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💰 Bitcoin-based BRC-20 tokens combined market value eclipses $900 million
Tokens created on Bitcoin through the Ordinals protocol have exceeded a total market value of $900 million, highlighting the rapid rise of an emerging asset niche on the most valuable blockchain. Ordi memecoin lead the BRC-20 category with a fully diluted value exceeding half a billion dollars, based on data from websites brc-20.io and Ordspace. That's after a 22,500% jump to $25 today from $0.11 at the beginning of April amid the ongoing memecoin mania. Memecoins make up the majority of tokens created using BRC-20, a recently-developed token standard for Bitcoin using the Ordinals protocol. These Bitcoin-based tokens are comparable to ERC-20, the token standard on the Ethereum blockchain. Introduced by developed Casey Rodarmor in January, the protocol allows for indexing and monitoring of every satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, across the network. Currently, Ordi has a fully diluted market cap of $525 million considering a token supply of 21 million. The token became available for trading today on Gate.io, the first centralized crypto exchange to list the top BRC-20 token.
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🇰🇿 Kazakhstan Has Collected $7 Million In Taxes From Cryptocurrency Miners Since Imposing A 500% Tax
The mining of cryptocurrencies has resulted in Kazakhstan’s government collecting more than $7 million in taxes in both this year and last year combined from enterprises operating in the nation. According to the announcement made by the State Revenue Commission of the Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan, the country’s Ministry of Finance collected taxes of 3.07 billion tenge (almost $6.9 million) in 2022 from enterprises associated to the minting of digital currency. Since the beginning of 2018, miners of cryptocurrency in the country located in Central Asia have been required to pay various taxes and fees. By April 27 of the following year, 2023, they had transferred 240 million tenge, which was roughly $540,000, into the budget. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a new law titled “On Digital Assets in the Republic of Kazakhstan” on February 6 of this year; however, some of the terms of that law have not yet taken effect. In particular, the law places limitations on the availability of affordable electricity for miners. The fact that the law was passed shows that this country is interested in the growth of the business, as stated by Sergey Putra, Senior Coordinator for Government Relations at the National Blockchain and Data Center business Association in Kazakhstan.
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🪙 Circle USDC Continues Circulation Fall After March Crisis
Circle has enough reserves in its treasury to support its stablecoin USDC. Notwithstanding the belief in its stablecoin, USDC underperformed. According to official data, in the past 7 days, Circle issued a total of $600 million in USDC and redeemed $1 billion in USDC, and the circulation decreased by about $400 million. As of May 4, the total circulation of USDC was $30.1 billion, and the reserve was $30.2 billion. USDC’s substantial reserves, which include a large amount in short-term US Treasury bonds, may help reassure consumers that their holdings are backed by dependable and safe assets. Circle generated 140 million USDC yesterday and transferred it to Coinbase on behalf of a significant buyer, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham. USDC Coin was the most troubled stablecoin when its Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) holdings failed. Notwithstanding the challenges that USDC has experienced, Circle, the stablecoin’s issuer, has continued to profit from its development. US government acts quickly and offers more clarification on the stablecoin area, the market may improve.
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🟡 Terraform Labs Rejects Lawsuit Alleging Investor Fraud By US Law
Terraform Labs is attempting to have a class action against the firm dismissed on the basis that the mentioned US securities laws do not apply to its foreign-developed agreements. The same logic, according to Terraform, applies to the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) charges in the complaint, which say that the corporation is aiming for profits at the cost of regular investors. This class action was launched in June 2022, alleging that the Terra tokens (UST and LUNA) were securities, among other things. The plaintiff also failed to disclose the location of digital wallets storing his Terra tokens, which defeats any domestic harm claims. The Terra/Luna ecosystem imploded in May 2022, wiping away billions of dollars from cryptocurrency marketplaces. Following the crash, a slew of lawsuits have been filed against the company, associated entities such as the Luna Foundation Guard, and company founder Do Kwon. Not only in the United States but also in South Korea, prosecutors have charged Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin and nine others with capital markets legislation violations, illicit trading, and breach of trust.
