Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Hindenburg Research reveals a short position in Block Inc.
• Block says it’s exploring legal action against the short seller.
• Wall Street has a consensus overweight rating on Block shares.

Shares of Block Inc are trading 15% down on Thursday after Hindenburg Research revealed to have taken a short position in the financial technology company.

Hindenburg’s reasons for short selling Block

Hindenburg says the multinational conglomerate has an enormous number of fake or duplicate accounts at its celebrated Cash App platform.

More alarmingly, its research that spanned over two years alleges many of those accounts to be involved in criminal activities, including sex trafficking. The report reads:

Block has misled investors on key metrics and embraced predatory offerings and compliance worst-practices to fuel growth and profit from facilitation of fraud against consumers and government.

In February, Block said its monthly active users went up 16% year-on-year to 51 million in December. Its shares are slightly in the red for the year following the price action today.

Block to take legal action against Hindenburg

Hindenburg also took and issue with the fact that top executives, including CEO Jack Dorsey has sold more than $1.0 billion worth of the company shares to benefit from the pandemic-driven rally.

In response, Block Inc, on Thursday, reiterated that it’s a highly regulated public company and revealed plans of taking legal action against the short seller.

We intend to work with SEC and explore legal action against Hindenburg for the factually inaccurate and misleading report they shared about our Cash App business today.

Wall Street seems to disagree with Hindenburg as well. Its consensus overweight rating on “SQ” is coupled with an average price target of $98 – up 60% from here.

The post Block shares down as Hindenburg takes aim at the crypto company appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Terra LUNA crashed last year following the collapse of its Terra UST stablecoin project.
• The crash was followed by a hard fork where the current Terra LUNA token was created.
• There is news that Terra LUNA’s founder Do Kwon has been arrested.

Terra (LUNA) price has dropped by about 7% after news of the arrest of the founder of Terraform Labs, Do Kwon, surfaced. At press time, LUNA was trading at $1.31.

There are reports that Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro; something that has been confirmed by Montenegro’s minister of interior Filip Adzic through a post on Twitter.

U PODGORICI UHAPŠEN JEDAN OD NAJTRAŽENIJIH SVJETSKIH BJEGUNACA

Crnogrska policija lišila je slobode lice za koje se sumnja da je jedan od najtraženijih bjegunaca, južnokorejski državljanin Do Kwon, suosnivač i izvršni direktor Terraform Labs sa sjedištem u Singapuru.
1/2

— Filip Adzic (@filip_adzic) March 23, 2023

A translation of the tweet reads:

“Montenegrin police have detained a person suspected of being one of the most wanted fugitives, South Korean citizen Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Terraform Labs.”

According to Adzic, Do Kwon was arrested at the Podgorica airport with falsified documents. The minister however said that he was “still waiting for official confirmation of identity.”

Several authorities were looking for Do Kown

Do Kwon was the target of a number of investigation bodies around the globe and was even on Interpol’s red notice after the implosion of the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin and the $40 billion Terra LUNA ecosystem last year.

The implosion of the Terra LUNA collapse sent shockwaves across the crypto market causing a number of other crypto projects to come down.

The post LUNA falls sharply on Do Kwon’s arrest allegations appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Arbitrum is transitioning into a DAO.
• The network’s new ARB token airdrop is now live.
• The new ARB token is Arbitrum’s governance token.

After a number of major cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, Huobi, Coinbase, and MEXC  promised to list the new Arbitrum ARB token, the token has already been listed on several exchanges just a few hours after the ARB Airdrop went live.

The listing comes even as users face issues claiming the new tokens and multiple sites faking the Arbitrum airdrop and causing the chain to lag. However, those eligible for the token airdrop have until September 23, 2023, to claim their tokens.

About 625,000 wallet addresses are eligible for the Arbitrum airdrop which will see free distribution. 12.75% (1.275 billion tokens) of the ARB token supply will be distributed in the airdrop.

