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Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy says the Near Foundation reneged on an offer to convert $11m million worth of its stablecoin. The NEAR Foundation and Aurora allegedly reneged on an offer to convert $11 million worth of USN stablecoin s, Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy has claimed. In a Nov. 7 X (Twitter) post, Gaevoy claimed NEAR refused to honor a commitment to facilitate the sale of $11.2 million worth of its stablecoin USN for the FTX estate. 3. Summary To reiterate, I see this situation very clearly as: - NF committed to backstop USN and earmarked money for it - Aurora accepted the redemption in August (and only last week backtracked on it) - NF decided they have the power to keep the $11M to themselves instead of… — wishful cynic (@EvgenyGaevoy) November 7, 2023 Gaevoy said Wintermute was working with FTX to liquidate its assets for creditors which included the sale of $11.2 million worth of USN. Gaevoy claimed Wintermute executed the transaction — whi...

On-chain analyst Yazan reports insider selling of PEPE holdings, with around 400 billion PEPE sold, aligning with Pauly’s team exposure. Former Pepecoin (PEPE) promoter turned crypto influencer Jeremy “Pauly” Cahen has leveled insider trading allegations against the Pepecoin team following the reported theft of around 16 trillion PEPE tokens. Pauly is now exposing team members’ identities, divulging their wallet activities. On-chain analysts also point to significant Pepecoin transactions involving insiders. In an Aug. 26 update, Pauly disclosed that the Pepecoin team possesses approximately $16–17 million in PEPE tokens distributed across nine wallets. Surprisingly, the insiders refrained from selling the holdings. Instead, they strategically offloaded PEPE from a centralized exchange (CEX) wallet, establishing a substantial short position. “I’ll likely be working with multiple branches of law enforcement to ensure that @degenharambe & the rest of his partners on the @pepecoine...

Czhang Lin said it’s important for universities to understand Web3 and guide students toward the right vision. Universities have a “critical” role to play in terms of nurturing the next generation of Web3 talent, and the academe must understand it to guide students toward the right vision, according to Czhang Lin, the CEO of Web3 venture fund LBank Labs.  On Aug 2, the venture capital firm announced the winners of its Summer Bootcamp competition for university students. Various participants from different academic institutions participated to win a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and mentorship opportunities from various crypto funds. We are thrilled to announce the winners of the Summer Bootcamp retreat hosted by LBank Labs in Cabo! 16 teams from around the globe were chosen out of 70+ applicants from top global universities @Harvard @MIT @DukeU @Stanford @Cornell @Penn @imperialcollege @itu1773en… — LBank Labs (@LBankLabs) August 2, 2023 In a statement sent to Cointelegraph, ...

Fernando Pérez Algaba reportedly ran a crypto trading business in Argentina and is suspected to have been murdered by a professional outfit. A missing cryptocurrency millionaire and Instagram influencer based in Argentina has turned up dead, with police suspecting murder after he was found dismembered in a suitcase. According to several local media reports, Fernando Pérez Algaba, a crypto trader and influencer, was suspected as missing on July 18 when he failed to return the keys to a rented apartment and answer his phone. His remains were found less than a week later on July 23 by a group of children in the town of Ingeniero Budge, a province of the Argentinian capital. One of the last images Algaba posted on his social media accounts. Source: Instagram The suitcase contained amputated legs and forearms, authorities discovered a torso on July 24 after draining the stream where the suitcase was found. A head was found in a backpack a day later on July 25. Analysis of fingerprints and...

“What could go wrong?” Decentralized ID protocol Worldcoin has launched, receiving mixed takes from the cryptocurrency community. The launch of blockchain-based digital passport platform Worldcoin has had a polarizing effect on the cryptocurrency community , with questions around its centralization, privacy and security highlighted. Worldcoin released its protocol token on July 24, with major exchanges like Binance announcing support for the token. The project consists of a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) and its associated ecosystem token (WLD) which users receive upon creation of a wallet. The Worldcoin project is now live. pic.twitter.com/xZXG4w56Ps — Worldcoin (@worldcoin) July 24, 2023 In order for users to join the ecosystem, they have to provide a scan of their iris through one of Worldcoin’s specialized Orb hardware devices. This step provides proof-of-personhood that is cryptographically secured and used as a World ID,  Worldcoin founders Alex Blania a...

