| Here's your daily Inside Cryptocurrency briefing: - ⚖️ U.S. prosecutors' plans to continue to seek extradition of Do Kwon,
- ✈️ Travala.com's new Bitcoin cashback program,
- 📈 The Athens Stock Exchange's fundraising tool on the Sui blockchain network, and more.
Enjoy your reading, and have a great weekend! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has stated that its prosecutors will continue to seek the extradition of Do Kwon, the co-founder of the collapsed Terra ecosystem, despite a Montenegrin High Court's recent decision to extradite the former crypto executive to his native South Korea. The DOJ's statement pointed out that U.S. prosecutors expect the extradition to comply with relevant international and bilateral agreements and Montenegrin law, underlining that they would appreciate the cooperation of the authorities in Montenegro. More: - 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.
- Neither country has a direct extradition treaty with Montenegro.
- Montenegrin courts previously ordered Kwon to be extradited to the U.S. several times.
- However, these orders were overturned by the appellate court, which accepted appeals filed by the lawyers for Kwon.
- Most recently, a Montenegrin court ruled that the Terra co-founder will be extradited to South Korea, which can be considered a win for Kwon since his lawyers previously expressed a preference for his home country.
- Shortly before the ruling, South Korea's National Police Agency and Ministry of Justice asked for assistance from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in extraditing Do Kwon to South Korea, citing that they requested Kwon's extradition first, ahead of the U.S. officials.
- Kwon's lawyers stated that the co-founder will probably be extradited to South Korea after he finishes his four-month prison sentence for document forgery in Montenegro 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: The price of Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, hit a 27-month high on Friday, momentarily touching $4,000. The last time the token reached this level was in December 2021. The popular cryptocurrency has experienced a strong price surge over the past 24 hours, increasing by 4% from $3,835 a day earlier. The latest jump was also considered a signal that Ether's price is coming closer to a new all-time high, though it is still nearly 20% below its price record of $4,891 in November 2021. After touching $4,000, the token saw a slight price decline and started hovering around the $3,900 level. Relevance: The price jump in ETH came amid a broader market rally triggered by a new price record in Bitcoin (BTC). Shortly before ETH hit its 27-month high, BTC reached a new all-time high of $70,083, renewing its record on Tuesday. The upcoming Dencun upgrade, scheduled for March 13, has also become another contributor to the value surge in Ether. The upgrade will bring a feature that would improve the cost, speed, and scalability of ETH transactions to the Ethereum blockchain network. Brands that should care: Ether has outperformed Bitcoin over the past 30 days, climbing by more than 63% compared to Bitcoin's 52% monthly value gain. This jump was heavily triggered by the positive expectations about the spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications in the U.S. as the hype around the recently launched spot Bitcoin ETFs faded away. Last month, several industry experts, including American investor Cathie Wood and wealth management firm Bernstein, shared their estimations that Ether will be the only other cryptocurrency securing a spot in the global ETF market beyond Bitcoin. The financial institutions waiting for U.S. regulators to approve their spot Ether ETF applications in the U.S. include BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Grayscale Investments, VanEck, Ark Invest, and 21Shares. | | | |
| 3 | | The Athens Stock Exchange (ATHEX), a Greece-based stock exchange platform, has announced its plans to launch a new fundraising tool dubbed the Electronic Book Building (EBB) on the Sui blockchain network. The exchange pointed out that it developed the system in collaboration with Mysten Labs, the firm behind the Sui ecosystem. More: - The EBB will allow early-stage startups and mature companies to list transferable securities, a type of security whose ownership can be easily and freely transferred between counterparties.
- The ATHEX securities will be minted as digital certificates and hosted on Sui.
- The fundraising tool will mainly serve as a digital platform for companies to present their securities to interested investors and offer liquidity for business proposals to companies looking to raise new funding.
- The tool will also let investors verify their ownership instantaneously and easily.
- In its announcement, ATHEX pointed out that the project is still in the evaluation phase, and its launch will depend on performance.
- The two firms also underlined that their collaboration marked the first time a stock exchange developed such a solution on a public blockchain.
Zoom Out: - The Sui network was developed by Mysten Labs, and its main network was launched in May 2023.
- Mysten Labs' founders include former executives of tech giant Meta's now-abandoned blockchain project, Diem.
- Several other alumni of Diem were also later involved in blockchain projects like Aptos.
