A freshly unsealed indictment has charged five individuals with “conspiring to manipulate the market” in relation to an alleged scheme involving the ERC-20 Hydro (HYDRO) token. An April 24 statement from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said the indictment charged three people for conspiring to manipulate the market for Hydro. Two other individuals were separately charged for their…
Chainlink’s (LINK) low-latency oracles will integrate with the decentralized exchange (DEX) GMX following a successful governance proposal that sought to provide more “granular” real-time market data to GMX v2. Voting ended on April 25 at 12:00 am UTC with over 96% of participating GMX token holders voting in favor of the proposal. The new Chainlink oracles — which were built…
Ethereum staking withdrawals have entered their third “round,” but most of the Ether (ETH) has been re-staked according to the data from the analytics platform Nansen. Ethereum staking withdrawals started ramping up for the third time on April 24 and into April 25. According to Nansen, the crypto exchange Kraken was responsible for a large portion of these withdrawals. A…
Indonesia is following the BRICS’ lead in de-dollarization and shifting away from the U.S. dollar in trade settlements and financial transactions, according to the country’s central bank governor. The BRICS nations are working on creating a common currency to reduce their USD reliance. Indonesia’s De-Dollarization Efforts Bank of Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo said Friday that Jakarta is following the lead…
A “fast track” option for licensed crypto firms in France to get regulated under the upcoming Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) laws has been mulled by the country’s financial regulator. In a statement published on April 21, the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) welcomed the approval of MiCA and outlined how French regulation will proceed during the transitory period over the…
Regulators in the United States have choked out the cryptocurrency sector to the point of death according to Bitcoin (BTC) bull and billionaire tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya. “Crypto is dead in America,” he boldly claimed in an April 22 episode of the All-In podcast. Palihapitiya’s comment came in response to the news that cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is now considering a…
Russia is launching a new payment system that is “bound by no restrictions” where digital currencies could be used in cross-border payments, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. “Two parties come to an agreement, make settlement payments, and no other country could step in and freeze such payments,” the top official explained. Digital Currency ‘Bound by No Restrictions’ in Russia’s…
The Department of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) coordinated with South Korea to sanction three individuals that the agency said provided material support to the North Korea-based Lazarus hacking group to convert stolen cryptocurrency to fiat currency. OFAC said in its report the Lazarus Group is connected to illicit financing and cyber activity supporting the North Korean regime’s development of weapons…
Surveillance software has been successfully implemented on Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents’ cell phones to ensure he does not breach the conditions of his bail, with a Judge approving of the measure. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers requested an extension on April 19 for the enforcement of the FTX co-founder’s recently revised bail conditions, citing difficulties in finding the required surveillance software for his parents’…
Coinbase filed a narrow action in a United States federal court that seeks to compel the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to provide a “yes or no” response to a July 2022 petition. The petition requested the SEC propose and adopt clearer regulatory guidelines for the cryptocurrency industry in the U.S. In the exchange’s July 2022 petition, it asked the…
