2023-12-15 10:42
The hybrid exchange unveiled last year was headed by ex-Genesis CEO Michael Moro, who appears to have departed. Ankex, a cryptocurrency exchange launched last year by custody firm Qredo and headed up by former Genesis Trading CEO Michael Moro, has closed its doors amid bear market conditions. Moro took the helm at Ankex, a trading platform that sought to combine a non-custodial decentralized finance (DeFi) approach with elements familiar to professional traders such as a central limit order book, earlier this year. He now appears to have left, with his profile on X saying "Formerly @GenesisTrading and @Ankexcom." “Ankex development has been paused,” Qredo said in a message to its community. “As some of you tested earlier this year, Ankex was ready for a public beta launch. Unfortunately, our path must pause at this stage.” Following last year's collapse of FTX, the idea that crypto exchange clients would want to keep custody of their own assets made total sense. Ankex may have just been a victim of unfortunate timing as the crypto industry gradually emerges from a prolonged bear market. Moro left Genesis in August 2022, prior to parts of the business filing for bankruptcy protection. The news was first reported by The Block. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/12/15/qredos-ankex-crypto-exchange-shutters-ceo-michael-moro-leaves/
2023-12-15 08:00
Member of Parliament Natalie Elphicke also announced that the parliamentary group she chairs will be hosting industry round tables and a call for evidence. Member of Parliament Natalie Elphicke called for the U.K. government to do more to take advantage of blockchain technology. The U.K. government wants to be a crypto hub but has said little about how it plans to regulate the blockchain industry. U.K. Member of Parliament Natalie Elphicke called for the government to do more for blockchain on Thursday at an event conducted in the Thames Pavilion which resides in the House of Commons where lawmakers meet. “Now, I want to see the U.K. doing more to harness the power of blockchain technologies, to be that leader, to mark that step change because it's vital that industry and policymakers work together to advance understanding and the application of the technologies,” Elphicke said at an event in London hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain Technologies she chairs. The blockchain APPG is a cross party group, similar to the crypto APPG. Blockchain is a sector that Elphicke said she sees a lot of potential in. She said it could provide increased transparency in global supply chains or be used for digital identity and data purposes. Other countries have been taking on legislation addressing blockchain technology issues. The Deploying American Blockchains Act, a blockchain-friendly bill, received unanimous approval in a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives this month. Meanwhile, Belgium’s government announced last month it wants to boost European blockchain infrastructure. The U.K. needs to match the pace that international regulators are taking to move forward, Elphicke said. She also called for the U.K. to collaborate with other countries on blockchain issues. The U.K. has done little in terms of blockchain policy but has said it wants to be a crypto hub – a view the U.K.'s new economic secretary, Bim Afolami, reiterated recently. The country is planning on regulating the sector in phases, starting with legislation for stablecoins being introduced early next year. It’s not clear when more blockchain policies may be enacted in the U.K., though a bill that paves a way for blockchain technology to be used for transporting trade documents recently passed in the country. The blockchain APPG group also plans to launch round table discussions next year, as well as ask the industry to weigh in on how the U.K. can harness skills, opportunities and diversity in blockchain, Elphicke told CoinDesk at the event. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/12/15/lawmaker-calls-for-the-uk-government-to-do-more-for-blockchain/
2023-12-15 07:43
The firm's executives were arrested last month on multiple charges. Crypto company SafeMoon filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Thursday, as its executives face criminal charges in the U.S. SafeMoon, which is affiliated with a token by the same name, said it has between 50 and 99 creditors, anywhere between $10 million and $50 million in assets, and owes between $100,000 and $500,000, according to a filing in the Utah Bankruptcy Court. Chapter 7 bankruptcies result in a debtor’s assets being liquidated to repay creditors. Unlike the Chapter 11 bankruptcies other crypto companies have filed under, there’s usually no intent to restructure and relaunch the company. SafeMoon’s executives were arrested last month by U.S. officials on charges of securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy tied to allegations that CEO John Karony, CTO Thomas Smith and creator Kyle Nagy misappropriated millions in investor assets and lied to customers. However, Nagy was charged but has not been arrested yet. The firm also faces a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit alleging fraud and securities law violations. SafeMoon’s SFM tanked some 42% over the past 24 hours, though it also does not have a lot of liquidity or a particularly large market capitalization. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/12/15/crypto-firm-safemoon-files-for-chapter-7-bankuptcy-sfm-plunges-42/
2023-12-14 23:46
BONK Phone, Who Dis? The once-struggling Solana phone is turning into a sellout. And the memecoin BONK is almost certainly the reason why. Arbitrage traders appear to be chasing a 30 million BONK token airdrop that's available to every owner of the Saga phone. At current prices that much BONK is worth nearly $700 for a phone that costs $599. "Saga sales have >10x'd in the past 48 hours, and are now on track to sell out before the new year," Solana co-founder Raj Gokal tweeted midday Thursday. The surge is so pronounced that Gokal's counterpart, Anatoly Yakovenko, tweeted they needed to raise the price. The euphoria around BONK – Solana's dog-themed equivalent to Dogecoin – has led to a turnaround story for Saga, which just one week ago faced dimming prospects amid forgettable sales figures. Saga is a blockchain-enabled smartphone with special features for storing one's crypto securely on the phone's own hardware. The Saga Discord server exploded on Thursday with newcomers declaring they just bought the phone and wanted to get the airdrop. According to posts on the Discord server, the BONK airdrop is available to those who download the BONK app from Saga's crypto-forward custom app store. "When you physically have the phone you will be able to mint 'Genesis token' through the 'dApp store, [this token is eligible to claim the bonk drop," said a user who identified themselves as an employee of Solana Mobile in the Discord server. "The bonk drop is NOT forever, at some point that promotion will end," the user, whose screen name was Jax, said in the Discord. "As of right now the claim is live and is up to the bonk team on when they'd want to close it. No end date yet." https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/14/sales-of-solana-phone-surge-as-traders-chase-bonk-arbitrage/