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| 4 | | Alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University have launched a new startup accelerator program dubbed MIT x Harvard Blockchain Accelerator to support founders of early-stage Web3 startups. The accelerator will not invest in, take any equity in, or offer grants to any accepted startups, focusing only on mentorship. More: - Four core contributors of the accelerator are Sam Lehman, Luke Xie, Hannah Shen, and Liang Wu.
- The program's mentors will include members of the two institutions and individuals from crypto firms.
- Startups must involve at least one member associated with either MIT or Harvard University, including undergraduate or graduate students, alumni, faculty, researchers, and staff, within their teams to become a part of the accelerator.
- The accelerator has already started accepting applications for the first cohort, which will start next month and end in June.
Zoom Out: - Stanford University has a similar blockchain accelerator program.
- The entity's accelerator has paved the way for the launch of several well-known crypto firms like Modulus Labs, Nocturne, Zero Gravity, and Caldera.
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| 5 | | Crypto-friendly travel agency Travala.com has launched a new Bitcoin (BTC) cashback program that allows high-tier users to receive 10% of their travel booking payments back in Bitcoin. The firm said the program will be available to users who unlocked the Smart Diomand tier of the loyalty program operated by the AVA Foundation's blockchain-based rewards platform. More: - Users must own a Travel Tiger NFT, whose floor price currently stands at around $9,800, and stake 2,500 AVA tokens to activate the Smart Diamond membership.
- There are only 1,000 Travel Tiger NFTs.
- The Bitcoin cashback will be sent to members' accounts within 24 hours of completing a trip.
- Users will be able to use their Bitcoin rewards to pay for their future travel bookings and other travel products or withdraw them to an external wallet, exchange, or platform.
- Travala.com CEO Juan Otero said Bitcoin's position as the most recognized cryptocurrency and its finite supply would make it a desirable reward for their top-tier travelers.
- The company also pointed out that using Bitcoin as a reward will eliminate fees from traditional payment systems and reduce fraud risks associated with the Web2-based conventional rewards schemes while increasing crypto adoption in daily payments.
- Besides, the firm stated that Bitcoin is one of the top three payment methods used on Travala.com, accounting for 9% of travel bookings made on the platform.
Zoom Out: - The AVA Foundation's rewards platform uses its native AVA token to distribute cashback, loyalty rewards, payment discounts, and gated-access benefits.
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| 6 | | Japanese automobile manufacturer Nissan has launched a new metaverse experience dubbed the Heritage Cars & Safe Drive Studio on the tech giant Meta's Quest virtual reality (VR) headsets. The new experience features three virtual exhibits, with each involving one of Nissan's most iconic automobiles and interactive educational safety-themed content. More: - Nissan pointed out that each iconic car in the exhibits was set in a meticulously crafted virtual environment reflecting its era.
- In the first exhibit, users can view the Silvia Q's S13, a Nissan car most famous for its drifting skills from the 1980s, and learn about the impact of the colors of the clothes of pedestrians on drivers.
- The second exhibit includes a Skyline 2000GTX-E, which was released in the 1970s and has become one of the most popular tuner vehicles.
- The exhibit also allows visitors to play a mini-game focused on learning about a driver's field of view and how multitasking affects safety while driving.
- The final exhibit features the Datsun Fairlady SPL213 and takes users back to the U.S. of the 1950s and 1960s in a setting reminiscent of a classic American diner and drive-in theater.
- In the third exhibit, visitors can also participate in a hands-on steering wheel spin exercise.
- All three experiences were developed in collaboration with researchers at universities in Japan.
Zoom Out: - Nissan similarly released its first virtual test drive on the Meta Quest in 2022.
- The car manufacturing giant updated its four existing metaverse experiences in December last year as part of its 90th-anniversary celebration.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Sales teams at MongoDB, Warmly, and User Evidence are seeing 56% more pipeline from this simple framework.*
- Blockchain data analysis platform Arkham Intelligence has disclosed that Tesla and SpaceX currently hold 11,510 and 8,920 Bitcoin (BTC) across 68 and 28 addresses, respectively.
- Seychelles-based crypto exchange Bitget has launched its Blockchain4Her (B4H) Ambassador Program on International Women's Day to address the gender gap in funding opportunities experienced by women-led startups.
- The New Zealand-based bankrupt crypto exchange Cryptopia has revealed that it would start repaying Bitcoin (BTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) funds to certain account holders in the next three months.
- Amazon MGM Studios, the U.S.-based movie production and distribution studio owned by the tech giant Amazon, has announced that its upcoming movie involving the story of a $4B crypto heist will feature famous actors Chloë Grace Moretz, Lewis Pullman, and Ariana DeBose.
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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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