Author: Lauren Claxton

Lauren is currently a freelance writer with experience in finance writing. She has a growing interest in the metaverse and all things NFTs and expects to graduate in 2022 with bachelors degrees in creative writing and public relations.

Categories
Crypto News Nexo

Crypto Lender ‘Nexo’ Responds to ‘Smear Campaign’, Issues Cease and Desist Letter

Nexo has been the subject of a “smear campaign” this week, alleging that the company has siphoned funds from charity and stolen donations. The crypto lender has now issued a cease-and-desist letter to the Twitter account @Otteroooo behind the campaign:

Nexo’s Response

On June 26, Twitter user @Otteroooo (Otter) shared a thread claiming Nexo was guilty of stealing charity funding for lavish personal purchases. The tweets alleged that Nexo had targeted the Bulgarian charity HelpKarma for the theft. Purportedly, one ‘Konsta Kanchev’ was the co-founder of Nexo and founder of HelpKarma, according to Otter. This ‘Kanchev’ is said to have redirected the funds intended to cover medical treatments for children into the building of a personal palace.

Naturally, Nexo was none too pleased with the so-called smear campaign, responding specifically that ‘Konsta Kanchev’ does not exist and that Otter had merely amalgamated the names of Nexo’s chair and co-founder, Kosta Kantchev, and HelpKarma’s founder, Konstantin Krastev. Nexo also highlighted that it and HelpKarma had never shared common operations, beneficial owners, or management.

The lender then issued a public notice to cease and desist via its blog:

However, for much of the thread Otter is discussing Kosta Kanchev – alluding to the possibility that the above could simply have been an innocent typo. One tweet by @Davidgerard states: “Nexo offers 18% interest to the public. This is not possible in this economy”, insinuating fraud-related activity. But the below tweet shows that Otter’s tweets had very little influence on Nexo’s performance – suggesting the cease-and-desist notice may be questionable:

With these, and more, rumours spreading, and many Twitter users siding against Nexo, the company is standing firm on the notion that the motivation behind the allegations was to gain a large following before selling the account.

Recent Company Movements

Nexo made the news in December 2021 after pioneering NFT-backed lending services. Thanks to a partnership with Singaporean hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, Nexo clients were given the opportunity to borrow digital assets with their NFTs as collateral. At the time, the crypto lender was only accepting Bored Apes and CryptoPunks.

More recently, Nexo issued a proposal to buy out Celsius, a crypto lender competitor, showing a keen interest in its collateralised loan portfolio. This followed Celsius’ perceived one-way trip to insolvency thanks to a series of frozen user withdrawals and transfers.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News Solana

Solana Launches Web3-Focused Smartphone, Crypto Twitter Not Convinced

Solana Labs this week announced the launch of the Solana Mobile Stack software ecosystem for Android, alongside ‘Saga’ – an Android smartphone. Unfortunately, the news has been greeted with outright contempt by some sections of crypto Twitter:

Network Outages Still a Concern

Mobile phones are finally set to accommodate Web3, and the reaction has been mixed, to say the least. Solana’s announcement of the ‘Saga’ Android and the most recent Solana mobile stack (SMS) software for developers has been accompanied by comparisons to Apple and Ethereum; however, many voices have also raised concerns regarding Solana’s frequent network outages:

Regardless of the negative public feedback, some of the features users can expect to see in the Saga include a software custodian solution called Seed Vault, a mobile wallet adapter, and Solana Pay for Android. Solana also has plans to release a DApp store for its mobile devices so users can access Web3 with ease. The SMS development kit is available for download now, though the phone itself is unlikely to hit the market before early 2023.

But Why a Smartphone?

The idea for the Saga smartphone followed the release of SMS and was conceived by Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs. Yakovenko wondered what it would look like if one billion people were using crypto and realised that the best method for supporting the take-up would be to create a hardware wallet out of a phone:

The Android will feature a 6.67” OLED display, 12GB RAM, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, and 512GB of internal storage. Solana is hoping that Saga will become the “gold standard” for Web3 smartphones and plans to display the full capabilities of SMS.

Solana Has Been Suffering

The Saga announcement follows a relatively negative past few months for Solana. January saw the company slide by 42 percent in seven days, with $SOL (Solana’s native token) hit hard thanks to the new year crypto sell-off. This and the addition of several duplicate transactions and downtimes led to rising tensions among users.

And in May, Solana experienced a seven-hour down period after bots targeted the NFT minting tool ‘Candy Machine’. The bots caused four million transaction requests, which the platform could not cope with, and users were once again left questioning the competence of the blockchain.

