Altcoin News Official TheBitTimes.com

The British bank will provide e-CNY CBDC services to clients and explore its future use in China's financial system. British multinational bank Standard Chartered will partake in trials of China's digital yuan central bank digital currency (e-CNY CBDC), one of the first foreign banks to do so in the country. According to the Nov. 27 announcement, Standard Chartered, through its partner City Bank Clearing Services Co., will allow its clients to purchase, exchange, and redeem e-CNY within its bank accounts. "As an international bank rooted in the Chinese market for 165 years, Standard Chartered is optimistic about the development prospects of digital Renminbi," said Xiaolei Zhang, president of Standard Chartered China. The bank will also join China's e-CNY CBDC pilot testing program, which is currently ongoing within 26 cities and provinces. Standard Chartered stated that its areas of exploration include cross-border merchant payments, trade financing and supply...

CoinFLEX creditors claim former CEO Mark Lamb and the OPNX exchange “misappropriated” their assets in a court filing. Some creditor s of cryptocurrency futures exchange CoinFLEX are alleging that OPNX, a new crypto exchange established in part by Three Arrows Capital (3AC) co-founders Kyle Davies and Su Zhu, was created using CoinFLEX assets without their consent.  According to a writ of summons filed in the High Court of Hong Kong and seen by Cointelegraph, CoinFLEX creditor s claim that OPNX co-founder and former CEO Mark Lamb is “misappropriating and/or otherwise wrongfully using the assets, human resources, intellectual properties, […] trade secrets and other technologies” of CoinFLEX by diverting them into OPNX. It alleges that Lamb performed these actions contrary to his responsibilities to CoinFLEX creditor s during his tenure.  Citing the document, creditors say that Lamb devoted “time, attention, skill and/or effort” to setting up OPNX while simultaneously being employed as ...

The court cited Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged witness tampering as the main grounds for rejecting his release bid. FTX founder and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried will stay jailed after failing to convince a United States appellate court that he should be freed while his legal team appeals his conviction. In a Nov. 21 mandate, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said Bankman-Fried’s previous attempts to tamper with two witnesses while on pretrial release was a major reason behind rejecting his request. “We have reviewed the Defendant-Appellant’s additional arguments and find them unpersuasive,” the court said. Bankman-Fried’s release motion was rejected by a U.S. appeals court. Source: Courtlistener Government prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of leaking Caroline Ellison’s diaries to The New York Times in July, which caused his bail to be revoked by a New York District Court. Bankman-Fried argued the New York court failed to consider that he was engaged in activity...

The NFT artists were also ordered to cover Yuga Labs’ legal fees after determining the trademark infringement constituted an “exceptional case.” A United States district court judge has ordered nonfungible token (NFT) artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen to pay Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs a total of $1.57 million in disgorgement and damages, along with legal fees, bringing an end to the long-running “copycat” NFT lawsuit . The Oct. 25 order follows an April 21 partial summary judgement granted in favor of Yuga Labs after the firm claimed that Ripps and Cahen, the defendants, violated copyright laws by making copycat versions of its Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collectibles. District court Judge John Walter awarded Yuga Labs $1.37 million after concluding the NFT firm was entitled to a disgorgement of the defendants’ profits. An additional $200,000 was awarded in statutory damages relating to cybersquatting violations. Yuga Labs v. Ryder Ripps et al - Notes from the Court...

Elliptic’s statement was framed as a rebuttal to recent articles and letters circulating among the media and U.S. lawmakers this month. Blockchain forensic firm Elliptic says there’s “no evidence” that Hamas is receiving a significant volume of cryptocurrency donations to fund its attacks against Israel. “There is no evidence to support the assertion that Hamas has received significant volumes of crypto donations ,” Elliptic said in an Oct. 25 statement. The amounts raised “remain tiny,” the firm added. Elliptic’s statement was framed as a rebuttal to recent articles and letters written by The Wall Street Journal and United States lawmakers, which the firm says had misinterpreted data to make the case that cryptocurrency is widely used to fund Hamas’ "terrorist” activities. As an example, Elliptic pointed to a “prominent” Hamas cryptocurrency fundraising campaign, operated by Gaza Now, a pro-Hamas news outlet, which has only raised $21,000 since the Hamas attack on Israel on O...

