In the world of cryptocurrencies this week, there were several noteworthy developments. Firstly, major providers of Ethereum staking announced their commitment to not own more than 22% of validators. Additionally, Bitcoin adoption in Argentina was on the rise, in contrast to the more cautious approach taken by El Salvador. Shibarium resumed token withdrawals through the bridge, while Tether established a banking relationship with Britannia Bank & Trust. Argo Blockchain managed to reduce its losses from last year to $75 million, and the EOS Network received whitelist approval from Japan’s regulator, allowing EOS to be traded against the yen.
In other news, SEBA Bank obtained approval-in-principle from the SFC in Hong Kong, while Robinhood ended its crypto business relationship with Jump Trading. It was revealed that Robinhood is the third-largest BTC wallet owner. Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, was set to invest in blockchain technology to boost digital adoption in India, and Prada Group embraced blockchain to tackle counterfeit products. OpenZeppelin introduced the latest upgrade to its blockchain security system, Defender 2.0, while Galxe announced the launch of Galxe Protocol, a permissionless self-sovereign identity infrastructure.
Moving on to Binance, the exchange made several decisions, including delisting eight BUSD trading pairs as part of its plan to withdraw support for the stablecoin by 2024. It also introduced a new product in Latin America called “Send Cash” and removed Banco de Venezuela as a payment option from its peer-to-peer services in the country. The head of Binance Asia-Pacific left his position, and the exchange was considering a complete withdrawal from the Russian market due to increasing Western sanctions. Similar actions were taken by OKX and Bybit, which also delisted sanctioned Russian banks from their peer-to-peer services.
In Coinbase news, the platform resolved a technical glitch that resulted in empty balances for some wallets, and Nexo launched a “Dual Mode Crypto Card” offering debit and credit functionalities for the EEA.
In the world of FTX, the US Department of Justice requested a court to reject Sam Bankman-Fried’s planned defense in the FTX fraud case. Bankman-Fried’s attorneys sought his temporary release, but the request was denied by the judge. FTX customers’ information was compromised during a security breach at bankruptcy claims agent Kroll, leading to heightened phishing attacks following a SIM swap incident.
In legal matters, a class action lawsuit against Uniswap was dismissed, while Grayscale won its case against the US SEC over the spot Bitcoin ETF application. A US Congressman called for the removal of SEC Chair Gary Gensler following the Grayscale ruling, and Republican lawmakers accused the Fed of obstructing progress on the stablecoin bill. Two SEC Commissioners expressed reservations about the agency’s first NFT enforcement action against Impact Theory.
In the world of NFTs, Cryptoys announced its collaboration with Disney to release a new collection featuring Mickey Mouse, Minnie, and Pluto. FirstMate raised $3.75 million for the development of a new NFT storefront builder platform.
In other news, Russian banks will have the opportunity to question the Central Bank on its digital ruble pilot next month, while Chinese firms and commercial banks were working on digital yuan supply chain financing solutions. Transport operators in Jamaica showed interest in using the country’s CBDC for payments. Laos decided to cut power supply to crypto mining firms due to production concerns, and South Korean crypto exchanges will be required to maintain a reserve fund of at least 3 billion won starting in September. Prosecutors in South Korea asked a court to arrest an ex-pro golfer and a top executive at Bithumb. Ben ‘BitBoy’ Crypto was ousted from his own company in a ‘coup’, CoinSwitch announced job cuts in customer support and operations, and Clockwork announced the winding up of its operations.
Immunefi reported that Web3 platforms have lost over $1.2 billion this year in hacks and rug pulls, while Balancer was exploited for $900,000 despite a prior vulnerability alert. Ronaldinho failed to appear at a parliamentary hearing on crypto pyramids and could face jail time, and a report revealed that “hundreds of thousands of people” across Southeast Asia are involved in crypto scams.