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🆘 Deus Finance’s Stablecoin DEI Was Hacked, Token Price Drop More Than 30%
DEI, a stablecoin project owned by Deus Finance, has been hacked on the Arbitrum network. The DEI token has already been hacked and has already lost its $1 peg. The token was recently pegged at $0.3 and lost that peg during the assault. The cause of the attack was discovered to be a fundamental technical issue in the token contract. The stablecoin is currently trading at $0.2 at the time of writing. The project is also now calling for the community’s help to overcome the consequences. For example, a fundamental implementation error in the DEI stablecoin’s token contract allows anybody to issue additional DEI tokens with no constraints or controls. This enabled a hacker to take advantage of the token contract and influence the price of the DEI. Every financial instrument and protocol designed on the Deus Finance infrastructure use DEI as collateral. Deus Finance is a project that intends to make enterprise-grade blockchain derivatives available to the general public. It serves as the foundation for hopeful on-chain digital derivatives such as synthetic stocks, commodities, FX, and cryptocurrency. Hackers compromised Deus Finance on April 28.
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⚡️ Stripe Launches New On-Ramp Crypto Service Despite Of US Banking Crisis
Stripe said in a press release on May 4 that the onramp option would be beneficial to blockchain startups. The gateway, in particular, enables customers of blockchain firms in the United States to easily purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and the hosted onramp is an extension of what Stripe presently does. It is also a milestone for Web 3.0 startups who have been experiencing a frigid start. The company is often intended to promote worldwide fiat acceptance for crypto-related businesses, allowing them to extend their products. It also accepts stablecoins like USDC for convenient payments. As a result, any crypto organization will readily accept the company’s product. Crypto enterprises may use Stripe products to expedite their onboarding process and limit their susceptibility to fraud. They developed an embeddable ramp in December, allowing developers to quickly embed a crypto-purchasing widget on any website or application. The hosted alternative has the benefit of not requiring companies to integrate a widget. Instead, blockchain firms would lead customers to the Stripe-hosted ramp to purchase cryptocurrency.
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🇮🇱 Israel Has Seized 190 Binance Accounts With Alleged Terrorist Ties Since 2021: Reuters
Israeli authorities have seized roughly 190 Binance accounts with alleged ties to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Daesh since 2021, Reuters reported Thursday. The report cites never-before-published documents from Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF), a counter-terrorism division of the Israeli Defense Ministry. According to those documents, the NBCTF confiscated in January an undisclosed amount of crypto from two accounts with alleged links to Daesh, a terrorist group based in Syria and Iraq. Other government records, dating as far back as 2021, allege more than 100 of the seized Binance accounts had ties to Hamas, an armed Palestinian group that has often clashed with the Israeli Defense Forces. Israeli authorities seized the funds to "thwart the activity" of Daesh and "impair its ability to further its goals," the NBCTF said on its website. The NBCTF did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment.
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🔵 Ethereum transaction fees at their highest since May 2022 amid memecoin mania
The median average transaction fee on Ethereum has risen to its highest level since May 2022 following increased on-chain activity. Fees on the Ethereum network jumped to around 87 gwei on May 2, according to a Dune analytics dashboard from Hildobby, a pseudonymous data researcher at VC firm Dragonfly. The increase was mostly down to memecoin trading, Hildobby told The Block. Memecoins have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance recently. The Pepe the Frog-themed token has seen particularly high interest. The token price soared over 266 times in just four days last month. The memecoin's market cap soared to over $500 million this week before crashing below $400 million again. Many of these tokens lack liquidity, or market depth, meaning the ability for traders to buy and sell close to the market price is limited — leaving coins susceptible to sharp price swings. Decentralized exchanges on Ethereum have attracted the highest level of users since 2021 due to the demand for memecoin trading. Ethereum-based DEXs saw over 72,000 unique traders on one day in April.
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🏦 Coinbase to Stop Issuing New Loans Via Coinbase Borrow
Coinbase Borrow’s days are numbered. Customers of the U.S.-based exchange who used the program – which allowed customers to borrow fiat loans up to $1 million against as much as 30% of their bitcoin holdings, with interest – received an email on Wednesday informing them that the last day to take out new loans would be May 10. Coinbase has been under extra scrutiny from regulators following crypto exchange FTX’s collapse. Coinbase Borrow seems – at least for now – to be unconnected to any enforcement action. A person familiar with the matter told CoinDesk the closure of Coinbase Borrow had nothing to do with either pending or past troubles with the SEC. “We regularly evaluate our products to ensure we’re prioritizing the offerings that our customers care about most,” the spokesperson said. “Effective May 10, we will stop issuing new loans through Coinbase Borrow. There is no impact on customers’ outstanding loans, and no action is required from them at this time.” Coinbase Borrow launched in November 2021.
