Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Charlie Munger reiterates his view on cryptocurrencies.
• He lauds China for executing a full ban on cryptocurrencies.
• Cryptocurrencies are having a fantastic start to the new year.

U.S. government should push ahead with an absolute ban on cryptocurrencies, says Charlie Munger – the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

Munger says cryptocurrencies have no real value

Munger has been against cryptocurrencies for the longest time and associates no real value to these assets as they are intangible and unproductive. Reiterating his view in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, he said:

Crypto is not a currency, commodity, or security. It’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity.

Nonetheless, the crypto market seems to be having a fantastic start to the new year with Bitcoin currently up nearly 40% since the start of 2023.

U.S. should learn from the example of China

The influential investor lauded China for recently announcing a strict ban on crypto-related services and urged the United States to learn from its example.

He quoted the ban that England imposed in the early 1700s on all public trading in new common stocks for about a whole century as a precedence as well.

In some cases, a big block of cryptocurrency has been sold to a promotor for almost nothing, after which the public buys in at much higher prices without fully understanding the predilution in favour of the promoter.

It is also noteworthy that his business partner and one of the world’s richest men alive, Warren Buffet, shares his view on the cryptocurrencies as well.

The post Charlie Munger wants the U.S. to ban cryptocurrencies appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Everlend Finance has closed down its lending app.
• Users have been advised to withdraw their assets.
• The crypto lender has blamed the current liquidity crunch in the market for the shutdown.

Everlend Finance a DeFi lending protocol built on Solana (SOL/USD) has announced the closure of its lending platform citing a liquidity crunch.

In a tweet late February 1, Everlend Finance said that it will not continue with the development of the platform after shutting it down.

We are deeply saddened to announce that as of today our team has decided to close down https://t.co/UiTuuSdyrB and won’t continue its development

— Everlend (@EverlendFinance) February 1, 2023

Withdraw-only mode

Since making the announcement, the Everlend team has switched the platform to withdraw-only mode and users have been asked to withdraw their funds. According to the announcement, the up will remain open for withdrawals until all the withdrawals are processed. All raised and unused funds will also be covered within the next two weeks.

According to Everlend, leaving the platform to continue operating in the current conditions would be a gamble because of the liquidity crunch facing the DeFi lending industry. At the time of its closure, the platform controlled a total value locked of about $400,000 according to data from DeFiLlama. Its business had drastically declined after the collapse of FTX.

The team went ahead to say that the shutdown will only affect the Everlend app front end and the codebase will be made open-source for users to continue building solutions using its technology.

Everlend Finance is now the second Solana-based DeFi lender to shut down in 2023. Friktion, a Solana-based DeFi yield platform, closed down its lending app in January due to the challenges facing the crypto industry.

The post Solana-based crypto lender Everlend Finance shuts down app appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The exchange however maintained that it is not planning to close its NFT marketplace.
• It wants to align the exchange’s resources in developing other features.
• Coinbase has been struggling with revenue generation.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on Wednesday tweeted that it was pausing creator drops in its NFT Marketplace. The exchange however assured clients that the move is not an overture to the closure of the NFT marketplace.

Coinbase explained that it was doing so to free up resources so that it could focus on other tools and features that creators have requested.

We recently shared that we are pausing creator Drops on the NFT marketplace to focus on other features and tools that creators have asked for.

To be clear: We are not shutting down the Coinbase NFT marketplace.

— Coinbase NFT (@Coinbase_NFT) February 1, 2023

Coinbase has been facing a lot of challenges lately. It cut its workforce by 25% and closed its operations in Japan. It also recently got fined in the Netherlands for operating there without a licence.

Jessica Yatronofsky NFT collection

Coinbase announcement came shortly after one of its NFT partners, Jessica Yatronofsky, announced that her NFT collection would no longer be available on the Coinbase NFT Marketplace. Yatronofsky claimed that she had information that the marketplace would cease to operate as of February; something that is most likely the reason for Coinbase to reiterate it was not closing the Marketplace.