2023-12-14 22:19
The Financial Stability Oversight Council met Thursday, releasing a report detailing all of its concerns from the past year. Congress still needs to pass legislation to address concerns the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) has about crypto, a new report by the intragovernmental group said Thursday. FSOC, a financial stability watchdog composed of the heads of most major U.S. financial regulators, published its annual report after one of the group's meetings, taking a look at the past year in climate, banking, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and other issues. As it has in years past, crypto received a section. The council is recommending that Congress pass legislation defining and addressing crypto spot markets, as well as stablecoins. These are the same recommendations FSOC had at the end of 2022, the report noted. "The Council urges Congress to pass legislation that provides federal financial regulators with explicit rulemaking authority over the spot market for crypto-assets that are not securities. Congress should also pass legislation that would create a comprehensive prudential framework for stablecoin issuers that would also address the associated market integrity, investor and consumer protection, and payment risks." The House of Representatives has two bills addressing these issues sitting before it, after Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) secured enough support to move these two bills out of committee. It's unclear whether these bills will make it to a Senate vote. While McHenry reportedly tried to get the bills into annual must-pass defense legislation, Congress ultimately did not include any crypto provisions in this year's National Defense Authorization Act. But as it did last year, FSOC said regulators may need to act if there is no Confessional action. "The Council remains prepared to consider steps available to it to address risks related to stablecoins in the event comprehensive legislation is not enacted," the report said. Vulnerability concerns Thursday's report flagged vulnerabilities like price volatility, a huge amount of leverage within the industry, cybersecurity and other risks to investors and financial markets as some of the group's concerns around crypto. The report mentioned this year's Curve Finance hack, which saw the protocol lose $50 million. Though Curve later regained 73% of those funds, the report said one of the major concerns was that the loans backed by CRV might fall apart with the loss of so much collateral. "The drop in CRV’s price reportedly put over $100 million worth of loans taken out by Curve Finance’s founder at risk of being liquidated on other decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms," the report said. "Given that DeFi protocols sell underlying collateral in the market if a user is unable to maintain their position, platforms holding CRV as collateral were at risk of experiencing significant losses if the loans liquidated and the price of CRV continually declined." The report also continued to mention concerns about investor protections and market integrity, saying some companies may be operating outside existing law. Stablecoins, which have long been a concern for finance regulators in the U.S., received its own subsection in the report. "if a stablecoin were to scale significantly, a run on the stablecoin could lead to fire sales of the traditional assets backing the stablecoin like bank deposits, MMFs, Treasury securities, and commercial markets is also small relative to the crypto-asset market and the traditional financial system," the report said as one example. Another section of the report focused on nonbank financial institutions, which are becoming increasingly active and must be monitored for potential risks, the report said. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/12/14/financial-regulators-reiterate-call-for-legislation-to-address-crypto-risks/
2023-12-14 21:39
In the historic auction house's first-ever sale of the Ordinals inscriptions known as "NFTs on Bitcoin," a batch of three pixelated images from a mushroom-themed collection drew about $450,000, or roughly five times the highest estimates. The first-ever sale by Sotheby's of "inscriptions" created using the Bitcoin blockchain's Ordinals protocol – from a pixelated collection known as "BitcoinShrooms" – drew about $450,000, or five times the highest estimates, potentially revealing a mainstream fervor for the tradable digital images colloquially referred to as "NFTs on Bitcoin." The auction, which concluded on Wednesday, consisted of three of the images, including a pixelated avocado that fetched more than $100,000 and a design that appears to be derived from a mushroom in the Super Mario franchise that sold for north of $240,000, according to Derek Parsons, a spokesman for the auction house. There were 148 total bids across the three lots, and more than two-thirds of all bidders were new to Sotheby's. There are "plans for more soon," Parsons wrote in an email. The results recall the mania that swept digital-asset markets a couple years ago when digital artwork and non-fungible tokens or "NFTs" first started drawing eye-popping sums, and captured mainstream attention; one NFT by the artist Beeple drew $69 million at the auction house Christie's. Many of those collections, however, were built atop the Ethereum blockchain. The Ordinals inscriptions, which debuted late last year featuring a new technology pioneered by Casey Rodarmor atop Bitcoin have witnessed bouts of popularity this year sufficient to cause congestion and elevated fees on the distributed network, launched in 2009 to be a peer-to-peer payments network. There's a debate raging among Bitcoin users and developers over whether to filter out transactions in NFT-like "inscriptions" minted using the Ordinals project, since they're not a core financial use in keeping with many advocates' vision for the original blockchain. So the idea that some of the images might be considered high art could tip the scales of the debate toward profit interests. The three digital images come from the BitcoinShrooms collection of Ordinals inscriptions, by the pseudonymous artist Shroomtoshi, according to the Sotheby's website. The digital avocado, known as "BIP39 SEED," was initially tipped to draw $20,000 to $30,000, but it ended up selling for $101,600. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/12/14/bitcoin-nft-hysteria-comes-to-sothebys-as-super-mario-style-mushroom-character-tops-200k/