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🪙 Ethereum withdrawals flatline as memecoins drive ETH burn rates higher
The total value of ether pending withdrawal has fallen below $1 billion as the leading smart-contract protocol burns its supply at an increasing rate. The total amount of ether confirmed and queued to withdraw is approximately 488,470 coins, worth less than $900 million at current prices — significantly less than the more than $3 billion pending withdrawal in mid-April — according to data tracking website Token Unlocks. The Shapella upgrade on Ethereum occurred just before 6:30 p.m. ET on April 12, effectively opening up staked ether withdrawals and marking the first major upgrade since The Merge transitioned the protocol to proof-of-stake last year. Once significantly weighted on the withdrawal side, Ethereum net staking balance — the total amount of ether withdrawn compared to deposited — is slowly approaching parity. Yesterday saw a net staking increase of roughly 20,960 coins, bringing the total net staking balance to -344,470 coins, or -$671.23 million, since Shanghai went live. According to Token Unlocks, the amount of ether deposited is roughly 17.74 million, worth more than $32.5 billion.
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🇺🇸 Biden administration reiterates desire for 30% tax on Bitcoin miners' electricity usage
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration reiterated that it wants all crypto mining operations to pay a new tax priced at 30% of their electricity costs. Proof-of-work crypto mining — which is overwhelmingly dominated by Bitcoin mining — is controversial because it uses vast amounts of electricity to compute and verify transactions on the blockchain. Bitcoin now uses more electricity than Finland, Belgium or the Philippines, according to Digiconomist. The computational effort involved in mining can be substantial and can therefore require a correspondingly large amount of energy. The increase in energy consumption attributable to the growth of digital asset mining has negative environmental effects and can have environmental justice implications as well as increase energy prices for those that share an electricity grid with digital asset miners. Digital asset mining also creates uncertainty and risks to local utilities and communities, as mining activity is highly variable and highly mobile. An excise tax on electricity usage by digital asset miners could reduce mining activity along with its associated environmental impacts and other harms. Biden's proposals may struggle to make it into law.
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🇧🇷 Digital Bank Revolut Now Offering Crypto Investments in Brazil
Digital bank Revolut, which already offers crypto investments across Europe, is now open for business in Brazil. Revolut is making its first foray into Latin America, attempting to tap into Brazil's growing demand for crypto assets, the bank said in an emailed announcement on Tuesday. Crypto users in Brazil number some 10 million, according to Revolut's announcement. Revolut has around 29 million customers worldwide and is looking to carve out a share in Latin America's most populous country, where digital bank Nubank is entrenched as the market leader with around 70 million customers. Nubank introduced crypto trading last June, hitting 1 million users only a month later. "Our mission is to unlock a borderless economy with financial products that are accessible and easy to use and that allow our customers to use their money efficiently," CEO Nik Stronsky said. "We will start with the global account and crypto investments, but this is just the beginning."
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💰 Bitcoin spot trading volume plunged more than 65% in April as Binance added back fees
Bitcoin spot trading volume declined sharply last month mainly as crypto exchange behemoth Binance ended its zero-fee program. The volume plunged by over 10 million bitcoin in BTC terms or by $265 billion in USD terms in April, dropping more than 65% from March in BTC terms, on exchanges tracked on The Block's Data Dashboard. The volume dropped as Binance added back fees on bitcoin pairs, according to The Block's data research analyst Rebecca Stevens. "Binance's move strongly impacts market makers and traders, whose strategies strongly depend on how many basis points they pay for every trade," said Simon Cousaert, director of data at The Block. Binance ended its zero-fee spot trading campaign in March after introducing it last July to celebrate its fifth anniversary. The zero-fee trading was offered for 13 bitcoin pairs, including BTC/USDT, BTC/BUSD and BTC/EUR. It plummeted by $217 billion in USD terms to $102 billion in April from the previous month. As a result, Binance's spot market share slipped below 50% — a level not seen before July 2022 — according to The Block's Data Dashboard. Binance's underperformance also affected overall crypto spot trading volume in April.
