Monat: Januar 2023

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Bankrupt BlockFi plans to sell $160M Bitcoin mining hardware loans

  • BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022 citing exposure to the just collapsed FTX.
  • The plan to sell off the loans backed by Bitcoin mining machines is part of the bankruptcy proceedings.
  • Bidders have until before the end of January to submit offers.

About two months after BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the crypto lender now plans to sell off $160 million in loans backed by Bitcoin mining hardware as part of the bankruptcy legal proceedings. In total, the loans are backed by about 68,000 Bitcoin mining machines

Although BlockFi cited FTX’s exposure as the main reason for its bankruptcy, the crypto lender had announced cutting its workforce by 20% in June 2022 citing the crypto prices meltdown. The layoff announcement came days after reports emerged that the lender was in talks to raise funding at a $5 billion valuation.

Bidders have until January 24 to send offers

According to reports from Bloomberg, BlockFi started the process of selling off the Bitcoin mining hardware-backed loans last year. It is believed some of the said loans have already defaulted since then and are candidates for under-collateralization following the drastic decline in the prices of Bitcoin mining hardware.

In an interview with one popular media outlet, crypto lawyer Harrison Dell who is a director at Australian law firm Cadena Legal said that the loans are not worth their paper value to BlockFi if the Bitcoin mining equipment used as collateral is worth less than the value of the loans.

According to Harrison Dell, the people bidding for the loans are most likely debt collection businesses saying that selling the debts is all that BlockFi can do at the moment.

It is believed that BlockFi’s attempt to sell off its loans is likely a part of the lender’s efforts to pay off its creditors who are about 100,000 in total.

The post Bankrupt BlockFi plans to sell $160M Bitcoin mining hardware loans appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Stablecoin legislation may come this year, Bitwise exec says

  • Bitwise Chief Compliance Officer Kathrine Dowling is optimistic on stablecoin regulation in the US in 2023.
  • According to Dowling, stablecoins will the first to be regulatory as what needs to be done is mostly straightforward.
  • The US is looking to align with the global regulatory community.

Stablecoins are likely to be the first to get regulated in the US in 2023, according to Katherine Dowling, the general counsel and chief compliance officer at cryptocurrency investment firm Bitwise.

Easier to work out stablecoin regulations

In an interview with CoinDesk TV on Monday, Dowling said the move towards a stablecoin legislation this year is more likely because the sub-industry represents a sector that’s not so complex. Stablecoin regulation is a “narrower issue,” she said. 

Speaking during an appearance on the crypto media outlet’s ‘First Mover’, the Bitwise compliance officer said regulators can easily get hold of issues around stablecoins “a little bit better” than what the broader crypto market represented.

While the events of the past few months, and whose effects continue to be felt across crypto –including the collapse of FTX –derailed the sector. However, with regulatory spotlight on the broader industry, the aftermath could have offered a platform for a rebuilding.

According to Dowling, the issue of proper legislation is an outcome that Congress is keen on.

And legislation, not just for the stablecoin market but also for the broader digital assets space, would entail clarity. This will in turn help rebuild trust in and across the ecosystem, with clear rules key to the US’ plans to keep up with the global regulatory landscape.

While some experts have warned about the potential impact of regulation to crypto innovation, Dowling says having the laws in place is critical. For the United States, these could even see it become a global regulatory standard, a scenario likely to provide the foundation for dialogue on crypto regulation on a global level. 

As reported last week, the European Union is looking to finally ratify its comprehensive crypto regulations, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA). A final vote on the regulation was recently delayed to April.

The post Stablecoin legislation may come this year, Bitwise exec says appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Ethereum launches first ‘shadow fork’ for the Shanghai upgrade

  • Developers will follow up with more shadow forks ahead of the Shanghai upgrade.
  • The Shanghai upgrade will allow for withdrawal of staked ETH
  • Over 16 million ETH have been locked since Ethereum began the transition from proof of work to proof of stake chain.

Ethereum developers have managed to deploy the first “shadow fork” of the upcoming network upgrade Shanghai.

According to an update from one of the developers, the shadow fork for the highly anticipated upgrade executed at around 5:40 am ET on Monday 23 January 2023. As a copy of Ethereum’s mainnet, the fork is a feature that offers an environment in which developers can test code before it deploys on the public blockchain.

While commenting on the fork this morning, Ethereum Foundation developer Marius Van Der Wijden noted there had been some minor technical glitches with nodes using Geth clients. 

However, the software developer highlighted that developers managed to fix the hitches, with all nodes being in agreement at the time of his update.

According to him, the next step now involves testing with “evil nodes” on both the execution and consensus layers. Evil nodes are those designed to spam invalid blocks as they attempt to trick other nodes into joining the bad chain, Van Der Wijden explained.

Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade to unlock staked ETH

As highly anticipated, the Shanghai upgrade will enable withdrawals of staked Ether (ETH) tokens, which remain locked following Ethereum’s “Merge” in September last year. Ethereum’s Beacon Chain went live in December 2020 and investors have deposited millions of ETH since.

According to on-chain data from Glassnode, more than 16.16 million ETH is currently staked, accounting for just over 13% of the total supply of Ether. 

The data also shows that more than 11.4 million of the staked ETH was deposited via staking services, including Lido, Coinbase, and Kraken.

The post Ethereum launches first ‘shadow fork’ for the Shanghai upgrade appeared first on CoinJournal.