| |
| Hey Insider! Welcome back to the Inside Cryptocurrency newsletter! Today's issue covers some of the biggest stories hitting the headlines in the crypto market today, including the Fed's new program aimed to increase supervision on banks engaging in crypto activities, a class-action lawsuit against the VC firms that invested in FTX, Microsoft's partnership with Aptos Labs, and more. Enjoy your reading, and if you find this newsletter useful, do not forget to share it with your friends and colleagues! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | The Federal Reserve (Fed), the U.S. central banking system, announced that it would start implementing guidelines under its new Novel Activities Supervision Program to increase its oversight of the state banks involved in crypto activities. The agency said the new program would focus on crypto, distributed ledger technology (DLT), and partnerships with nonbank institutions to offer new financial services. More: - The Fed stated that unique questions and challenges created by innovation in traditional financial (TradFi) institutions may not sometimes be sufficiently addressed by existing supervisory approaches.
- The bank cited concerns about these challenges while explaining the root of the new guidelines.
- The agency also added that state banks involved in these novel financial activities would not be treated with a different supervisory approach but with clarified rules in the existing guidelines.
- The new supervisory program mainly aims to ensure that the regulations and oversight allow for innovations while protecting customers, banks, and financial stability.
- The program also requires banks looking to issue, hold, or transact stablecoins to implement risk management practices for cybersecurity, liquidity, consumer compliance, and illicit finance risks and to receive written supervisory approval from Fed before engaging in stablecoin activities.
|     | |
| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: The data compiled by the Web3 portfolio app De.Fi shows that the crypto market experienced $389.8M of funds lost in the attacks targeting decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms in July. The figure, which is $73M higher than the previous peak in March, made July the month with the largest losses in 2023. The amount has also taken the total losses since the beginning of the year to $964.29M. Relevance: On the other hand, an earlier report from the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis pointed out that July became the month with the least amount of funds lost in DeFi attacks in 2022, with only $34.3M. This year's data, however, painted an entirely opposite picture, with July taking the first seat in the amount of losses. Brands that should care: The top five attacks of July 2023 targeted Multichain, Vyper Compiler, BALD token, AlphaPo, and Poly Network. These attacks accounted for more than 85% of the total amount of loss last month. | | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Virtuix. |  | | Remember when your parents said video games were a waste of time? Well, jokeʼs on them. Thatʼs because the gaming industryʼs estimated 2.5x growth potential is creating the perfect opportunity for you to invest in Virtuix. Virtuixʼs omni-directional treadmills revolutionize gaming by letting players walk, run, crouch, and jump 360 degrees inside popular games and virtual worlds. In fact, itʼs been such a hit that they’ve already sold over $16M worth of products to companies like Dave & Busterʼs while building a community of 300k+ registered players. Now Virtuix is ready to scale massively by bringing their ultimate gaming experience to millions of homes. Invest in Virtuix by Aug. 10 to be a part of the future of gaming. Learn More | |
|
| 3 | | A class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has named 18 venture capital (VC) firms, including Temasek Holdings, Sequoia Capital, and Softbank, as defendants for their ties with the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. The lawsuit accused the defendants of aiding FTX's multi-billion dollar frauds using their power, influence, and money. More: - The plaintiffs pointed out that FTX was able to violate securities laws and steal customer funds even though the VC firms claimed that it passed their due diligence checks.
- The class-action suit also stated that the defendants aided and abetted FTX's fraud for their own financial and professional gains.
- FTX/s fall from the third-largest crypto exchange to bankruptcy caused reputational and financial damage to the VC firms with investment in the exchange.
- The damage forced some of these firms, including Temasek Holdings and Sequoia Capital, to make moves to compensate for their losses.
- In May, Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek cut salaries for its executives who recommended investing in FTX after an internal review.
- U.S.-based Sequoia Capital also recently parted ways with two leading crypto-focused investors and downsized its cryptocurrency fund to $200M from the previously-allocated $585M.
Zoom Out: - FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022, with all the 130 entities under the roof of FTX Group.
- The downfall followed the claims that the former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) used customer funds in FTX to compensate for losses at sister company Alameda Research.
| | | |
| 4 | | Luxembourg-based Bitstamp, one of the oldest crypto exchanges, has announced that it would suspend trading for seven tokens in the U.S. as of Aug. 29. The tokens affected by the decision include Axie Infinity (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ), Decentraland (MANA), Polygon (MATIC), NEAR Protocol (NEAR), The Sandbox (SAND), and Solana (SOL). More: - The firm cited the dynamic regulatory environment in the U.S. and recent developments while explaining the suspension.
- Users in the U.S. will not be able to buy and trade these seven tokens after Aug. 29.
- However, the platform will allow U.S. customers to continue to hold them in their accounts and withdraw at any time.
- The move came a month after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed two consecutive lawsuits against major crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, over alleged U.S. securities law violations.
- In the lawsuits, the agency labeled more than a dozen tokens listed on these exchanges, including the seven tokens suspended by Bitstamp, as unregistered securities.
Zoom Out: - The SEC's move caused several other trading platforms, including Revolut, eToro, and Robinhood, to delist some of the tokens mentioned in the lawsuits.