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🏦 Gemini looks to mediation in hope of swift resolution to Earn debacle
Gemini, the crypto exchange business run by the Winklevoss twins, is hoping mediation will produce a swift resolution to negotiations with Digital Currency Group about returning funds to customers. April 28, Gemini said that DCG, DCG’s bankrupt lending arm Genesis Global, the Unsecured Creditors Committee (UCC), the Creditor Committee and Gemini itself had “agreed to start a 30-day mediation process to drive to a final resolution as soon as possible,”. Some 340,000 customers of Gemini Earn, the now-terminated yield generating product, have been stuck in limbo since late last year after DCG’s Genesis Global paused withdrawals in November. Genesis Global later filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with more than $3.5 billion owed to creditors. By far the largest claim belonged to Gemini Trust Company, which was owed $766 million in funds that had been lent out through the Gemini Earn program. Gemini and DCG reached an agreement in February that would see DCG restructuring debts, as well as contributing equity in Genesis Global Trading, another unit, to its bankrupt lending arm, with Gemini contributing up to $100 million.
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🇳🇬 Nigeria's SEC Mulls Allowing Tokenized Equity, Property but Not Crypto: Bloomberg
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission is considering allowing tokenized coin offerings backed by equity, debt or property – but “not crypto” – on licensed digital asset exchanges, Bloomberg reported Monday. “We always like to start, as a regulator, with a very simple, clear proposal before we go into the complex ones," Abdulkadir Abbas, head of securities and investment services at the Abuja-based commission, reportedly said. The regulator is also processing applications for digital exchanges on a trial basis, intending them to undergo one year of “regulatory incubation” with limited services offered and under SEC monitoring to determine the firms' fitness to provide services. According to the report, the SEC will not start registering digital asset exchanges until it reaches an agreement with the nation's central bank, which has blocked local financial institutions from interacting with crypto services providers. Before the central bank doubled down on its restrictive rule, Nigeria was one of the fastest crypto adopters in the region.
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🏦 Coinbase cuddles up to UAE policymakers as tensions with US regulators grow
Crypto exchange Coinbase is bolstering its relationship with regulatory authorities in the United Arab Emirates as it faces mounting challenges back home in the U.S. "There is no doubt that UAE has the potential to be a strategic hub for Coinbase, amplifying our efforts across the world," Coinbase said in a blog post on Sunday. "It further serves as a particularly strategic bridge between Asia and Europe — two of our existing focus international regions to date." Coinbase's executive team, including CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong, is in the UAE this week for meetings with policymakers, regulators, crypto founders and clients. Armstrong will also provide a keynote address at the inaugural Dubai Fintech Summit. Armstrong admired the UAE for its proactive and progressive regulatory approach to crypto in a tweet, saying the region "deserves a lot of credit for being forward thinking on crypto." Coinbase sued the SEC in order to force the agency to respond to a petition that the company filed demanding the SEC publish specific rules for digital assets. Last week, the SEC was ordered by a U.S. court to respond to Coinbase's complaint within ten days.
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📣 DEUS Offers 20% Bonus For Hackers To Refund Stolen Money
The Defi DEUS protocol will take no legal action against the hacker if he refunds the stolen funds, and 20% of the funds will be used as bug bounties. On May 7, DeFi protocol DEUS tweeted an update on the progress of the DEI stablecoin security breach. All contracts are currently suspended, and on-chain DEI tokens are destroyed to prevent further disruption. The team is currently learning about DEI’s solid support. To achieve this, a snapshot of all DEI balances is taken before tokens are burned. After assessing all balances, a comprehensive collection and redemption plan will be developed. For users having trouble trying to arbitrage after the hack, there will be an assessment, and they may be allowed to reverse those trades as soon as possible. DEUS states that it will not take any legal action if the funds are returned. This event will be considered a white hat rescue, and 20% of the money will be awarded as a bug bounty. The team also confirmed that the multi-signature on the BSC chain is controlled by the DEUS team. The team will publicly confirm the receipt of the funds.