Categories
Crime Crypto News Hackers

Chainalysis Launches 24/7 Hotline for Crypto Crime Victims

Blockchain research firm Chainalysis has announced the launch of a 24/7 hotline accessible to victims of crypto crime. The Crypto Incident Response hotline will work to support organisations under attack from ransomware demands or targeted by crypto cyber-attacks:

Hotline Independent of Chainalysis

With crypto hackers responsible for US$3 billion of lost crypto value via theft and ransom demands from just 251 attacks in 2021, Chainalysis’ announcement is a welcome one:

https://www.remotejobs.lk/employer/chainalysis-inc/

We’re investing in this service not just to assist organisations in their times of need, but also to help bring bad actors to justice and demonstrate that crypto is not the asset class of anonymity and crime.

Chainalysis blog post

The hotline will be independent of the analytics service and will not require victims to be existing Chainalysis customers. This rapid-response strategy aspires to turn up the heat on hackers, making it more difficult for them to cash out. The Chainalysis team has also indicated its willingness to liaise with law enforcement on victims’ behalf.

Despite many organisations having called for the implementation of the hotline, just as many voices on Twitter seem to be on edge about what this could mean for their money and their privacy:

Regardless, with time of the essence in these cases, Chainalysis is hoping that its strategy will decrease the quantity and severity of crypto crime in the industry.

Chainalysis Monitors Crypto Crime

Earlier this month, Chainalysis published a report stating that DeFi projects were most often the target of crypto attacks. As many as 97 percent of all crypto attacks have been directed at DeFi projects since the beginning of 2020, with the biggest DeFi hack on record – in which Axie Infinity lost over US$600 million – happening on March 30 this year.

Chainalysis also announced in February that ‘criminal whales’ were holding US$25 billion in digital assets. Defined as private wallets holding over US$1 million of crypto, where a minimum of 10 percent of these funds are obtained from illicit addresses, criminal whales are commonly associated with fraud, malware, and scams.

Categories
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs Social media

Bored Ape Yacht Club Rocked by Video Claiming ‘Racist’ Ties

Philip Rusnack, aka Philion, has released an hour-long investigation on his Philion YouTube channel alleging racist and alt-right connotations among the memes, language and symbols used in Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collections.

Many of Philion’s points are supported by prior evidence uncovered by anti-BAYC NFT commentator Ryder Ripps.

Anti-BAYC Hashtag Trends on Twitter

The ‘BURNBAYC’ hashtag is trending on Twitter as the Bored Ape Yacht Club – a giant of the NFT world – faces its accusers. BAYC has been condemned by Philion as “one massive alt-right inside joke”, with comparisons drawn between Bored Ape caricatures and Asian and black people, alongside the identification of Nazi symbolism.

This isn’t the first accusation made against BAYC over claimed racist undertones. Ryder Ripps lit the coals earlier this year after publishing a Twitter thread and creating the domain gordongoner.com specifically to highlight this problematic imagery:

Yuga Labs, the creator of BAYC, has responded by stating that the project logo (a monkey’s skull) merely suggests that the project’s Apes are “bored to death”, and that the term “Apes” refers to its team, not humans in general. However, the sheer quantity of alt-right and racist imagery and symbolism found across its collections adds up to a potentially compelling case against BAYC.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Bored Ape Yacht Club has been a gold mine for many an investor in the past, with one Aussie chancer reportedly turning US$300 into US$5 million in May this year. However, BAYC has not escaped the crypto collapse, with its floor price plunging below US$100k this month. As at June 16, the Bored Apes floor price stood at US$88,000.

In light of the concurrent crypto market downturn, it is possible that BAYC may find it difficult to recover from such lows in the wake of these latest negative allegations.

Categories
Australia DeFi Synthetix

ETH Layer 2 Synthetix Surges 100% Amid Curve Finance Collaboration

Australian Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Synthetix has seen its native token SNX balloon 100 percent after linking up with liquidity provider Curve Finance.

The partnership has led to the creation of Synthetic Ether, Bitcoin and USD, providing investors with cheap conversions:

Synthetix Now Ranked #3

The knock-on effect since June 20 has pushed the scaling solution to the position of third-largest protocol. As Synthetix was one of the first protocols launched on Ethereum, investors are pleased to see this positive movement:

The collaboration with Curve Finance has resulted in curve pools for Synthetic Ether (sETH)/Ether (ETH), Synthetic US dollar (sUSD)/3CRV, and Synthetic Bitcoin (sBTC)/Bitcoin (BTC). This tech allows the platform to offer more derivatives tokens.

While these synthetic assets are Synthetix’s main product, it appears that new fundamentals have strengthened the project and played a significant role in the surge of SNX.

Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, believes the company’s recent success is down to its willingness to experiment with novel mechanisms to provide stability, and the community’s responsiveness under difficult circumstances.

Australian Web3 Witnesses Rapid Development

In February last year, Synthetix successfully raised A$12 million with the aid of a handful of venture capital (VC) firms. The funds weren’t sent directly to Synthetix, rather they were raised through the purchase of Synthetix’s native token, SNX. The fundraising supported the notion that a place was developing for VC money within DeFi.

