Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) has ordered MyConstant to cease offering some products.
• The DFPI had warned in July that it would crack down on crypto interest account providers.
• DFPI argues that MyConstant offered and sold unqualified, non-exempt securities.

In a press release on December 21, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) ordered crypto lending platform MyConstant to “desist and refrain” from offering a  number of its crypto-related services in California. This comes after the department warned in July that it would be cracking down on crypto interest account providers in the state.

The DFPI first announced it was investigating MyConstant on December 5 via a press release that stated that MyConstant was not licensed to operate in California.

MyConstant was specifically ordered to stop offering its peer-to-peer loan brokerage service and interest-bearing crypto asset accounts. The DFPI says that the two products violate the California Consumer Financial Protection Law and California Securities Law.

According to the DFPI, MyConstant’s offering and selling of its peer-to-peer lending service known as “Loan Matching Service” contravenes California’s financial codes. The department said that the crypto lender engaged in “unlicensed loan brokering,” since the platform allowed lenders to lend without proper licenses.

DFPI’s problem with MyConstant interest-bearing products

Besides the P2P lending, the DFPI also has problems with MyConstant’s fixed interest-bearing crypto asset product. The product allows customers to deposit crypto assets and fiat with the promise of receiving a fixed annual percentage interest return.

According to the DFPI, the product is an example of where MyConstant offered and sold unqualified, non-exempt securities.

MyConstant has been facing hard economic times

The action by DFPI comes at a time when the crypto lender seems to be going through tough times. On November 17, it announced that it was unable to continue with business as usual due to the rapidly deteriorating market conditions that prompted heavy withdrawals.

The platform then limited its business activities including pausing withdrawals and announcing that “No deposit or investment request will be processed at this time.”

Since then MyConstant has been updating its users on its website on future plans including recently (December 15) updated plans that include a financial overview, estimated recovery, and liquidation schedule.

The platform has however continued to offer crypto-backed loans, ensuring borrower compliance, processing loan repayments, returning borrowers’ collateral once they repay their loans in full, and liquidation of borrowers’ collateral if they default.

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• XRP whales and sharks bought more coins in December to bring total addresses and percentage of supply to new highs.
• Large holders appear strongly bullish on the coin’s price, despite Ripple Labs’ ongoing battle with regulators.
• There are 1,617 wallet addresses with 1 million to 10 million XRP, with total holdings for these addresses about 7.23% of supply.

XRP has seen some massive accumulation by large holders in 2022, despite the bear market and all the baggage that has come with Ripple Labs’ court tussle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In the market, the XRP price has remained in a downtrend since a sharp decline in May. The coin currently trades around $0.3437.

XRP whales and sharks push holdings to new highs

According to on-chain statistics shared by analytics firm Santiment, XRP addresses with 1 million to 10 million coins have added to their holdings as 2022 draws to a close. Per the platform, these groups of XRP holders – the category of sharks and whales – have recently seen their total number and percentage of supply surge to new all-time highs.

🐳🦈 #XRPNetwork whale and shark addresses that share the 1M to 10M $XRP tier have been rapidly accumulating to end 2022. In December, both the amount of these sized addresses (1,617) and their percentage of supply held (7.23%) have hit a new #AllTimeHigh. https://t.co/R8bDPUviq1 pic.twitter.com/4GyrMPxYPV

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 20, 2022

On-chain data shows the whale and shark cohorts in the XRP ecosystem that control wallets with 1 million to 10 million XRP increased in December to 1,617.

The rapid accumulation seen across these two tiers have come as the past few weeks saw crypto prices plummet amid the FTX contagion.

But the downturn appears to have offered large XRP accounts the opportunity to buy low, with the above category of addresses increasing their percentage share of circulating supply. As per the current stats, whales and sharks hold 7.23% of 50.34 billion XRP.

Both this and the number of addresses highlighted above are trending at a new all-time high.

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• Paxful CEO has called Ether a form of fiat.
• He also cited the Ethereum network’s switch to proof-of-stake validation from proof-of-work.
• As a result, the CEO has slammed the use of ETH on the platform.

In a surprising twist, peer-to-peer crypto marketplace Paxful founder and CEO, Ray Youssef, has removed Ethereum (ETH) from the platform. While announcing the removal via Twitter, Youssef said:

“Integrity over revenue.”

Youssef said that ETH has become a fiat after the Merge upgrade. He said:

“Proof-of-work is the innovation that makes bitcoin (BTC) the only honest money there is, whereas proof-of-stake has rendered ETH essentially a digital form of fiat. ETH is controlled by a small number of people and one day you will need permission to use it.”

After being warned that “Being a maxi of anything isn’t right,” Youssef said:

“No. We need maximum momentum behind one clearing layer to win and bitcoin is the only game in town. This isn’t an investment strategy, this is humanity rising up to liberate itself. ALL IN!”

Youssef has been routing for Bitcoin and when asked if Paxful can add Litecoin since people in Madagascar, Somalia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are looking for the coin, he said:

“No, we must guide them to bitcoin. This is the way.”

Prevalence of scams among Ethereum-based tokens

The Paxful CEO also cited the prevalence of scams among tokens that operate on the Ethereum blockchain.

Nevertheless, Paxful confirmed via Twitter that it will continue offering stablecoins USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) although it is not too optimistic about them.

The post Paxful removes Ethereum (ETH) from its platform appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Celsius Network is set to hold auctions for its assets in January 2023.
• 30 potential bidders have already signed non-disclosure agreements.
• The crypto lender has also been given a green light to return some of the customers’ funds.

The bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network is set to hold an auction of its assets on January 10 and it has already received 30 potential bidders. The auction was originally set to be held on December 15 this year but has since been pushed to next year.

With the bidding deadline of December 12 already passed, 125 parties have been contacted so far and 30 potential bidders have already signed non-disclosure agreements.

The assets set to be auctioned include Celsius retail platform and mining business.

The crypto lender has received several bids proposing different business structures and potential transactions from bidders looking to acquire its assets. For example, some have suggested migrating Celsius customers to the acquirer’s platform along with the assets.

Celsius also revealed that it has received a number of single-asset bids.

As of November 25, Celsius company held crypto assets worth about $2.6 billion. However, even with that many assets, Celsius is still $1.2 billion short of being able to pay off its debts even if it were to combine its crypto assets with its non-crypto assets.

Despite filing for bankruptcy on July 13 this year, the Celsius mining operations have been successful, generating positive operating cash flow every month this year as the company continues to deploy additional mining rigs.

Reopening withdrawals

On December 20, bankruptcy judge Martin Glenn approved a motion that Celsius had filed on September 1 and allowed the company to reopen withdrawals for some of its customers.

 The assets that will be eligible for withdrawal are “ineligible Withhold Assets,” the amounts less than $7,575 held in the custody program, and funds that were transferred from the Earn or Borrow Program into the custody program within 90 days of Celsius filing for the Chapter 11.

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