The founders and promoters of multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme Airbit Club have pleaded guilty to various criminal charges. Airbit Club victims were promised “guaranteed daily returns on any membership purchased,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) detailed. Airbit Club’s Operators and Promoters Plead Guilty The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that six people
press release PRESS RELEASE. Plena Smart Wallet, which is one of the first self-custodial wallets to support Account Abstraction is thrilled to unveil its hotly anticipated referral program that offers rewards worth up to $1,000,000 in $Plena tokens. The program aims to incentivize users to invite their friends and family to join the platform while
The United States Federal Reserve is set to create a “specialized team of experts” to keep up with developments in the cryptocurrency industry, according to a Fed official, amid concerns from the Fed of “unregulated” stablecoins. Speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington on Mar. 9, Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr
Lego, the Danish toy company famous for its colorful plastic bricks, expects to diversify its entertainment offerings portfolio, targeting the metaverse. The company is preparing to present a virtual world in partnership with Epic Games, the gaming engine company, to continue increasing its market share and growth streak by entering new digital markets. Lego to
Hedera, the team behind distributed ledger Hedera Hashgraph, has confirmed a smart contract exploit on the Hedera Mainnet that has led to the theft of several liquidity pool tokens. Hedera said the attacker targeted liquidity pool tokens on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) that derived its code from Uniswap v2 on Ethereum, which was ported over to
Media mogul Steve Forbes, chairman of Forbes Media, has warned that the Federal Reserve is “inflicting unnecessary pain” on the U.S. economy with its interest rate hikes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed is prepared to raise interest rates at a faster pace. He also pointed out “the fundamental flaw in central bankers’
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly slipped below $20,000 for the first time in nearly two months, following the latest budget from United States President Joe Biden and the collapse of “crypto-bank” Silvergate. The price of BTC dipped to $19,945 on March 10 before recovering to hover just above $20,000, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin had a
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has provided an update on the Fed’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) work in a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. While stating that the Fed is “making progress on technological issues,” Powell stressed that “policy issues are equally important.” Fed Chair Powell on CBDC Progress During a hearing
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s latest salvo against “shitcoins” has ended up with him simply being sent more of it. Only days ago, the Ethereum developer made moves to sell over $700,000 of tokens previously airdropped to him, causing the price of these tokens to fall. Buterin has since continued his war on apparent “shitcoins.” In
United States Congressman Tom Emmer believes the launch of programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the country could strip American citizens of their financial privacy. Speaking at the Cato Institute, a Washington DC-based libertarian think tank on Mar. 9, Emmer explained that the programmable CBDC would be “easily weaponized” as a spying tool to
Bitcoin mining company Compass Mining claims to have found “three issues” in the ASIC design of the two new Antminer S19 miners, units that are primarily used to mine Bitcoin (BTC). These issues could result in the machines overheating and in some cases, completely breaking down. The firm’s mining operations team warned in its Mar.
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. South Korea invests another $51M in metaverse tech South Korea’s plans for metaverse domination are gathering pace. A March 8 document prepared by the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the National IT Industry Promotion Agency and the
According to the Central Bank of Brazil, the digital real pilot project will use an Ethereum-compatible, permissioned blockchain for the issuance of the tokenized version of the country’s currency. Hyperledger Besu, the open-source platform elected for the tests, will allow the project to run without any licensing costs and to deal with maintenance costs later,
March started off on a low due to a resurrection of inflationary fears. On March 7, hawkish comments from United States Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell amplified the market’s expectation of a 50-basis point hike in the upcoming policy rate meeting on March 22 to March 23. On March 8, the U.S. government’s $1 billion
A phased-in 30% tax on cryptocurrency mining electricity costs has been proposed by United States president Joe Biden in his administration’s 2024 fiscal year budget. A Department of the Treasury supplementary budget explainer paper released Mar. 9 said any firm using resources — whether they be owned or rented — would be “subject to an
The collapse of crypto exchange FTX and other bearish events in the space were at the center of discussions among lawmakers and witnesses at the inaugural hearing of the United States House Committee on Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion. Addressing lawmakers at the March 9 hearing, BitGo co-founder and CEO
The closure of Silvergate Bank is not a systematic risk for the United States banking system but could have a significant impact on the crypto markets, multiple sources told Cointelegraph. The consequences may include increasing banking concentration among a few partners and presenting challenges for venture capital firms seeking to establish banking relationships in the
New York state Attorney General Letitia James announced that she has filed suit against cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin after she was able to buy and sell crypto on the exchange, which is not registered in New York. “This action is one of the first times a regulator is claiming in court that ETH, one of the
According to a recent warning by the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), crypto proof-of-reserve (POR) audits have limitations, and the board believes that investors should exercise caution when dealing with companies using POR audits. PCAOB Calls for Investor Caution and Due Diligence When Using Proof-of-Reserve Reports The U.S. accounting watchdog recently issued an
On March 9, 2023, New York attorney general Letitia James announced that her office had once again cracked down on crypto platforms by filing a lawsuit against the Seychelles-based crypto exchange Kucoin. Members of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) were able to purchase crypto assets, despite the exchange not being registered in the