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| Take a look at the hits from today's Inside Cryptocurrency briefing: - 💎 Binance's new VIP initiative aimed to attract investors from traditional finance,
- ⚠️ Coinbase's temporary outage amid a broader crypto market rally,
- 💰 Former FTX employee-led Backpack's new $17M funding, and more.
Enjoy your reading! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has launched a new VIP initiative to attract more investors from traditional finance (TradFi) to its platform. The initiative will allow traders to apply for Binance's VIP program using their aggregated trading volume of both cryptocurrencies and traditional assets. More: - Previously, Binance accepted only users who trade at least $1M of crypto on its platform every month to its VIP program.
- The initiative will now let new users, whose aggregated monthly trading volume combined both crypto and traditional assets from up to two trading platforms outside Binance stand at $1M, become VIP customers.
- Binance's head of VIP and institutional, Catherine Chen, said the successful launch of recently approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. and the high inflows to these products demonstrate there is clear market demand for cryptocurrencies.
- Chen added that the massive investor interest in spot Bitcoin ETFs also shows that the gaps between traditional assets and crypto assets are closing.
- The Binance official underlined that their latest VIP program aims to help users with high trading volumes from TradFi reduce their entry barriers to the crypto market.
Zoom Out: - Binance offers its VIP customers a range of exclusive benefits and privileges, including discounted trading fees, bespoke products, special invitations to industry campaigns and events, and priority customer support.
- The latest initiative came at a time when Binance experienced a decline in its share in the crypto derivatives market for seven consecutive months while its market share in spot crypto trading continued to surge.
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| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: The blockchain project The Open Network's native token, Toncoin (TON), suddenly jumped by 32% in value on Wednesday. The token's price reached as much as $2.85, up from the $2.15 level a few hours earlier. The popular cryptocurrency later started hovering around $2.60 after a few ups and downs, though it did not return to the low levels seen in the previous day. Relevance: The Open Network (TON) was initially developed by the instant messaging app Telegram as the platform's first big step toward Web3. However, the firm had to abandon the project in 2020 after a legal conflict with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The network is currently run by the TON Foundation, an open-source project embodying community members. The price increase in Toncoin came shortly after Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, announced that Telegram will soon start sharing its ad revenue with users who are channel owners. In his announcement, Durov underlined that all payments and withdrawals will be exclusively settled on the TON blockchain. Telegram's founder added that the Telegram Ad Platform built on TON will officially open to all advertisers in over 100 countries in March, pointing out that channel owners in these countries will be able to receive 50% of all advertising revenue that Telegram generates by displaying ads in their channels. Durov also stated that content creators will have the option to either cash out their Toncoins or reinvest them in promoting their channels. Brands that should care: In April 2022, the TON ecosystem raised $250M in funding in a financing round to support projects built on its network. The round saw participation from several high-profile investors, such as the venture capital (VC) arms of the crypto exchanges KuCoin and Huobi, which was rebranded to HTX in September last year. | | | |
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| 3 | | Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, temporarily crashed on Wednesday amid a strong price rally in the crypto market. The issue caused some users to see zero balances in their Coinbase accounts, and issue reports were over 9,000. More: - At the time, Coinbase CEO said the platform was dealing with a large surge in traffic through a post shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
- Meanwhile, Coinbase also made an official statement, ensuring that all user funds were safe and that its team was working on resolving the display issue.
- The platform later fixed the issue, stating that all services on its website have been restored, and very few customers may still see an inaccurate balance on their accounts.
- The outage on the platform came right after Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, surpassed $60,000 for the first time in over two years.
- The upward trend in Bitcoin also triggered a broader market rally, causing other leading cryptocurrencies, such as Ether (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE), to see strong price surges.
- After touching $60,000, Bitcoin maintained its upward trend and reached as much as $63,913.
- The last time Bitcoin surpassed $63,000 was in November 2021, when the popular cryptocurrency also reached its all-time high of around $69,000.
Zoom Out: - The massive price increase in Bitcoin was mainly triggered by the huge investor interest in recently launched spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S., which saw a record $7.69B daily trading volume on Wednesday.
- The upcoming halving event on the Bitcoin blockchain network, which would decrease miners' Bitcoin mining reward by half and reduce the number of new bitcoins entering the network by 50%, also became one of the main igniters of the price rally.
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| 4 | | The U.S.-based crypto exchange Gemini has agreed to return at least $1.1B to customers of Gemini Earn, its joint crypto lending program operated with the bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global, to settle the charges of the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). As part of the settlement deal, the firm will also pay a $37M fine to the U.S. state's financial market regulator. More: - Gemini also pledged to contribute $40M to the conclusion of Genesis Global's bankruptcy for the benefit of Earn customers.
