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| Here's your daily Inside Cryptocurrency briefing: - 👨⚖️ The Montenegrin Supreme Court postponing Do Kwon's extradition once more,
- 🔍 Google's native support for the Ethereum Name Service wallet balances,
- 🇪🇪 Estonia's upcoming regulations for crypto service providers, and more.
Enjoy your reading, and have a great weekend! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | Montenegrin prosecutors have filed an appeal to the High Court and Appellate Court's decision to extradite Do Kwon, the co-founder of the collapsed Terra ecosystem, to his native South Korea rather than the U.S., citing procedural errors in the decision process. Following the appeal, the nation's Supreme Court has placed a pause on the extradition, overturning earlier decisions from the two lower courts. More: - In their appeal, the prosecutors said both the High Court and Appellate Court mishandled the case by going beyond their authority to make a decision on the extradition, underlining that the exclusive right to the ultimate decision belongs to the Justice Minister.
- The move has brought another interruption to the everlasting extradition process of the former crypto executive.
- Kwon was arrested at Podgorica Airport in Montenegro in March 2023 while trying to fly to Dubai carrying falsified traveling documents.
- Since his arrest, both the U.S. and South Korea have sought Kwon's extradition to try him on various charges, including fraud, securities law violations, deceiving investors, racket collecting, and building a Ponzi scheme.
- A Montenegrin appellate court recently confirmed the High Court's earlier decision to extradite Kwon to South Korea, citing that the country requested the co-founder's extradition before the U.S. officials.
- At the time, Kwon's legal team stated that they would no longer file any complaints, and the decision was considered a win for Kwon since his lawyers had previously expressed a preference for his home country.
- If it had not faced any appeal, the Appellate Court's decision could have seen Kwon extradited to South Korea as early as this weekend because his prison sentence in Montenegro for document forgery officially ends on March 23.
Zoom Out: - The multibillion-dollar Terra ecosystem collapsed in 2022 after the prices of its native tokens, Luna and TerraUSD, plummeted nearly to zero in May and lost all their value against the U.S. dollar (USD).
- The downfall caused over $60B to be wiped off the crypto market, triggering a prolonged crypto winter.
- Terraform Labs, the firm behind the ecosystem, filed for bankruptcy in January this year, reporting both assets and liabilities in the range of $100M to $500M.
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| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: A recent research report from the crypto data platform CoinGecko has revealed the top blockchain ecosystems by their popularity, analyzing the existing ecosystems' shares of the blockchain-specific global web traffic. Solana took the lead on the list by a wide margin, receiving a 49.29% share of the total interest. The network's closest rival, Ethereum, received only a 12.73% share of the cake. In the top 10, the two networks were followed by BNB Chain, Cosmos, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base, Sei, Sui, and Polygon, respectively. Relevance: The study has attributed the larger share of Solana to the overall success of the blockchain in 2023, which saw the network's native token, SOL, seeing the highs of 2021 for the first time again. The network became one of the most successful blockchains last year, achieving an exit from the downward trend created by the prolonged crypto winter of 2022. As a result of this success, SOL outperformed many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), in 2023, gaining more than 1,000% in value throughout the year. SOL's outperformance also positively impacted the prices of other Solana-based tokens, such as dogwifhat (WIF), Bonk (BONK), and Pyth (PYTH), causing investor confidence in the ecosystem to increase further. Brands that should care: On the other hand, the Solana network hit the headlines with partnerships with major brands, such as Google Cloud, Shopify, and Visa, several times in recent months due to its rising popularity and improvement level with essential upgrades. | | | |
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| 3 | | Search engine Google has started showing balances and details of crypto wallets linked to the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domains in search results, integrating the ENS data into its platform. The platform pointed out that the data is sourced from Ethereum block explorer Etherscan. More: - The integration allows users searching for an ENS domain on Google to see the balance of the wallet address associated with the domain and other specifics related to the wallet, including the time of the latest transaction.
- Google shows the wallet balance as of the last external transaction.
- The service has yet to be globally available.
- The ENS' former core team member, Brantly Millegan, said the feature works more consistently when the private browsing mode is used, or the users log out of Google services.
- The ENS lets users purchase a ".eth" domain that operates on Ethereum but does not work with commonly used internet tools like web browsers and email.
- This domain name ending with ".eth" replaces the complex and randomly generated letters and numbers of a standard Ethereum wallet address, converting them into more easily recognizable and readable words.