Thanks to the emergence of DeFi, DAOs and NFTs, the Aussie Web3 scene has seen rapid development over the past few years, due in no small part to Synthetix, DAO Under, Immutable, Maple Finance and Sigma Prime, who have all helped foster interest from investors.

Categories
Crypto News

‘Babel Finance’ Halts Withdrawals Citing ‘Unusual Liquidity Pressures’

Hong-Kong based crypto lender Babel Finance has halted redemptions and withdrawals on Babel products, naming “unusual liquidity pressures” as its justification for the pause.

Babel, recently valued at US$2 billion in its $80 million Series B funding round, has named limitations in on-hand asset availability as its main motivation for pausing withdrawals. Its action comes as crypto prices have dipped across the industry.

Babel Finance is taking action to best protect the interests of our clients … we are in close communication with all related parties and will share updates in a timely manner.

Babel Finance notice

With the crypto market at its lowest since December 2020, major fluctuations are putting pressure on all market participants. Many other lending platforms, including Celsius, Inverse Finance and Finblox, have also been halting or restricting their services.

While Babel cannot say how long its products will be suspended, it has “sincerely apologised” and stated its intentions to operate in the “best interests” of its clients.

Celsius Also Pauses Withdrawals

Celsius, another crypto lender, received a purchase proposal from competitor Nexo last week. This followed moves by Celsius towards insolvency, with the company blaming “extreme market conditions” for its decision to pause customer withdrawals.

Categories
Crypto News NFTs

TAG Heuer Launches Smartwatch to Display NFTs on Your Wrist

Have a favourite NFT you want to show the world? TAG Heuer is giving consumers the opportunity to wear their NFTs on their wrist. The update follows the luxury watchmaker brand’s recent acceptance of cryptocurrency as payment in its American online store:

Watch Can Frame Any Digital Image

TAG Heuer announced its Connected Calibre E4 smartwatch this week. The exciting part? The watch will allow consumers to display their NFTs on its face, as the digital wallet on an NFT owner’s phone can be synched with the smartwatch to display hexagonal JPEG and GIF versions of any NFT.

For interested consumers who don’t have NFTs to display, the watch face can also frame standard digital images.

The move from TAG Heuer reportedly follows discussions with blue-chip NFT communities such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks. It also comes shortly after the watchmaker’s announcement that it will now accept Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and nine other cryptocurrencies as payment on its US website.

Putting NFTs on Display

There has been an increase in interest of late from NFT owners eager to display their prized art, and several companies are working on solutions to meet this desire. In January, Netgear came forward with plans to alter its Meural digital art frames so they might cater to NFTs. Originally conceived to display personal digital photos, the technology behind the Meural canvases will be modified so NFT owners can display their purchases on the virtual walls of their space.

More recently, Sony entered a partnership with Theta Labs to bring interactive 3D NFTs to life. The project will be executed via a decentralised video streaming/delivery network. The network will be accompanied by its own native crypto asset (THETA) and will also function for 2D NFTs.

Categories
Australia Blockchain

Blockchain Could Help Aussie Government Recover $45 Million Annually, Report

A world-first Australian blockchain pilot could be the answer to Australia’s lost excise tax revenue issue. The collaboration between the federal government and consulting company Convergence.Tech will mark the first radical tax system overhaul in a century, addressing the hundreds of millions of dollars lost in uncollected excise each year.

Alcohol on the Blockchain

The pilot targets one of Australia’s significantly haemorrhaging industries: alcohol. According to Australian Taxation Office (ATO) estimates, alcohol excise duty should bring in A$6.5 billion annually for the government. However, the ATO estimates that 9 percent of this figure currently cannot be collected – equating to A$582 million in lost revenue.

The Pilot Grants Program has tasked Convergence.Tech with leading exploration into reducing regulatory compliance burdens for businesses via blockchain tech, according to Australia’s new National Blockchain Roadmap.

The resulting pilot Blockchain Excise Program can track excisable goods from production through the supply chain to their eventual sale. The platform will use a private blockchain to allow the industry to provide a real-time ledger of alcohol transactions directly to the regulator.

This type of technology … allows us to focus our efforts, have a differentiated approach and hopefully reduce compliance costs for the legitimate operators.

Anthony Barnard, director, Excise Centre, ATO

According to analysis by KPMG, this tax system overhaul could potentially recover A$45 million in lost excise revenue each year. Anthony Barnard, director of the ATO’s Excise Centre, says that the “prospect of being able to trace goods through the supply chain is very exciting for the ATO”.

