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| Hey Insider! Welcome back to the Inside Cryptocurrency newsletter! The week’s first issue covers some of the biggest stories hitting the headlines in the crypto market over the weekend and today, including the London Stock Exchange’s plans to launch a blockchain-powered trading platform for traditional assets, two Gala Games executives’ lawsuits against each other, the losses to crypto hacks and frauds in August, and more. Enjoy your reading, and if you find this newsletter useful, please do not forget to share it with your friends and colleagues! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | Colorado's Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has started accepting payments through crypto for residents who want to renew their driver's license or vehicle registration. The crypto payment option was added among other alternatives in collaboration with the digital payments infrastructure company PayPal. More: - The new option allows Coloradans to use digital assets while paying for motor vehicle services, including renewing the driver's license, identification card (ID), and vehicle registration.
- The DMV said the residents would be redirected to PayPal to execute the transaction.
- The crypto payment option charges payers a $1 service fee and another 1.83% fee of the total transaction cost, with additional PayPal fees.
- Once the residents pay sufficient cryptocurrency to cover the transaction cost and fees, the fund is converted to the U.S. dollar (USD) and transferred to the DMV.
- The DMV's Senior Director Electra Bustle pointed out that the new payment option offers customers innovative and convenient service delivery.
- PayPal currently supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and its own stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD).
Zoom Out: - In 2022, Colorado's Department of Revenue (CDOR) also began allowing residents to pay their taxes, including individual income tax, business income tax, sales tax, use tax, withholding tax, severance tax, and fuel excise tax, with digital assets.
- The move made Colorado the first U.S. state to accept cryptocurrencies for tax payments.
Q: Would you prefer to use the crypto payment option for official transactions? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | |  What the numbers say: A recent report from the blockchain security firm Immunefi has shown that the Exactly protocol became the crypto project experiencing the highest loss to hacks and frauds in August, with $7.3M. In the top five, Exactly was followed by Magnate Finance, Zunami Protocol, Steadefi, and Cypher, respectively. The report also noted that the combined amount of losses to crypto hacks and frauds was $23.36M last month. The figure brought the total losses across 211 incidents so far in 2023 to over $1.24B. Besides, the top five attacks with the highest losses accounted for 77% of funds lost in August.
Relevance: Conversely, the data compiled by the Web3 portfolio app De.Fi revealed that July witnessed the highest amount of funds lost in cyberattacks in 2023. In July, the crypto market experienced $389.8M of losses in attacks targeting decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. August's toll represents a nearly 94% decrease from the total loss experienced in the previous month. Brands that should care: Top losses in August mainly targeted Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, and Optimism blockchains. Coinbase's Ethereum-powered Layer-2 blockchain network, Base, hosted four projects with the most significant losses despite its short lifetime, while another four took place on Binance's BNB Chain. | | | |
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| 3 | | London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), a U.K.-based stock exchange company, has announced its plans to build a blockchain-powered trading platform for traditional financial assets. The firm's head of capital markets, Murray Roos, said they have been exploring the potential of bringing traditional assets to a blockchain-based venue for almost a year. More: - Roos added that they decided to move their plans related to blockchain technology forward.
- The LSEG executive underlined that the new platform would not involve cryptocurrencies but would use blockchain technology to increase the efficiency of buying, selling, and holding traditional assets.
- Roos also stated that the project would make the traditional asset trading process smoother, cheaper, and more transparent.
- The company has already started talks with regulators and officials to have the new platform regulated.
- LSEG also plans to form a separate entity to operate its blockchain-powered markets business.
- If the platform becomes successful, LSEG will be the first major global stock exchange to offer an end-to-end blockchain-powered ecosystem to investors.
Zoom Out: - In April, LSEG also announced its plans to offer Bitcoin futures and options in partnership with the digital trading platform Global Futures and Options (GFO-X).
- The new offering is expected to start in Q4 this year after receiving approval from regulators.