Currently, a 74% increase takes Bitcoin to over $59,000 and that doesn’t factor in “second-order effects,” says Galaxy Digital. Bitcoin’s (BTC) price will increase 74.1% in the first year after spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are launch ed in the United States, according to estimates from crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital. In an Oct. 24 blog post, Galaxy Digital research associate Charles Yu estimated the total addressable market size for Bitcoin ETFs would be $14.4 trillion in the first year after launch . He obtained the 74% figure by assessing the potential price impact of fund inflows to Bitcoin ETF products using gold ETFs as a baseline. According to Yu’s estimates, Bitcoin’s price would increase 6.2% in the first month after an ETF launch before steadily trending downward to a 3.7% monthly increase by month 12. Spot Bitcoin ETF estimated one-year inflows by month and Bitcoin price impact. Source: Galaxy Digital Research Yu used Bitcoin price data from Sept. 30, ...

TrueCoin’s internal systems were not impacted or accessed, as the company confirmed that the attack was an isolated incident and limited to a third-party vendor. Stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD) announced a potential leak of certain Know Your Customer (KYC) and transaction history data as one of TrueCoin’s third -party vendor s got compromised.  TrueCoin was the operator of the TUSD stablecoin till July 13, 2023. On Oct. 16, a third-party vendor’s security team informed TrueCoin of “an anomalous account change within [TrueCoin’s] organization made by a compromised support vendor.” As a result, TrueCoin suspects the compromise of some of TUSD’s existing customer data. TUSD team was informed by TrueCoin that they received a third -party vendor 's notification that the vendor ’s Security Team detected “an anomalous account change within [TrueCoin’s] organization made by a compromised support vendor .” — TrueUSD (@tusdio) October 16, 2023 TrueCoin’s internal systems were not impact...

The price of soccer fan tokens, designed for fan engagement, is seemingly impacted by the on-field performance of teams. Argentina’s shock 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia in the opening match of the FIFA World Cup has plummeted the price of the Argentine Football Association Fan Token (ARG), in line with the hopes of the nation’s die-hard soccer fans.  With the ARG token priced at $7.21 at kick-off, the poor performance by the Lionel Messi-led soccer team saw the token’s price fall 31% to $4.96 by the end of the match before rising to $5.22 at the time of writing, according to data from CoinGecko. By contrast, the floor price of “The Saudis,” a Saudi Arabian-themed nonfungible token (NFT) collection unrelated to the soccer team, skyrocketed 52.6% from 0.196 Ether (ETH) to 0.3 ETH over the same time before cooling off to a price of 0.225 ETH, around $250. The collection’s sales volume also spiked 990% over the last 24 hours, closing in on 24.5 ETH, according to OpenSea data. Despite the bui...

FTX strongly criticized the UCC's pursuit of asset control, as it recommended that debtors allocate nearly $2.6 billion from cash reserves into short-term Treasuries. FTX debtors led by chief restructuring officer John J. Ray III have expressed disapproval of traders and market makers within the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (UCC) who are aiming to gain authority over assets. They believe the UCC’s plan to invest nearly $2.6 billion in cash reserves in short-term Treasuries is a bad idea amid FTX 2.0 draft restructuring plan. In a court filing dated August 9, FTX issued a response to the UCC's commentary regarding the reorganization and term sheet proposal. FTX strongly criticized the UCC's pursuit of asset control , particularly as it recommended that debtors allocate nearly $2.6 billion from cash reserves into short-term Treasuries, aiming to cover professional fees amounting to as much as $330 million. Screenshot of the debtors' response to the UCC.  S...

While the pro-XRP lawyer didn’t anticipate XRP reaching a new all-time high after the ruling, he did expect the price to surpass the $1 resistance level. Despite a brief rally, the XRP (XRP) price did not reach anticipated levels after a recent favorable court ruling for the token. Among those with ambitious price targets for the cryptocurrency is pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton. Deaton addressed a post from a user named Moon Lambo on X (formerly Twitter), who criticized complaints from certain investors about slow price gains in digital currencies year-to-date. Moon Lambo said XRP has grown by 85% this year, implying a positive overall trend. Several weeks have passed since Judge Analisa Torres delivered the highly anticipated ruling that XRP is not considered a security in certain circumstances. This decision caused a significant surge in the price of the cryptocurrency within the broader Web3 ecosystem. It’s all about expectations. Unless we were in a full bull market - led by #Bitcoin...