Arbitrum transition into a DAO

Arbitrum is a layer-2 solution for Ethereum and it has started its decentralization and transformation journey into a decentralized autonomous organization that will enable the holders of the new ARB token to take part in the development of the decentralized network.

The Arbitrum One Chain is expected to go live on reaching a block height of 16,890,400, which is some hours from now.

Arbitrum transaction surge

Prior to the ARB airdrop, the Arbitrum daily transaction count hit a record high.

Arbitrum uses Optimistic rollups technology to process transactions faster and cheaper and the daily transactions hit 1,312,052 on Wednesday which is way above the network’s previous peak of 1,103,398 reached on February 21.

At the press time, betting in the “I owe you” (IOU) markets tied to the new ARB token showed that the token would trade at around $6 after the airdrop. IOU tokens basically represent a debt between two parties.

The post Arbitrum’s ARB token lists on several exchanges as Airdrop goes live appeared first on CoinJournal.

• U.S. SEC issued a Wells notice to Coinbase on Wednesday.
• Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal’s remarks in response.
• Coinbase stock slipped more than 10% in extended hours.

Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) is trading over 10% down in extended hours after receiving a “Wells notice” from the SEC for potentially violating U.S. securities laws.

Here’s what we know so far

Remember that such a notice often signals the agency’s intent to formally press charges.

Still, Coinbase says the Wells notice does not provide enough information on potential violations and so it will stick to regular operations for now.

The company believes these potential enforcement actions would relate to aspects of the Company’s spot market, staking service Coinbase Earn, Coinbase Prime, and Coinbase Wallet.

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission had issued a similar notice to Paxos (blockchain infrastructure platform) as well.

Chief legal officer Grewal’s remarks

The news arrives about a month after Coinbase reported its financial results for the fourth quarter that topped Street estimates.

On Wednesday, its Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal reiterated that the company does not list securities. Speaking with CNBC, he also said:

If needed, we welcome a legal process to provide clarity we’ve been advocating for and to demonstrate that SEC simply has not been fair when it comes to its engagement on digital assets.

Grewal also maintained that Coinbase Earn is significantly different from staking services by Kraken that the SEC banned last month. Coinbase stock is still up 100% for the year at writing.

The post Coinbase receives a Wells notice from the U.S. SEC appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The Telegram messaging app facilitates buying and selling of crypto through its @wallet bot.
• Telegram users can buy and sell BTC on the app’s wallet.
• Besides, they can also send some of the cryptocurrencies via chats.

Tether’s USDT has been added to Telegram’s @wallet bot and the app’s users can now send and receive USDT via chats.

The move expands Telegram’s list of allowed cryptocurrencies on the @wallet bot.

Telegram’s cryptocurrency journey

Telegram’s crypto journey goes back years back when the messaging app started developing the Open Network (TON) blockchain network that initially harboured the Toncoin (TON) token although the project was later abandoned in 2020 after legal battles with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Telegram however kept the TON project alive despite abandoning the Open Network. Members of the Telegram community called The TON Foundation have since continued to advance the TON project.

And although Telegram is not directly involved in TON, it still maintains an interest in the blockchain network, especially seeing that the messaging app last year announced it was building a blockchain-based auction platform called Fragment.

Cryptocurrencies allowed on @wallet bot

Last year (2022), Telegram added Bitcoin (BTC) and Toncoin (TON) to the @wallet bot. In addition to addition, Telegram users are allowed users to send Toncoin (TON) within chats.

Today, March 22, 2023, Telegram has added Tether’s USDT to the list of cryptocurrencies allowed on the @wallet bot marketplace. The stablecoin has also been added to the list of tokens that can be sent within Telegram’s chats.

Stablecoins like USDT offers a number of benefits since they are relatively immune to price volatility that often affects the likes of bitcoin and Ethereum. Including USDT in the @wallet bot, therefore, presents a lot of benefits for Telegram users involved in cryptocurrencies.

The post Tether’s USDT receives major boost from Telegram appeared first on CoinJournal.