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| 4 | | Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has confirmed that its global head of product and design, Mayur Kamat, stepped down, joining other senior executives who departed their ways with Binance over the last several months. Kamat said he left Binance for personal reasons, adding that it is time to hand product leadership to Binance's next-generation leaders. More: - The former head of product also stated that he worked closely with product leads to ensure a seamless transition and would continue supporting Binance from the sidelines.
- Kamat joined the popular crypto exchange in April 2022 after working at giant tech companies such as Google and Microsoft.
- During Kamat's tenure at Binance, the platform's user base grew from 80 million to over 150 million with the help of new product launches.
- Kamat's departure came shortly after several senior executives of Binance left the company consecutively amid an increased regulatory crackdown on the exchange.
- The executives who recently departed from Binance include chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann, senior vice president (VP) for compliance Steven Christie, general counsel Hon Ng, chief business officer Yibo Ling, and Asia-Pacific (APAC) head Leon Foong.
Zoom Out: - Over the last several months, Binance faced increased scrutiny by regulators in many countries, including the U.S., Australia, Belgium, and France.
- The platform also recently withdrew from several markets in the West, such as Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the U.K., and Germany, mainly due to compliance issues.
- The heightened regulatory pressure forced the company to sunset some of its products, including Binance Card and Binance Connect, as project partners were looking to cut ties with the firm.
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| 5 | | Web3 gaming startup Gala Games' two co-founders have filed lawsuits against each other, causing a sudden decline in the company's native token GALA's price. In his lawsuit, the company CEO and co-founder Eric Schiermeyer alleged another co-founder, Wright Thurston, of stealing 8.6 billion GALA tokens in February 2021, more than 100% of the total amount of GALA in circulation at the time. More: - According to Schiermeyer's claims, they could not reveal the token theft since it would cause Thurston to liquidate his holdings, collapsing the GALA ecosystem.
- The company released a second version of GALA tokens in May this year to make the native tokens in wallets controlled by Thurston invalid.
- However, Thurston sold half of his GALA holdings for over $130M in profit on centralized exchanges by the time of the upgrade.
- Schiermeyer's case also accused Thurston of founding companies that ended up insolvent, bankrupt, or tied up in litigation.
- Besides, Schiermeyer said Thurston did not mostly take part in the operations of Gala and was virtually unreachable for many months.
- In response, Thurston alleged Schiermeyer of taking control of the firm to use company funds for personal purchases, including a private jet.
- Thurston also said Schiermeyer's mismanagement resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to Gala's reputation and company assets.
Zoom Out: - Schiermeyer and Thurston founded Gala Games jointly in early 2019 by receiving 50% ownership each.
- Earlier in 2023, Thurston was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of a lawsuit against Green United, another company he founded, with allegations of running an $18M crypto mining scam.
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| 6 | | Legendary soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo (CR7) recently went through a lie detector test, answering questions related to his football career and future plans for the digital collectibles. During the test, the lie detector confirmed that Ronaldo owns NFTs. More: - The famous soccer player also said he plans to release more NFTs in the future, which was also confirmed by the detector.
- Ronaldo released his first NFT collection in 2022 in collaboration with Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume.
- As part of a multi-year partnership with the exchange, the two also launched a second 29,000-piece NFT collection in July to celebrate Ronaldo's reign as the highest goal scorer in history.
- The collection's NFTs allow fans to own the goal numbers, access exclusive benefits, products, and rewards, interact with Ronaldo, and ensure access to all future NFT collections with the famous player.
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- Former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jay Clayton, has stated that the approval for the applications for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is inevitable.
- Seychelles-based crypto exchange OKX has announced that it is in the final stage before acquiring a virtual asset service provider license in Hong Kong.
- The number of digital wallets interacting with the Shiba Inu ecosystem's Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain network, Shibarium, has surpassed the 1 million mark.
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INSIDE CRYPTOCURRENCY LEADERBOARD (ALL-TIME) |
 | 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 Christopher Hachey | |
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