Sriram Krishnan said that “the world of social media is stuck in a different era, and things need to change.” An executive from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) believes that Web3 has the solutions to the headaches and problems found on Web2-based social media platforms.  During a keynote speech at the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC), a16z partner Sriram Krishnan shared a presentation explaining how Web3 can fix social media and consumer applications. Krishnan stressed that “the world of social media is stuck in a different era, and things need to change.” The executive said that his goal in the presentation was to convince the audience that “now is the moment to build large-scale crypto consumer social media marketplace applications.” Sriram Krishnan at the EthCC event in Paris. Source: EthCC Livestream Krishnan, who also worked on prominent social media companies like Meta and Twitter, highlighted some common points that modern social media platforms are current...

Bitget currently has a Martingale AI trading bot and a Grid Trading AI bot on its platform. On July 11, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget launched an AI-powered feature for its Grid Trading strategies , or the use of trading algorithms to automate transactions for users. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Bitget developers stated: "Compared with manually creating strategies by filling in obscure and complex strategy parameters, AI strategies can help users choose and create strategies more intuitively through a simple number (strategy rate of return) and a simple graph (yield curve), eliminating the need to fill in complex variables." In its AI Grid Trading Bot, users are only required to fill in the desired strategy and input the investment amount. The small language model iterates thousand of parameters and can create tens of different strategies within the same currency pair. Its intricate, surgical focus differs from large language models, such as ChatGPT, which can poss...

Shiba Inu had the greatest number of fake followers at 10.26% or 80,000 accounts, while Avalanche and Polygon followed suit with 8.14% and 7.58% of fake accounts respectively. Despite changes introduced by Twitter management since Elon Musk’s takeover, the issue around fake followers remains a persistent problem. As many as 10% of the followers of accounts belonging to crypto influencers and companies are fake, new data from dappGambl has revealed. In April 2023, Musk introduced Twitter Blue — an $8 monthly subscription for verification — to increase the platform’s revenue while making it financially inviable for bots and fake accounts to operate. However, months later, dappGambl’s investigation found that up to 10% of followers from the most follow ed crypto accounts are fake. When it comes to the official accounts of cryptocurrency tokens and ecosystems, Shiba Inu (SHIB) had the highest number of fake followers at 10.26% or 80,000 accounts, while Avalanche (AVAX) ranked second wit...

Illicit activities related to crypto increased across the sector in 2022 despite an overall market downturn. According to a report published by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs on June 28, a combined $7.8 billion was paid to crypto currency pyramid and Ponzi schemes worldwide in 2022. In addition, another $1.5 billion in crypto was alleged by TRM to have been spent on darknets for illicit activities, while another $3.7 billion in crypto was lost in hacks or exploits. In total, $9.04 billion in crypto were sent to all types of financial fraud schemes , as alleged by TRM Labs. Despite a collapse in crypto currency prices from the ongoing bear market, it appears that there has been no corresponding slowdown in crypto -related crime. The firm wrote: "Investment fraud centers on the solicitation of funds for fraudulent investments or projects; these often involve fake initial coin offerings (ICOs), unregistered securities or fraudulent investment platforms. Investment fraud...

Stablecoin issuer Tether has responded to claims that it deactivated the accounts of major crypto firms, including MoonPay. Tether, the company behind market-leading stablecoin Tether (USDT), has addressed concerns regarding its operational decisions. According to documents released by the New York Attorney General (NYAG), Tether reportedly deactivated approximately 29 account s belonging to prominent cryptocurrency players in 2021. It appears that most individuals on the list had their account s terminated for different reasons. While the reasons for the account terminations were not disclosed, Tether responded by indicating that it is unwilling to comment on individual relationships. However, the company clarified that all individuals had undergone rigorous compliance checks during onboarding, as well as ongoing monitoring, as mandated by Tether’s compliance policies. Among the account s that were deactivated, notable entities such as MoonPay, BlockFi, CMS Holdings (a crypto inv...