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🪙 The Number Of Ethereum Wallets Holding More Than 1 Coin Hits A New 30-Day High
Following Shanghai’s execution last month, the network has shown that the majority of Ethereum aficionados are still keen to begin staking. The proof is that the number of addresses holding over 1 ETH has hit a new 30-day high. Glassnode data shows that the number of addresses holding more than 1 Ethereum reached 1,750,726, a new one-month high. ETH’s price is currently trading at $1,890. However, a day earlier, the $2000 level was tested again. Ethereum’s historic Shanghai upgrade, it’s time to examine some of the main staking lessons. With the Shanghai update, Ethereum investors may finally withdraw their assets from the mainnet. Some have been expecting to do so since December 2020, when the staking option was first offered. For over a year, Ethereum pricing has struggled to close above a critical resistance level, and it is now trying to do so again after failing to do so earlier this month. This important psychological threshold is also linked to approximately 24% of the total circulating quantity of ETH, making a breach much more significant. PEPE, a new memecoin, has resulted in an increase in Ethereum active deposits.
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📣 Do Kwon Faces Record 40-year Sentence In South Korea: WSJ
South Korea is vying with U.S. prosecutors to extradite Mr. Kwon from Montenegro. If convicted, Do Kwon would likely face the most extended jail term for a financial crime in South Korean history, more than 40 years. South Korea may hold the upper hand in securing the extradition. South Korean prosecutors are seeking the extradition of Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, the company behind the failed cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna. Since March, Mr. Kwon has been detained in Montenegro and faces charges concerning the cryptocurrency crash that wiped out $40 billion from digital currency markets. If convicted, he would likely receive the longest jail term for a financial crime in South Korean history, exceeding the 40 years handed out last year for a fraud case involving Seoul-based hedge fund Optimus Asset Management. The launch and subsequent failure of TerraUSD and Luna is described as a “systemic crime.” The South Korean prosecutor leading the investigation, Dan Sung-han, believes that extraditing Mr. Kwon to South Korea is the most efficient way to bring justice to investors.
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🇺🇸 DOJ investigating whether Binance violated U.S. sanctions against Russia: Bloomberg
The Justice Department is investigating whether crypto exchange giant Binance was used to let Russians evade U.S. sanctions, Bloomberg reported. The probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange is tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Justice Department’s national security division is leading the investigation, which is running in parallel to another inquiry by the agency’s criminal division. “In 2021, Binance launched an initiative to completely overhaul its corporate governance structure, including bringing in a world-class bench of seasoned executives to fundamentally change how Binance operates globally,” Binance said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our policy imposes a zero-tolerance approach to double registrations, anonymous identities, and obscure sources of money.” Binance messages included in the CFTC complaint show that Binance executives discussed transactions by the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas on the exchange in 2019, for example. Binance officers even acknowledged some of their customers are “here for crime” on the platform, but said, “we see the bad, but we close 2 eyes.”
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⚪️ Liquid Staking Platform Lido Surpasses 6M Ether Deposits as Shanghai Upgrade Spurs Inflows
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Lido Finance has surpassed six million ether (ETH) deposited on its liquid staking platform amid steady inflows following the Ethereum blockchain’s Shanghai upgrade. Lido has enjoyed a net inflow of 105,644 ETH through last week, worth some $199 million, pushing deposits to 6,008,480 ETH, according to blockchain data by a Dune Analytics dashboard. Liquid staking has become a popular way for investors to earn yields on their digital assets, making it one of the largest DeFi sectors with $16 billion of value combined, per data by DefiLlama. Liquid staking platforms, including Lido allow users to keep their locked-up tokens liquid with a derivative token that can be used for lending and borrowing. Lido is still the top liquid staking protocol by far with a 79% market share, according to Nansen, it is facing increased competition from up-and-coming players. Rival platforms Frax Finance and Rocket Pool have enjoyed net inflows of $367 million altogether.
