Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• 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.

The post Celsius to return customer funds as January auction attracts 30 bidders appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Poor record keeping is making the unwinding of the collapse FTX exchange difficult.
• The new FTX management is trying to trace millions of dollars from several bank accounts.
• So far, the new management has identified over $1 billion.

FTX’s new management, which took over from the founder Sam Bankman-Fried, on Tuesday told a procedural hearing that it has identified assets worth more than $1 billion since it started a strategic review of its assets. It also said that it had located about $720 million held by US financial institutions, which it is yet to consolidate.

The US financial institutions were authorized to hold funds by the US Department of Justice and about $500 million are already confirmed held in US institutions.

The new FTX chief financial officer (CFO), Mary Cilia speaking under oath during the bankruptcy hearings said:

“We are reaching out to all of those banks and changing the signatories on the accounts so that we can get access to the accounts and move the cash as much as we can to authorized depository institutions.”

$423 million held at a single broker

The CFO also mentioned that about $423 million held by US authorities are from a single broker though she never mentioned the broker by name. Cilia said, “$485 million are already in an authorized deposit institution”

Besides the funds held in the US, there is about $130 million in cash that is locked up in Japan where local authorities have ring-fenced the funds for local customers.

Steve Coverick, a senior director at FTX’s financial advisors Alvarez & Marsal told the hearing that the new management is working to identify FTX’s international crypto assets and transfer them to cold wallets using custodial providers like Bitgo, which FTX hired in November.

Difficulties in winding up FTX

While the Chapter 11 bankruptcy hearings are supposed to wind up the FTX exchange, there have been complications due to poor record keeping and weak governance under the former CEO, SBF. The new management is being forced to look for details by reviewing customer terms and conditions stored in a variety of places including Slack and Google Drive.

As a result, the exchange is yet to file a statement of its financial position or of its assets as required under the US bankruptcy law. It however estimates it could do so in April next year.

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• Waves-backed stablecoin Neutrino USD (USDN) lost its dollar peg and is currently trading at $0.5411.
• The new stablecoin will be undepeggable.
• A USDN situation resolution plan will be set in motion before the launch of the new stablecoin.

Just days after the Waves-backed stablecoin Neutrino USD (USDN) lost its dollar peg, Waves CEO and founder, Sasha Ivanov, has promised he is going to launch a new “undepeggable” stablecoin.

Ivanov made the revelations via a tweet today where he also announced a USDN situation resolution plan. Ivanov’s tweet read:

“I will launch a new stablecoin,” Waves founder wrote, adding that there is going to be a “USDN situation resolution plan set in motion before.”

Besides stressing that the new stablecoin will be undepeggable, the CEO stressed that the new stablecoin will not be launched until the USDN plan resolution is set in motion.

Neutrino USD stablecoin crisis

The Neutrino USD is an algorithmic stablecoin collateralized by Waves and pegged to the US dollar. In the past few days, the stablecoin has been struggling to maintain its 1:1 peg which it has lost by more than 45% by today.

It is important to note that the current USDN de-pegging is not the first since it saw the first major de-pegging in early April 2022 and has seen several other subsequent de-pegging.

Interestingly, the USDN de-pegging comes at a time when the WAVES token is seeing a significant price drop after the South Korean crypto exchange the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA) issued a warning on WAVES on December 8. The stablecoin has failed to regain its dollar peg despite Waves pointing to misinformation being dismantled by centralized exchanges and saying that “no fundamental distress being present in the Waves Ecosystem.”

The post Waves planning to launch new stablecoin amid USDN crisis appeared first on CoinJournal.

• PayPal partners with MetaMask developer ConsenSys to make it easy for people to buy crypto.
• FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas and faces up to 115 years in prison.
• Former US President Donald Trump launched his NFTs on the Polygon blockchain.

One of the main reasons why cryptocurrency is becoming more and more popular is because of the ability to restrict access to your personal information. From buying physical goods, digital goods, investing, refinancing or making donations, cryptocurrency is the way to go.

If you plan to continue using cryptocurrency or you are just a beginner, then you need to stay up to date with the latest trends and news. Here is a review of the month’s latest news.

Current top 10 cryptocurrencies from December

Bitcoin is the most famous cryptocurrency since its launch in 2009, but now you have many other options to choose from to diversify your crypto portfolio.

Right now the most popular cryptocurrencies are:

1. Bitcoin (BTC)
2. Ethereum (ETH)
3. Tether (USDT)
4. Binance Coin (BNB)

5. US Dollar Coin (USDC)
6. Binance USD (BUSD)
7. XRP (XRP)
8. Dogecoin (DOGE)
9. Cardano (ADA)
10. Polygon (MATIC)

Popular Crypto Wallets in December

When choosing a crypto wallet, you need to distinguish between hot and cold options.

Hot crypto wallets can be desktop, mobile or web-based applications, which require an internet connection and are therefore more susceptible to hacking and theft.

Cold crypto wallets are hardware wallets that help keep your private keys safe from hackers because they are not connected to the internet, and usually have a PIN as an extra layer of security.

Here are some options based on their popularity.

The most popular hot wallets in December were:

1. Coinbase Wallet    

2. SafePal    

3. Crypto.com DeFi Wallet    

4. Exodus    

5. Coinbase dApp Wallet

While the most popular cold wallets were:

1. Ledger crypto wallet
2. Trezor
3. Ellipal Titan Crypto Wallet

PayPal wants to offer easier ways to buy crypto with the MetaMask crypto wallet

The partnership between payments company PayPal and MetaMask developer ConsenSys is trying to enable users to choose their PayPal accounts as a payment option to buy Ether (ETH) from the MetaMask app. The offer is designed to facilitate seamless purchases and transfers of Ether from PayPal to MetaMask.

This service from ConsenSys will initially be rolled out to some selected PayPal users who are within or based in the United States.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is in custody and faces up to 115 years in prison in the US

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, has been arrested and detained in the Bahamas. Bankman-Fried was indicted on eight charges that include wire fraud of various types and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The eight charges issued by the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, against Samuel Bankman-Fried are as follows:

1. Conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers

2. Wire fraud on customers

3. Conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders

4. Bank fraud on lenders

5. Conspiracy to commit fraud in goods

6. Conspiracy to commit securities fraud

7. Conspiracy to commit money laundering

8. Conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate campaign finance laws

According to CNN, if Sam Bankman-Fried (also known as “SBF”) is convicted of all eight counts, he could end up with a monumental 115-year prison sentence.

Trump lanserer NFT Card Collection

The former 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump announced the launch of his new non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards on December 15, 2022. Trump’s NFT trading cards are created using the Polygon blockchain because the network “describes itself as environmentally friendly and carbon neutral , which makes it better for the environment.”

This came as a surprise given Trump’s previous opposition to cryptocurrency. He called Bitcoin a “fraud”. He also stated: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and have value that is highly volatile and based on thin air”, in a tweet dated July 2019. “Unregulated cryptoassets can facilitate illegal behavior, including drug trafficking and other illegal activity”.

Trump’s website clarifies that the cards are only “intended as collectibles for individual enjoyment only, not for investment“.

Questions you should ask yourself before buying crypto in 2023

Don’t forget to ask yourself some questions and do a thorough research before creating your 2023 crypto strategy.

Some questions to guide you: Should you be involved in crypto investing or trading? How to manage risk in the crypto market? How to set smart crypto investment goals? How to choose a crypto to invest in? How to choose a safe crypto exchange to trust and put your money in? How is the crypto tax situation in Norway?

Have a nice Christmas and a happy New Year!

The post Top crypto news from December 2022 appeared first on CoinJournal.