A$DC Powers the Pilot

However, a relationship with fiat currency must be established prior to the implementation of any of this technology. Thus Convergence.Tech and the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) have been working together to integrate the platform with A$DC – ANZ’s Australian dollar stablecoin. Doing so will provide digital assets with financial liquidity and enable automatically triggered remittance of the excise duty liability to the regulator as alcohol moves through the supply chain:

https://bluenotes.anz.com/posts/2022/06/anz-institutional-news-stablecoin-tax-excise-blockchain
How the pilot functions. Source: ANZ Bluenotes

ANZ will also be able to offer wholesalers and distillers digitised inventory via custodian services, alongside remittance and refunds through highly secure digital wallets and immediate transfers.

The pilot is currently trialling this innovation with spirits; however, it could be extended to beer and ultimately real estate, hydrogen, fuel and tobacco, thereby reaping larger benefits for the relevant industries, taxpayers and regulators alike.

Blockchain and the Aussie Government

In July 2021, the Australian government’s Blockchain Grants Program allocated A$5.6 million towards supply chain pilots. The goal was to explore how blockchain could positively influence Aussie supply chains by aiding companies to navigate regulatory hurdles. Everledger, a digital transparency company, received A$3 million, and Convergence.Tech A$2.6 million.

In additional positive news, the federal government included blockchain in its co-called ‘Blueprint for Critical Technologies’ in November 2021. The blueprint is a strategy to both protect and promote essential technology, and the inclusion of blockchain has signposted the government’s position on the matter.

Categories
Binance Crypto News Terra

Class-Action Lawsuit Launched Against Binance US for UST Collapse

An unprecedented class-action lawsuit numbering more than 2,000 plaintiffs has been filed against Binance.US in the aftermath of the Terra collapse, accusing the exchange of “misleading investors”.

First Terra Class-Action in the US

Filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit marks the first Terra class-action in the US. Roche Freedman LLP will be championing the investors’ case in alleging that Terra’s US dollar-based UST was marketed with higher stability than claimed and promoted by misleading advertising.

Roche Freedman also alleges that Binance.US is not registered as an exchange, nor as a broker-dealer, meaning it could have been violating securities law by listing an unregistered security in UST:

Binance.US has responded to these claims in stating that “Binance.US is registered by FinCEN [US Treasury’s financial intelligence unit] and adheres to all applicable regulations. These assertions are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.” The lawsuit also names Binance’s chief executive, Brian Shroder, as a co-defendant.

Binance Challenges Money-Laundering Allegations

Only a week ago, Binance challenged allegations regarding the laundering of US$2.4 billion. According to a Reuters report, the stolen funds had been laundered through the exchange between 2017 and 2021. The report, which Binance labelled a “woefully misinformed op-ed”, followed previous investigations into unreported crypto income.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Solana

Solana Challenges Poor Safety Rating from DeFi Watchdog

Solana has rejected the safety ranking of “second-worst” that it received from DeFi Safety this week after the DeFi watchdog raised concerns over the platform’s frequent downtime and unsatisfactory node structure:

Lack of Transparency Cited

There are five different criteria that DeFi Safety uses in its blockchain evaluations: security and testing, node count, node diversity, documentation, and supporting software. The concerns raised by the watchdog predominantly revolve around the lack of transparency from the network’s archive node, alongside Solana’s processes for storing the blockchain’s data.

Beyond the platform’s insufficient node clients (software aiding users in connecting to the blockchain), Solana’s repeated downtime was a decisive factor for DeFi Safety.

Solana presents systemic technical risk. There is no doubt about it. User funds, in our eyes, are at risk. We penalise them heavily for downtime because users cannot access their funds when the chain goes down.

DeFi Safety Twitter – @DeFiSafety

Presently, Solana has only a single piece of software for its node operators, which DeFi Safety claims has not been audited since 2019. However, the report isn’t entirely negative as the watchdog has given the platform credit for aspects where it performs well.

Credit where it’s due, Solana has made significant strides in validation decentralisation. Thanks to an impressive program that incentivises many validators on other continents, Solana scores well on this point.

DeFi Safety Twitter – @DeFiSafety

More than 15 blockchains and 240 decentralised finance protocols have been reviewed by DeFi Safety so far. Ronin blockchain, Axie Infinity’s popular play-to-earn gaming platform, was ranked the worst. Ronin was hacked for US$625 million in March, in what was the biggest DeFi hack to date.

Solana’s Plagued Past

Heavy downtime has plagued Solana for some time, with several instances over past months inconveniencing users. On January 6, Solana crashed temporarily following a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack which caused massive transaction delays. Upsettingly, a second crash followed in the same week. Solana denied it was due to another potential DDoS attack, claiming the downtime was the result of an increase in high compute transactions.

Last month, Solana was down for seven hours after bots attacked ‘Candy Machine’, the platform’s NFT minting tool, causing four million transaction requests that the platform could not keep up with.