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🐸 Ethereum Gas Fee Surges to 12-Month High as PEPE Frenzy Grips Market
Ethereum is becoming costlier to use as the latest meme coin mania has investors churning millions for a frog-themed token called pepecoin (PEPE). The daily median gas price, or transaction cost, hit a 12-month high of 87 gwei – one gwei is a billionth of an ether (ETH) – early this week. The value has increased more than 50% since the launch of the PEPE token on April 18. The increase represents strong demand for the Ethereum network, mainly from meme-coin traders, according to analytics firm CoinMetrics. As bitcoin (BTC) "births a nascent memecoin scene, the ETH ecosystem continues to crank out multi-million dollar altcoins," CoinMetrics said in a weekly note sent to subscribers on Thursday. "ERC-20 heavyweight PEPE ('the most memeable memecoin in existence') soared +300% over the weekend, snagging a near-$600M fully-diluted valuation." Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Uniswap's pepecoin-wrapped ether (PEPE-WETH) liquidity pools recently became the most active liquidity pool by the number of transactions.
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🔵 Ex-OpenSea Exec Convicted of Wire Fraud, Money Laundering in Insider Trading Case
Nate Chastain, the former head of product at non-fungible token (NFT) platform OpenSea, was convicted of money laundering and wire fraud in a federal court in New York on Wednesday, according to a report from Reuters. Chastain was forced to resign from his role in September 2021 after allegations of insider trading spread across social media. Chastain was accused of abusing his position – which included selecting NFTs to feature on OpenSea’s homepage. Chastain made more than $50,000 from June 2021 to September 2021 by buying NFTs he knew would be featured on the company’s website on the cheap, and then selling them at inflated prices after the increased attention caused prices to jump, prosecutors alleged. Chastain attempted to conceal his purchases by using anonymous wallets and OpenSea accounts. Prosecutors in the U.S. Southern District Court of New York (SDNY) filed the wire fraud and money laundering charges against Chastain in June 2022. According to SDNY, the case against Chastain was the first insider trading case involving digital assets.
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🇳🇬 Nigeria Approves National Policy to Create 'Blockchain-Powered' Economy
Nigeria's government approved a national blockchain policy on Wednesday as part of the country's effort to transition to a digital economy. "The vision of the Policy is to create a Blockchain-powered economy that supports secure transactions, data sharing, and value exchange between people, businesses, and Government, thereby enhancing innovation, trust, growth and prosperity for all," the statement said. The tweet did not mention cryptocurrencies, which the government cracked down on in 2021 after the country emerged as one of the fastest digital asset adopters in the world. The cabinet, known as the Federal Executive Council, directed regulators including the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "to develop regulatory instruments for the deployment" of blockchain tech across various sectors of the economy. Earlier in the week, Bloomberg reported Nigeria's SEC was considering allowing tokenized coin offerings backed by equity, debt or property – but “not crypto” – on licensed digital asset exchanges.
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🟠 Binance USD stablecoin activity slides to two-year low
Binance USD activity has dropped massively since regulators spotlighted the leading crypto exchange's dollar-pegged stablecoin. The number of Binance USD sending and receiving addresses reached fresh two-year lows today, according to data firm Glassnode, which tracked both metrics using a seven-day moving average. Binance USD, a stablecoin often known by its ticker BUSD, is a joint project between crypto exchange Binance. The decline in Binance USD activity follows Paxos' receipt of a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in February. The regulator listed BUSD as an unregistered security — a decision Paxos "categorically" disagreed with. The following month, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that his exchange would convert the roughly $1 billion remaining from its Industry Recovery Initiative funds to bitcoin, ether and BNB. The crypto assets were to be purchased with Binance USD. The exchange has also been delisting some Binance USD pairs — such as perpetual contracts for STEPN's, Near Protocol's and Avalanche's native crypto assets.
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💰 Mysten Labs' Sui activates mainnet, entering competitive Layer 1 space
Sui launched its mainnet, ending a multi-year development process for the newest Layer 1 blockchain in the crypto arena. The network went live according to an update from the project's Discord server that was made at 11.30 UTC, referencing a genesis blob. With the mainnet release, Sui's native asset will shortly be available for trading on various exchanges, such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Kucoin. Sui enters a competitive landscape of high-performance Layer 1 blockchains, including Solana, Aptos and Sei. The Sui team asserts that more than 200 decentralized applications, encompassing NFTs, DeFi, social media, and gaming, are set to go live on tthe network in the coming weeks. Mysten Labs, the developer of Sui, raised $300 million in a September 2022 funding round, valuing the project at over $2 billion last year. The Series B round was led by FTX Ventures, the venture arm of Sam Bankman-Fried's collapsed crypto exchange FTX. Just this month, the now-bankrupt FTX sold its stake in Mysten Labs for $96 million.