According to cLabs, the Celo transition would include leveraging OP Stack as the architecture to become an Ethereum L2 blockchain. CLabs, the organization responsible for developing the Celo blockchain, is seeking to return to the Ethereum ecosystem by transitioning from an independent EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum layer-2 solution.  According to a proposal discussion on Celo's governance forum, the transition would include leveraging OP Stack as the architecture to become an Ethereum L2 blockchain, eliminating the need to monitor tooling and libraries composability through upgrades, thus "making it easy for Celo developers to utilize the full gambit of Ethereum tooling/libraries." Other key differentiating factors would include an off-chain data availability layer operated by Ethereum node operators and protected by restaked Ether (ETH), along with transforming current validators into decentralized sequencers for L2. Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchains d...

The South Korean yield platform said it has filed a criminal complaint against B&S Holdings and plans to initiate civil proceedings as well. B&S Holdings, formerly known as Aventus, a consignment operator , has been alleged by South Korean yield platform Haru Invest of submitting fraudulent management reports containing “false information” and deceiving the company and its users. Notice to Investors (June 14, 2023): https://t.co/RN01gswTfq pic.twitter.com/IbYb9dA3oP — Haru Invest (@haruinvest) June 14, 2023 In a blog post, Haru Invest shared that it was planning to pursue legal action on top of criminal proceedings against B&S Holdings “to protect our users." Haru Invest said it is engaged in discussions with B&S Holdings regarding the matter. The company concluded its announcement with an apology, stating: “Once again, we apologize for causing concerns and inconveniences to our investors and customers. We will continue to work on the issue in a faithful mann...

This NFT data analytics platform harnesses the power of decentralization and active user participation to improve the NFT space. In a digital world, companies, organizations and influencers are leveraging the latest technologies and practices to get closer to their communities in a more direct way. Digital tokens and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) bring even more Features to make this happen. Blockchain-based tokens, especially NFTs, can be used to create new experiences to drive community engagement in Web3 and develop a sense of belonging. This can be a game-changer for brand managers, digital artists, influencers and any entity with an online presence. Previously, initial coin offerings (ICOs) were the first choice to build communities around blockchain projects. However, the high prevalence of scams has compromised this fundraising approach. To avoid a similar fate, the NFTs space needs to stay away from scams and price manipulation. With specialized services like bitsCrunch, NFTs ar...

Sabin Dima, the CEO and founder of Humans.Ai, said that with the right implementation, governments could use AI to enhance public services and policies. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a talking point for governments and thought leaders worldwide since ChatGPT emerged in late November 2022. While some question the ramifications of AI becoming a mainstay in society, others are embracing the technology head-on. Recently, the Romanian government unveiled a new AI chatbot, Ion, create d to ​​source community concerns and opinions to develop policy recommendations based on collected data. Cointelegraph spoke with Sabin Dima, the founder and CEO of Humans.ai — the company behind Ion — to better understand what government integration of AI could mean for the communities it serves. Dima started by highlighting the strength of AI, comparing it with nuclear power in the sense that it can “be either an atomic bomb or a nuclear plant, depending on the framework.” “The potential benefits of ...

The Solana Foundation has launched a real-time carbon emissions tracker to monitor the Solana blockchain. The Solana Foundation, in collaboration with Data platform Try carbon ara, announced the launch of a real-time tracking dashboard to measure carbon emissions on the Solana block chain .  1/ Today, the Solana Foundation is leading the charge in the climate fight by making Solana one of the first blockchains to have its emissions measured in real time, thanks to a new data portal created with TryCarbonara. Learn more: https://t.co/k4QsZmtjHn pic.twitter.com/gqPwpKtv3u — Solana (@solana) April 21, 2023 According to a blog post from the foundation, this represents the first “major smart-contract blockchain” to measure carbon emissions in real-time. The organization hopes this will spur a trend towards carbon emissions transparency in the blockchain ecosystem: “The Solana Foundation hopes to set a new standard for measuring emissions in blockchain by publishing this data.” The n...