Cross-chain services are suspended for Kekchain, PublicMint, Dyno Chain, Red Light Chain, Dexit, Ekta, HPB, ONUS, Omax, Findora, and Planq. Cross- chain protocol Multi chain revealed on May 31 that its team has been unable to contact its CEO, Zhaojun, fueling rumors that the protocol's leadership may have been arrested in China amid ongoing technical issues.  "The team has done everything possible to maintain the protocol running, but we are currently unable to contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain the necessary server access for maintenance," noted a Twitter thread. As reported by Cointelegraph, the protocol has experienced technical problems over the past week, with transactions delayed across multiple cross-chain bridges without a clear explanation. In the past two days, the Multichain protocol has experienced multiple issues due to unforeseeable circumstances. The team has done everything possible to maintain the protocol running, but we are currently unable to contact CE...

DBS Bank’s crypto trading platform has been attracting more institutional investors due to crypto exchanges that collapsed last year. Singapore government-owned megabank DBS is among the few companies around the world that reaped major benefits from massive cryptocurrency collapses in 2022. DBS Digital Exchange, DBS Bank’s institutional crypto trading platform, saw a significant increase in Bitcoin (BTC) trading volumes last year. According to DBS Digital Exchange CEO Lionel Lim, the number of DBS crypto clients more than doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year. “Bitcoin trading volumes grew 80% at the digital exchange during the same period,” Lim said in an interview with Cointelegraph on May 8. The executive believes that the spike in demand for crypto services at DBS Digital Exchange is a consequence of crypto exchange collapses in 2022. Lim noted that DBS continues seeing a growing trend in volumes. He stated: “DBS continues to benefit from the flight to safety and quality...

The new algorithmic currency system aims to provide a more “stable, efficient and scalable” asset than common coins like Bitcoin. Singapore's government-owned investment firm Temasek continues investing in cryptocurrency projects even after losing hundreds of millions of dollars to the collapsed FTX crypto exchange. Temasek has invested $10 million in Array, the developer of an algorithmic currency system based on smart contracts and artificial intelligence. Announcing the news on May 1, Array said that the raise is its second funding round, which is believed to bring the firm’s valuation to more than $100 million. The new Temasek-backed algorithmic currency system aims to provide a more “stable, efficient and scalable” asset than traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). The system is expected to have a variety of use cases, including payments, remittances as well as investments. Array’s smart contract platform, ArrayFi, is designed to enable decentralized applications ...

The plugin will allow the AI chatbot to check wallet balances, transfer tokens and purchase NFTs when OpenAI makes plugins more widely available. Solana (SOL) users will soon be able to interact with the network through an open-source plugin enabled on OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. The plugin will allow ChatGPT to check wallet balances, transfer Solana-native tokens and purchase nonfungible tokens (NFTs) when Open AI makes plugin s available, according to an April 25 tweet by Solana Labs, the development firm behind the Solana blockchain . Solana Labs is also encouraging developers to test out the open-source code to retrieve on-chain data that they may be interested in. (1/2) Solana Labs has created an open-source reference implementation for a ChatGPT plugin that lets users interact with the @solana network directly from ChatGPT. Users will be able to check wallet balances, transfer tokens, and purchase NFTs once ChatGPT plugins are available. pic.twitter.c...

Among the pieces being auctioned include a zombie CryptoPunk and Autoglyphs from Larva Labs as well as Dmitri Cherniak’s artwork ‘The Golden Goose’. Sotheby’s auction house said it will be selling off a digital artwork collection formed as part of collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, or 3AC. In an April 19 announcement, Sotheby’s said it would auction off nonfungible token, or NFT, artwork assembled as part of 3AC’s digital portfolio in 2021. The firm will begin the auction with sales of seven NFTs that are part of the ‘Grails’ collection in May, described as “some of the highest quality and rarest works,” according to Sotheby's head of digital art Michael Bouhanna. Among the pieces being auctioned by Sotheby’s include zombie CryptoPunk #6649 and Autoglyph #187 from Larva Labs as well as Dmitri Cherniak’s artwork ‘The Golden Goose’, purchased by 3AC co-founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies in August 2021. They paid 1,800 Ether (ETH) — roughly $5.8 million at the time — for ...