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🐸 PEPE Token Soars to $500M Market Cap as Memecoin Fever Grips Crypto Traders
PEPE, the token that sprouted out of the "pepe the frog" meme, has rocketed to a $502 million market cap following a 2,100% rise since it was issued last month. According to Ethereum block explorer etherscan, PEPE has around 75,000 holders with several wallets – excluding centralized exchanges – holding in excess of $5 million worth of the tokens. The PEPE token surged by a 350% over the weekend alone, and derivatives exchange BitMEX on Tuesday said it is listing perpetual swaps for the token, which will allow traders to trade the volatile asset with as much as 50x leverage. Whilst hype around the meme token continues to build, some early investors have been cashing out. One trader sold $2 million worth of the token using Metamask swaps, they ended up losing $350,000 as they were hit with 25% slippage due to minimal liquidity. Another trader temporarily tanked the price of PEPE by almost 50% as they cashed out $678,000 worth of the token.
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🏦 Coinbase launches international perps exchange — starting with 5x leverage
Crypto exchange Coinbase is officially entering the crypto perps market. The firm, which has made headlines in recent weeks for its brouhahas with U.S. regulators and its plans to set up shop overseas, said Tuesday that it would enable international users to trade so-called perpetual futures out of Bermuda through a new platform. Dubbed Coinbase International Exchange, the platform touts a robust trading experience delivered in partnership. “Coinbase International Exchange will enable institutional users based in eligible jurisdictions outside of the U.S., to trade perpetual futures,” the firm said. “Perpetual futures accounted for nearly 75% of global crypto trading volume in 2022, creating highly-liquid markets and offering traders additional versatility in their trading strategies.” Coinbase plans to start business with bitcoin and ether derivatives “with additional listings to come in the future,” a spokeswoman said. Initially, it will offer traders 5x leverage. As The Block previously reported, the firm has long been eyeing the build out of an offshore derivatives business to compete with behemoths like OKX and Binance.
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🟠 Binance warns crypto mogul Justin Sun against SUI token grab
Binance boss Changpeng Zhao today warned fellow crypto mogul Justin Sun that the exchange operator would take action against him if he tried to farm SUI tokens. But Sun quickly apologized for what he described as inadvertent actions and reversed them. Earlier today, Sun transferred a total of over 115 million TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoins on Binance, according to Whale Alert tweets. TUSD is one of two tokens — the other is BNB. Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao noticed the huge transfers of TUSD, and tweeted that if Sun used any of those tokens to grab the Sui tokens available via Launchpool, Binance would "take action against it." Sun was quick to clarify that the TUSD transfer was made to provide liquidity. He added, however, that some of these stablecoins were "inadvertently" used to participate in exchange campaigns — which would have yielded SUI token rewards — and that the action will be reversed. "Binance Launchpool is meant as airdrops for our retail users, not just for a few whales," Zhao said, adding, "On the bright side, blockchains are transparent."
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🇺🇸 Coinme, Subsidiary and CEO Fined $4M by SEC Over UpToken Offering
Bitcoin (BTC) kiosk company Coinme has agreed to pay nearly $4 million to settle charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging it was party to an unregistered security offering, the regulator announced Friday. Coinme, its subsidiary Up Global SEZC and the CEO of both entities, Neil Bergquist, were all named in the order for allegedly running a crypto fundraiser known as an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017 for "UpToken.". The SEC accused the parties of "making false and misleading statements concerning the demand for UpToken and the amount raised in the offering." The order is the latest in a string of enforcement actions and heavy fines by the securities regulator that has forced some firms to shutter all or part of their operations. The SEC alleged Bergquist and Up Global worked to obtain UpToken supply "that would substantially reduce Coinme's need to purchase UpToken" following the ICO, leading to "publicly inflated amounts raised." To settle the charges, Up Global agreed to pay a $3,520,000 penalty, while Coinme agreed to pay a separate $250,000 penalty and Bergquist agreed to pay $150,000.
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