Author: Coindesk
A Canadian teen math prodigy who allegedly swiped $16 million in an exploit of a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol in October swore on Twitter to “fight to the death” in a legal “duel” over whether or not he should be permitted to keep the funds. Trouble is, he hasn’t shown up in court. On Wednesday a warrant was issued for 19-year-old Andean “Andy” Medjedovic to appear before an Ontario court. The warrant comes following Medjedovic’s failure to appear at an in-person hearing on Tuesday, though people familiar with the matter say he appeared at a virtual hearing last Friday. In…
El Salvador bought another 21 bitcoins to mark the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century, President Nayib Bukele said in a series of tweets on Tuesday night. Bukele said he made the purchase at 21:21:21, and pointed out that El Salvador’s land area is 21,000 square kilometers. The president posted a screenshot of the transactions, totalling just over $1 million, saying “got the receipt.” Before the purchase, El Salvador held 1,120 bitcoins in its treasury, Reuters reported on Oct. 27, which would bring its total now to 1,141 bitcoins. It plans to buy another $500 million worth of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market…
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, believes the contribution of central banks digital currencies (CBDCs) will be broadly positive to the crypto world, but warns issuers against isolating them from the broader ecosystem.876677 CBDCs are an “additional option”, which is usually better than not having one, CZ said in a blog post on Tuesday.“However, as governments and regulators look to create their own CBDCs, I caution them against their very walled-garden nature,” he wrote.CZ expects CBDCs to require consumers to ask for permission to use them for certain things, such as investing in projects in different countries. A…
Decentralized payments network Terra is now the second-largest blockchain for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in terms of total value locked (TVL). Terra, which is behind Ethereum, crossed Binance Smart Chain (BSC) this week. On Terra, 13 projects lock over $18.2 billion in value, data from analytics tool DeFiLlama show. That’s over $1.4 billion per protocol on average compared to an average of $73 million per protocol on BSC, which has $16.5 billion locked on 225 protocols. The figures are a near 42,000% increase compared to December 2020, when DeFi projects on Terra held a relatively smaller $42 million in value. Ethereum retains…
Imagine the public astonishment when, in the early 1920s, vending machines started dispensing soda into cups. Instead of going to the counter of a soda shop and ordering their favorite drink, thirsty customers could now use coins, push some buttons and, voilá, out came the beverage. As Nick Szabo quipped almost 25 years ago, these revolutionary automated machines can be seen as the ancestors of the applications and smart contracts now running on the Ethereum blockchain and enabling the rise of decentralized finance, or DeFi. In this sense, DeFi is like a full-line vending space where several automated machines, now digital, can be used…
Kraken Ventures raised $65 million for its first fund, which will invest in early-stage cryptocurrency and tech startups, the firm said in a press release on Friday. Kraken, the fourth largest crypto exchange by volume, in February launched an independent fund led by its former head of corporate development Brandon Gath.The new fund currently holds positions in the blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon, digital asset platform Anchorage and crypto database provider Messari, and more.Kraken Ventures said it will invest in financial infrastructure, Web3, decentralized finance (DeFi), consumer crypto protocols, artificial intelligence, and machine learning startups. The fund will target initial investments in the $500,000 -…
With the deadline to implement the travel rule looming, Japan’s cryptocurrency exchanges say that they are in negotiations with regulators to limit the rule’s scope to major tokens. The travel rule requires virtual asset service providers (VASPs), like Japan’s crypto exchanges, to share customer data on transactions above a certain threshold. The rule was recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization that sets standards for financial policy for the G7 and another 30 or so developed countries. In March of this year, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) requested virtual asset services providers to implement a framework to fulfill the travel…
When I think about culture, I think sex, drugs and rock and roll. Given that bitcoin found its first true use as a medium of exchange on popular (now-defunct) darknet market Silk Road, and the explosion of interest in music-geared NFTs and crypto brands, it’s safe to say crypto is becoming a cultural force. CoinDesk’s Layer 2 has a whole package on that theme running this week. But what of sex? Last summer, when OnlyFans decided to boot sex workers off its platform (basically used for holding intimate meetings between creators and fans) many made the call for the adult industry to embrace cryptocurrency. The site,…
Former U.S. Marine and 2018 candidate for South Carolina governor John Warren has started Gem Mining after raising over $200 million in institutional capital, according to a statement on Wednesday. The company claims its operations are 92% carbon neutral. Warren served four years on active duty as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. In 2018 he lost in the Republican primary run-off to be South Carolina’s governor.“Over the past 10 months, my partners and I have built an institutional-grade bitcoin mining company by purchasing the highest quality machines and partnering with industry-leading companies to host these machines,” said Warren, who serves as…