If initial tests are successful, the firms will expand their activities into tokenized credit issuance and equities. Financial market firms T. Rowe Price Associates, WisdomTree, Wellington Management, and Cumberland have joined an Avalanche (AVAX) subnet to test the idea of blockchain-based foreign exchange, according to an announcement from the Avalanche team. The new subnet is called “Spruce,” and is part of Avalanche’s Evergreen Subnet ecosystem. Following last week’s Avalanche Evergreen announcement, today marks the launch of the Spruce Subnet! Institutional partners including @TRowePrice, @WisdomTreeFunds, @Wellington_Mgmt & @CumberlandSays will use Spruce to test public blockchain applications. https://t.co/1KLzxcUCSB pic.twitter.com/xvaUmKO3BV — Avalanche (@Avax) April 12, 2023 According to the announcement, institutions will initially use “valueless tokens” on Spruce to ensure they can conduct foreign exchange, or forex, transactions without losing capital. Inter...

There is no technical reason preventing Russia from creating its own blockchain-based system, blockchain provider Fuse Network's CEO believes. The adoption of Blockchain is the right direction for Russia to solve its current settlement issues , according to an executive at Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. Blockchain technology has matured over the past few years to offer new capabilities that potentially enable Russia to create more efficient payment systems, Sberbank’s first deputy chairman Alexander Vedyakhin said. On March 14, Vedyakhin took part in the meeting of Russia’s Federation Council on the budget and financial markets committee, highlighting the promising future of Blockchain in Russia, the local news agency Interfax reported. According to Vedyakhin, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a great foundation for a new payment system due to its decentralized nature and privacy-enabling features. He stated: “Because it’s a distributed ledger, there is no single point...

A Swiss-based company has patented three card pack models that promote wallet security without the vulnerability of manually securing a seed phrase. Part of the fear that first-time users experience when using cryptocurrencies is the security of their assets. Unlike fiat currency, which can be stored in a physical wallet, digital currencies must be held in the lesser-known digital wallet. What’s more, with the growing adoption of blockchain technologies, hackers are finding digital wallets an increasingly appealing target. Unfortunately, when it comes to security, cryptocurrency users must learn not only how to protect their assets, but also ensure that their passwords and mnemonic phrases aren’t lost or stolen. By definition, a mnemonic phrase — also known as a seed phrase — is the simplest way to recover a lost private key. The multi-word secret recovery phrase then becomes the master key that generates all the private keys for users’ wallets, which provides access to their crypto f...

After a network-wide slowdown left users frantic, Solana released plans to improve its latest network upgrade. The Solana network experienced a noticeable slowdown in block production after its most recent 1.14 network update on Feb. 25, as it went into reset mode. As an immediate response to transaction disruptions, validators downgraded the software to up performance levels. However, on Feb. 28, Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder and CEO of Solana Labs, released another statement as to how the ecosystem plans to improve its recent network upgrades. The major focus of the plan is on stability as the network continues its transition.  2022 priorities were shipping new Features and new tools. 2023 is stability. Tldr 1/3 of core eng is going to be focused on stability and adversarial testing. Here’s my thoughts. https://t.co/Z6pR9hhYbP — toly (@aeyakovenko) March 1, 2023 The statement laid out a 6-step plan for engineers to follow to help streamline the process and revealed that a...

"We urge @CamelotDEX delete any information related to @OnchainTrade from all of your platforms as soon as possible," wrote OnChain developers. In a dispute that originated Feb. 22, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) Onchain Trade and Camelot terminated an agreement for the former's initial fair offering (IFO), with both firms alleging that the opposing counterparty acted in bad faith. An IFO, whilst still an emerging concept, typically involves promises made by developers consisting of no venture capitalist involvement, no whitelist, no presale, and vast majority of income going to token holders, on top of a traditional initial coin offering.  As told by Onchain, developers began negotiations with Camelot for an IFO, for which the latter charged a fee of 2%, and both parties agreed upon the amount. In addition, Camelot required that Onchain exclusively sell tokens on its platform, to which Onchain also agreed. However, at this point, Onchain alleged that Camelot became ...