- The solution mainly aims to make it easier to transfer funds between two parties on the Ethereum network.
Zoom Out: - In May 2023, Google also introduced native support for Ethereum wallet balances, allowing users searching for an Ethereum wallet address to view the wallet's balance directly in the results.
- The latest integration has expanded this functionality to the ENS domains.
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| 4 | | OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's crypto project, Worldcoin, has recently open-sourced the core components of the software running the project's Orb devices, making them publicly available on GitHub. The team behind the project said the latest release includes all codes essential for the Orb's ability to capture images, scan irises, and securely transfer them to the app. More: - Worldcoin scans the irises of its users through biometric imaging devices dubbed the Orb, verifying them in person to prove their identity, humanness, and uniqueness securely and privately.
- In return, verified users receive a digital ID, which they can use to validate their identity across various games and apps, and free cryptocurrencies in the form of Worldcoin's native token, WLD.
- The project team pointed out that the publicly available software marks significant progress in creating transparency for the Orb devices.
- The firm also introduced a new feature dubbed Personal Custody to address concerns about data privacy.
- The new feature allows users to hold their biometric data, which was captured by the Orb to generate an iris code during the verification process, on their own personal devices and decide what to do with this data by themselves.
- Previously, users only had options to make the Orb immediately delete their biometric data after being verified as humans or allow Worldcoin to encrypt and store this data in secure data stores.
- Users choosing the Personal Custody option will always keep control of their data, and only the individual will be able to decrypt the biometric data.
- When the encrypted data is sent from the Orb to the app, no unencrypted copies of this data will exist anywhere.
Zoom Out: - Worldcoin's latest effort to boost transparency and data privacy came amid a time when the project faced scrutiny by data watchdogs in many countries, including Spain, the U.K., Hong Kong, France, Germany, Kenya, Argentina, South Korea, and Portugal, over data protection and privacy concerns.
- The project previously reiterated several times that it does not store the data once the Orbs generate a unique iris code, underlining that it complies with all laws and regulations governing personal data processing in the markets where it is available.
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| 5 | | The Estonian government has passed a new bill to regulate crypto asset service providers in the country. The proposed regulation is still subject to a vote by the Parliament of Estonia to become law. More: - If approved by the parliament, the new legislation will impose stricter operational and reporting requirements on crypto firms.
- The bill will also bring crypto service providers under the supervisory purview of the country's Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) as of 2026.
- Besides, the upcoming regulation will mandate digital asset firms to obtain a license from the FSA.
- The agency will start issuing the new licenses in 2025.
- Crypto service providers, including those already having a registration in the country, will have to apply for an FSA license by 2026.
- Currently, crypto firms are only subject to anti-money laundering (AML) regulations in Estonia and have to register with the nation's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to operate in the country.
- Fines for violating the AML laws can be up to 40,000 euros (~$43,450) in Estonia.
- However, the upcoming legislation will punish a potential violation with a fine of up to €5M ($5.2M), a significant increase from the existing fine.
Zoom Out: - Estonia's proposed regulations for crypto asset service providers came ahead of the European Union's (EU) region-wide crypto regulations, Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), which was approved in 2023 after three years of development.
- The law's provisions related to stablecoins will come into effect as of July 2024 in all 27 member states of the EU, including Estonia, while other aspects regarding the crypto asset service providers will enter into force as of January 2025.
- The proposed bill aims to make Estonian laws conform with the MiCA.
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| 6 | | Information Technology University (ITU) in Lahore, Pakistan, has announced that it will launch the country's first metaverse classes. The new online courses will aim to imitate the traditional classroom experience using virtual reality (VR) and motion-tracking technology. More: - The university's head of the Department of Computer Sciences, Ibrahim Ghaznavi, said the initiative will improve the academic abilities of students.
- The educational metaverse experience was developed in collaboration with the University of Denmark.
- The university scholars have also taken inspiration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while developing the program.
- The ITU had already introduced online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic, though the metaverse experience has been integrated into those courses through the recent move.
Zoom Out: - The ITU was founded in 2012 in Lahore to emulate MIT's success in technology and engineering.
- The university has various partnerships with several well-known universities and corporations, including Harvard University and IBM.
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- Asset management firm AllianceBernstein has forecasted that the price of Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, could hit $90,000 by the end of this year.
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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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