- The Gemini Earn service, launched in 2021, allowed more than 200,000 Gemini users to lend their crypto assets to Genesis to earn interest.
- However, the joint program was halted following Genesis Global's bankruptcy, causing some customer funds to be stuck.
- The NYDFS Superintendent, Adrienne A. Harris, said Gemini failed to monitor and conduct due diligence on Genesis Global during the lifetime of the Earn program and to maintain adequate reserves.
- The NYDFS also stated that Gemini engaged in unsafe and unsound practices threatening the company's financial health in addition to its practices related to the Earn program, pointing out that it found various compliance and management deficiencies in its investigation.
- Gemini said all Earn users will receive 100% of their funds back under the settlement deal if the bankruptcy of Genesis Global is approved by the court.
- The NYDFS underlined that it has the right to bring further action against Gemini if it does not fulfill its obligation to repay $1.1B to the Earn customers.
Zoom Out: - Genesis Global filed for bankruptcy in January last year after freezing withdrawals in November 2022, mainly due to its exposure to the collapses of the crypto exchange FTX and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC).
- The two firms also previously faced lawsuits by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the New York Attorney General (NYAG) in the U.S. over the Gemini Earn product.
- Gemini itself similarly sued Genesis Global's parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), and its CEO, Barry Silbert, in July 2023 over the failure of the Earn program, accusing them of fraud and deception.
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| 5 | | Backpack, a new crypto exchange launched by former employees of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research, has raised $17M in funding in an investment round led by crypto-focused venture capital (VC) firm Placeholder VC. The funding increased Backpack's valuation to $120M. More: - The financing round saw participation from Wintermute, Robot Ventures, Selini Capital, and Amber Group.
- Backpack also offers a crypto wallet and an NFT collection dubbed Mad Lads.
- The exchange, launched in October 2023, obtained a virtual asset service provider license in Dubai and recently started its operations in 11 U.S. states.
- The platform currently has more than 420,000 verified users worldwide, and most of its users are Chinese-speaking.
- The platform's co-founder and CEO, Armani Ferrante, was an early employee of Alameda Research and one of the key developers of the Solana blockchain network.
- Ex-FTX employees make up five of the firm's 40-person workforce, including FTX's former general counsel Can Sun, former FTX employee Claire Zhang, and former FTX US employee Tristan Yver.
- Ferrante said creating a crypto exchange today is very different than a year or two years ago, underlining that it became much harder following FTX's collapse.
Zoom Out: - Armani Ferrante studied computer science at the University of California and entered the crypto space when he met the former FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), and joined Alameda Research for a brief period to work on the firm's trading system.
- FTX, previously the third-largest crypto exchange, 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 SBF used customer funds in FTX to compensate for losses at Alameda Research.
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| 6 | | A 23-year-old crypto investor, Dadvan Yousuf, has announced his plans to plant an orange flag with the logo of Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, at the peak of Mount Everest. Yousuf said the move aims to raise awareness of the global disparity in access to financial education. More: - Yousuf plans to climb Everest sometime between April and May and plant the flag after reaching the summit at 8,849 meters.
- The crypto user purchased roughly $340 worth of Bitcoin in 2011 and later also invested in Ether (ETH) and NFTs.
- Iraq-born investor currently operates a business in Dubai, and his net worth stood at over $300M in January 2022.
- Yousuf said Bitcoin has fundamentally changed his life since its entry.
- Bitcoin investor also pointed out that he is committed to leaving no trace behind, taking the flag back to base camp to combat the trash problem on Everest stemming from climbers discarding their loads, like oxygen tanks, food, and camping supplies, after reaching the peak.
- The crypto user added that preserving Everest's pristine environment is crucial to him, and he will ensure that he leaves minimal impact and only footprints behind him.
Zoom Out: - Everest is the world's highest mountain above sea level.
- In 2023 alone, 18 people died while trying to reach the top of the world since they were unprepared for the harsh conditions at the peak.
- Many of those losing their lives were hiking at altitudes above 8,000 meters in the areas known as the death zone.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Business Owners who took Visa or Mastercard from Jan. 1, 2004, to Jan. 25, 2019, apply to see if you are entitled to a portion of a $5.6B payout.*
- The U.S. Department of Justice's bankruptcy unit has selected Robert J. Cleary, a former federal prosecutor who led the government's case against the Unabomber, as the examiner who would conduct a new outside investigation of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.
- The U.S.-based crypto mining firm Marathon Digital has announced that it started developing a multichain Layer-2 Bitcoin scaling network dubbed Anduro.
- El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has stated that the value of the Central American country's Bitcoin (BTC) holdings surged by 40%.
- Uncover the trends shaping the business landscape in 2024. From building trust to leveraging tech, our report shares crucial developments for success.*
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 | 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 | |
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