winter, writes Vladimir Gorbunov of Choise.com.

Hong Kong pushes ahead with crypto hub plans as tech firms, startups show interest: financial secretary

Hong Kong will continue pushing ahead with the development of the Web 3.0 industry as it aims to become a regional hub for the nascent industry despite the series of collapses of crypto exchanges, said Paul Chan, the city’s financial secretary on Monday.

U.S. subpoenas hedge funds in Binance probe: report 

Federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas to several U.S. hedge funds that have dealt with the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance Global Inc.

Will crypto’s decentralized application layer boost mass adoption in 2023? 

ChainSafe’s Aidan Hyman believes that crypto’s fully decentralized application layer may finally be complete in 2023.

Ripple Decision Soon?

Ripple expects a SEC ruling on a two-year-old suit and what regulations it could bring about.

Crypto exchange Huobi latest firm to slash staff: Reuters

Seychelles-based crypto exchange company Huobi plans to lay off about 20% of its staff, according to a Friday report from Reuters.

CeFi regulation may create an advantage for DeFi, Bitcoin.com CEO says

Dennis Jarvis of Bitcoin.com believes the incoming regulatory crackdown on CeFi may tip the scales in DeFi’s favor next year.

Digital Currency Group shuts down wealth management unit: report

Cryptocurrency-focused conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG) is shutting down its wealth management unit called HQ, CoinDesk, a DCG-owned media outlet, reported on Friday.

Markets: Bitcoin, Ether little changed; Polygon, XRP lead losers; Cardano holds onto gains

Bitcoin and Ether traded little changed Friday morning in Asia, with most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies losing ground.

India’s Crypto Outlook

WazirX VP Rajagopal Menon sits down with Forkast to provide some insight as survival becomes a huge concern for crypto exchanges in India.

Will crypto’s real-world impact become more evident in 2023?

Crypto Council’s Sheila Warren hopes to see more of crypto’s real-world use cases emerging in the media next year.

How ‘naming collisions’ threaten the promise of Web3

What are ‘naming collisions,’ and why will unique user-owned identities play a pivotal role in Web3’s future success? Matthew Gould explains.

Crypto payments firm Wyre reportedly shutting down amid market downturn

Cryptocurrency payments company Wyre is reportedly shutting down operations by the end of January, amid the broader crypto market downturn following the fall of FTX