- Within the last several months alone, many crypto exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, and Bittrex, faced increased scrutiny by U.S. regulators.
| | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Vanta. |  | | Save 300+ hours of compliance work (and claim your $1000 discount) Vanta is the first ever enterprise-ready trust management platform – one place to: - Automate compliance workflows
- Centralize and scale your security program
- Build and manage trust with customers and partners
Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and more — getting you audit-ready in weeks and saving you significant costs (up to 85%). Vanta scales with your business, helping you successfully enter new markets, land bigger deals, and earn customers' loyalty. Over 5000 fast-growing companies around the world trust Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real-time. As a special offer, Inside readers get $1000 off Vanta. Claim your discount | |
|
| 5 | | The U.S.-based tech giant Microsoft has partnered with Aptos Labs, the blockchain project founded by former Facebook employees, to provide the necessary infrastructure for new AI-based blockchain solutions. As part of the collaboration, Aptos Labs will use Microsoft's AI technologies to expand its tools and services. More: - The partnership will also see Aptos Labs developing new offerings that combine AI and blockchain using Microsoft's infrastructure.
- The offerings expected to be born out of the collaboration include the Aptos Assistant chatbot powered by Microsoft's Azure Open AI Service.
- Users will be able to ask the chatbot questions about the Aptos ecosystem, and developers will be able to access helpful resources through Aptos Assistant while building smart contracts and decentralized apps (dApps) on the network.
- Within the scope of the collaboration, Aptos Labs will also integrate its native programming language, Move, into Microsoft-owned Github's AI programming tool, Copilot.
- Besides, the two companies will jointly explore new financial solutions, such as asset tokenization, digital payments, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), to expand the use cases of blockchain.
- Further, Microsoft Azure will start hosting validator nodes run by Aptos Labs to improve the security of the network.
- General manager of AI and emerging technologies at Microsoft, Rashmi Misra, said the partnership aims to democratize the use of blockchain by allowing users to seamlessly onboard Web3 and developers to build new exciting dApps utilizing AI.
| | | |
| 6 | | In a recent interview with Wired, Canadian musician, singer, and producer Grimes, most famous for her former relationship with Elon Musk, stated that she earned more money through NFTs than her entire music career. During the interview, the famous musician also said she is sad about NFTs and crypto getting polluted fast only because of people trying to make as much money as possible. More: - The musician mentioned the decline in the NFT royalty payments in her interview, saying she believes that digital artists and creators could one day earn profits on their works.
- Grimes launched her first NFT collection, War Nymph, on the NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway in 2021, having the wind of the NFT trend at her back like many other celebrities.
- The collection generated around $6M in revenue, and a certain amount of the proceeds was donated to a nongovernmental organization (NGO) dubbed Carbon 180 aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
- The War Nymph NFTs featured a series of digital artworks themed with her music, including a unique music video that sold for approximately $400,000.
| | | |
| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Wiz partnered with Wiley to create the AWS Security Foundations Guide For Dummies. This free 46-page guide includes techniques for securing AWS resources.*
- Ryan Salame, former co-CEO of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has reportedly started negotiations with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to charges stemming from the exchange's collapse.
- The Bank of Russia (BoR), the Russian central bank, has announced that it would begin piloting its central bank digital currency (CBDC), or the digital ruble, with consumers on Aug. 15.
- Crypto e-commerce platform Bitrefill has partnered with eSIM Go to allow customers to buy eSIMs using crypto in 140 countries worldwide.
- Join over 5,000 fast-growing companies around the world that trust Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. Inside readers get $1,000 off.*
*This is a sponsored post. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | AUG
5 | | Learn about streamlining SOC 2 compliance with Vanta and AWS. Join the webinar on Aug 17.* | | | | | | | OCT
4 | | Join this free hybrid event in Amsterdam and you'll hear from industry experts at Meta, Opera, AdGuard, Mozilla, Google, and more.* | | | | | | | OCT
16 | | Meet Our Fund 5, Building and Investing in AI | | | | | | | NOV
7 | | Join 300+ CCOs and senior leaders from Amex, Verizon, Hilton, Wells Fargo and more at Reuters Events: Customer Service & Experience East 2023.* | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
Term of the Day Long-tail keyword: A long-tail keyword is a targeted search term used in search engine optimization (SEO) that's more specific and longer than traditional keywords. Question of the Week Do you think the 9-to-5 workday still relevant in today's modern workplace? Join the conversation |
INSIDE CRYPTOCURRENCY LEADERBOARD (30 DAYS) |
 | Staff Writer | | Doga is a tech and science editor who has been writing news for nearly 10 years. She worked for leading tech platforms and mainstrem media channels as an editor and presenter throughout his career. Then, she carried her know-how to more than one platform. She is a part-time cat lover and binge-watcher, and also fond of science, space, and emerging tech. She always has a story to tell. She is a bit addict to the laughter and -unfortunately- the '90s culture. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
| |
 | Invest in Virtuix before this opportunity ends on August 10. | |
|
| |
|
| |
Comments
Post a Comment