According to Coinbase, the changes will help the development team behind the Coinbase NFT to focus more on improving the platform. A representative from the exchange said that the team will now be able to focus on creating long-lasting solutions to serve its community.

In another tweet, Coinbase said:

“Rest assured, our mission for Coinbase NFT hasn’t changed and we remain optimistic about our future as we continue building. We’re excited to find more opportunities to work with creators in the future.”

Coinbase COIN share price

While there is no concrete reason that has been given by Coinbase for pausing the NFT drops, Coinbase share price has been rising over the last few days.

Yesterday COIN closed the market at $65.70, up +7.22 (12.35%). the stock has gained +9.64 (17.20%) in the past five days.

The post Coinbase pausing creator Drops on its NFT marketplace appeared first on CoinJournal.

• MakerDAO will set up the Defense Fund with an initial 5 million DAI.
• The fund acts as a self-insurance tool and will only cover legal defense expenses of specific MakerDAO participants.
• Funds will be secured in a multisig wallet, with the Maker Protocol taking control as a beneficiary.

MakerDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that issues the Dai (DAI) stablecoin and governance token Maker (MKR), has announced the launch of a new fund to be utilized in the case of legal or regulatory action involving the DAO’s participants.

The Defense Fund has been created following a governance vote on a Special Funding Proposal, the Maker team said. Accordingly, funds will be added to a multisig wallet for this purpose, with this done in one lump sum, the platform revealed on Wednesday.

MakerDAO’s $5 million defense fund

According to the platform, the fund will initially have a contingency budget of $5 million in the native DAI and be used to reimburse legal expenses incurred by specific community members.

Specifically, the Defense Fund will cover recognised delegates, core unit facilitators and permanent contributors. Active holders of MKR are also part of the primary group of beneficiaries.

The Defense Fund is thus envisaged as “a self-insurance tool for MakerDAO participants.” However, those set to benefit (as listed above) must be facing legal action directly linked to their activities at MakerDAO, the platform added.

“All claims and payouts will be managed by an external technical committee composed of insurance and risk management experts. The committee will issue a recommendation to approve or reject a payout based on a claim,” read part of a statement posted on the Maker Twitter account.

Maker Protocol will control the funds as one of the parties to the Defense Fund multisig wallet.

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• The US SEC has accepted that the LBRY Credits (LBC) token is not a security.
• LBC Token shot up to a daily high of $0.03225 after the news.
• At press time, the token was trading at $0.0278.

The price of LBRY Credits (LBC) surged by over 90% earlier today after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accepted that the token was not a security. LBC is the native token of Library Credit, a platform that seeks to simplify the way digital content is distributed and accessed by both consumers and producers.

Library Credit has had a long battle with the US SEC and on Monday, a New Hampshire district court judge ruled that LBC token transactions on the secondary market were not securities.

What was the issue between SEC and LBRY?

The US SEC took action against Library Credit in March 2021 accusing it of selling an unregistered security. Library Credit maintained that its token, the LBC, was not a security but rather a digital currency.

In November last year, the case was won by the SEC and Library Credit cited the ruling then as a “dangerous precedent” that could make all cryptocurrencies to be terms as securities.

Library Credit went ahead and filed an appeal, which was heard on Monday (January 30, 2023) with a focus on whether the secondary market sales of the LBC tokens should be included in an injunction the US SEC is seeking the court to approve. If the injunction was to be approved, it would prevent the sale of LBC tokens.

John Deaton, a lawyer who has previously raised issues with the XRP case, appeared as an amicus curie in the LBC case. He was pushing to have the court clarify who would be covered by the injunction that the SEC was seeking determination.

A win for the crypto industry

The new ruling comes as a reprieve for the crypto industry which has faced many similar cases with Ripple versus the US SEC being one of the most followed.

Following the turn of events, the XRP community is hoping for a similarly favourable outcome in its own case against the SEC.

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