peaking in Singapore, Agustín Carstens described a ledger that would accommodate a variety of public and private projects in discrete but connectable parts. General manager of the Bank for International Settlements Agustín Carstens spoke at the Singapore FinTech Festival on Feb. 22 and described the digital financial infrastructure he believes would best suit central bankers’ needs. He called that infrastructure a “unified ledger.” Carstens compared the theoretical unified ledger with a smartphone, saying they both work seamlessly with a variety of components. Unlike a smartphone, a unified ledger would have open architecture, however, and would show programmability and composability, that it, it would run and bundle smart contracts. There are over 2 million apps available to smartphone users , Carstens noted. He said: “A unified ledger is a digital infrastructure with the potential to combine the monetary system with other registries of real and financial claims.” A unified ledg...

Stay up-to-date on what’s happening in crypto, digital asset markets and traditional markets by tuning in to Cointelegraph Markets and Research’s dedicated series of shows. Cointelegraph is proud to announce the launch of the Cointelegraph Markets and Research YouTube channel , a place that will hopefully become every trader’s first stop for breaking markets news, insights and alpha from Cointelegraph’s team of experts and guest analysts from the crypto industry.  The Cointelegraph Markets and Research channel features three unique shows — The Market Report, Market Talks and Macro Markets — which stream live weekly at 12:00 pm Eastern Time (5:00 pm UTC) on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, respectively. The Market Report  Every Tuesday at 12:00 pm ET (5:00 pm UTC), Bitcoin (BTC) evangelist Joe Hall hosts The Market Report, a weekly market update and analysis livestream featuring two of Cointelegraph’s resident experts, analyst and writer Marcel Pechman and business editor Sam Bourgi...

Smaller-scale esports organizations have started using blockchain tech for distributing prize pools, but the tech is yet to be adopted by the big tournament organizers. Small esports tournament organizers have started dabbling in blockchain tech to host tournaments and distribute prize pools. However, don’t expect to see it in the big leagues just yet, says an investor. Esports, or electronic sports, is a form of organized competition via video games. Players sometimes referred to as esports athletes usually compete for prize money either individually or as a team. Dave Harris, managing director of esports investment firm Guinevere Capital, told Cointelegraph that he has begun seeing blockchain being used in amateur gaming competitions. In his opinion, however, it will take more time before the big titles and professional tournaments will consider adopting the tech. “There are certainly a lot of places this technology can or is being used in esports, but it will take time for mass ado...

Observers can learn a few things from the failed effort by IBM and Moller-Maersk to develop TradeLens, a blockchain-enabled global trading platform. Blockchain projects continue to experience failure rates in excess of 90%, and it seems that with every passing moment, more and more “successful” companies add their underperforming blockchain project to the graveyard. One of the most recent blockchain failure victims was Moller-Maersk, which recently announced the termination of its highly publicized TradeLens offering — a global trade platform built on IBM blockchain technology.  These failures, however, were totally predictable and, in many cases, would be avoidable if companies more closely observed certain lessons in innovation diffusion. Lesson 1: Innovation is not monolithic. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is to treat innovation as a monolithic concept. Innovation is anything but monolithic. Unfortunately, business associations, business press and business schools ...

A number of industry pundits believe the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control’s threat to impose sanctions has victims thinking twice about paying up. Ransomware victims have seemingly had enough of the extortion, with ransomware revenues for attackers plummeting 40% to $456.8 million in 2022. Blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis shared the data in a Jan. 19 report, noting that the figures don’t necessarily mean the number of attacks is down from the previous year. Instead, Chainalysis noted that companies have been forced to tighten cybersecurity measures, while ransom victims have been increasingly unwilling to pay attackers their demands. Total value extorted by ransomware attackers between 2017 and 2022. Source: Chainalysis. The findings formed part of Chainalysis’ 2023 Crypto Crime Report. Last year, revenue from Ransomware was a whopping $602 million at the time of the 2022 report, which was later tipped up to $766 million. Chainalysis added that the nature of blockchain m...