Last week was overall “RED” for the Cryptocurrency Market with $BTC breaking $21k & with USDT dominance rising.
One of the reasons were the aggressive fed comments in the U.S. Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, quoting: “The FED is pushing policy purposefully to a level sufficiently restrictive to return ïnflation to 2%. Size of September rate hike hinges on the Totality of Data.”
Meanwhile, Mastercard Begins working with the largest crypto exchange: Binance, while FTX US may be allowed to buy BlockFi for only $15 million & Binance has frozen a $1M corporate account due to law enforcement requests & much more!
In this issue:
- Mastercard begins working with Binance.
- Crypto Exchange FTX could buy BlockFi for Only $15M.
- Binance has frozen $1M corporate account due to law enforcement request.
- Aggressive Fed comments and Bitcoin derivatives data point towards further BTC downside.
- Hacker tries to exploit bridge protocol, fails miserably.
- Union Bank Becomes First Philippines’ Bank to Offer Mobile Bitcoin (BTC) Trading Services.
- Ethereum Foundation Approves EIP-3475 To Bring Bonds On Ethereum.
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Mastercard begins working with Binance.
Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach revealed on his personal Linkedin profile that the company is working with Binance to enable purchases in more than 90 million stores.
Mastercard has actually been working in the sector for some time now to enable cryptocurrency holders to use its network for fiat payments, but integration with the world’s leading crypto-exchange Binance would still be a big step forward.
Miebach, in yesterday’s announcement, writes that it is possible to unlock the full potential of blockchain technology by making cryptocurrencies easier to use. One of the ways to do this is precisely to bring cryptocurrencies into everyday purchases.
That is the purpose of the collaboration with Binance, which is to enable cryptocurrency holders to use them to make purchases at more than 90 million stores around the world that accept Mastercard.
The project will start in Argentina, where the national currency inflation is at 71% given that the Argentine Peso (ARS) has been in free fall for a long time.
Crypto Exchange FTX could buy BlockFi for Only $15M.
FTX US may be allowed to buy BlockFi for only $15 million.The minimum price negotiated after months of multiple discussions between the two concerned parties. New Jersey-based BlockFi was one of crypto’s hottest venture capital-backed startups before suffering a similar liquidity crunch as other crypto lenders during the market breakdown when $BTC crashed from $69K to $17.6K.
FTX’s option to acquire BlockFi, which was looking to raise a “down round” in June, includes performance targets that could boost the purchase price to $240 million. The deal also speaks to the Sam Bankman-Fried-run crypto exchange’s rapid growth via acquisitions. Revenues soared: FTX posted $1.02 billion in revenue in 2021, jumping 1,000% from $89 million in the prior year, according to internal documents. Its net income was $388 million in 2021, up from just $17 million in 2020.
A BlockFi spokesperson declined to comment on the legitimacy of those financials, as well as for this report. BlockFi’s Prince has said FTX cannot exercise its purchase option before October 2023, and BlockFi has the option to buy back FTX’s option at any time for “two to three times the capital FTX put up for the deal.”
“The punchy story is, ‘BlockFi gets bailed out, Sam Bankman-Fried made the best deal of all time,’” Prince said last month on the “Animal Spirits Podcast.” “What’s harder to say is, ‘Actually, this deal can’t close until October 2023 at the earliest.’
Binance has frozen $1M corporate account due to a law enforcement request.
Major crypto exchange Binance has confirmed it restricted account access to $1 million in crypto for a Tezos tool contributor after being called out on social media.
In a Thursday Twitter thread, Binance said it had restricted the account of Tezos staking rewards auditor Baking Bad “as the result of a law enforcement request.” The Tezos contributor alleged that the crypto exchange had blocked access to its corporate account containing Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Polygon (MATIC), Tether (USDT) and other tokens since July 1 “without any explanations” — a claim Binance denied.
BakingBad is well aware of [Binance’s actions], as he was already advised of this multiple times and provided the LE contact form through our support chat system on 7/6, 7/12, and 7/22,” said Binance. “Attempting to mislead the community in regards to your case will not change anything, unfortunately.”
The exchange added:
“Binance is required to cooperate with such requests, the same as any other exchange. There is a process to contest the seizure with the agency should you wish to pursue that path. But that is done through the agency, Binance has zero control over that process.”
Aggressive Fed comments and Bitcoin derivatives data point towards further BTC downside.
BTC and stocks sold-off after comments from the Federal Reserve re-emphasized the Fed’s commitment to lowering high inflation in the United States.
A $750 pump on Aug. 26 took $BTC from $21,120 to $21,870 in less than two hours. However, the movement was completely erased after comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated the bank’s commitment to contain inflation by tightening the economy. Following Powell’s speech, BTC price dropped as low as $20,700. At Jackson Hole, Powell specifically mentioned that “the historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy.” Right after those remarks, the U.S. stock market indexes reacted negatively, with the S&P 500 dropping 2.2% within the hour.
Hacker tries to exploit bridge protocol, but fails miserably.
Cross-chain bridges have increasingly become targeted by malicious entities. However, not all hackers can run away with millions in their exploit attempts. Some end up losing money from their own wallets.
In a Twitter thread, Alex Shevchenko, the CEO of Aurora Labs, told the story of a hacker who attempted to exploit the Rainbow Bridge but ended up losing 5 Ether (ETH), worth around $8,000. According to Shevchenko, the hacker has presented a falsified NEAR block to the Rainbow
Bridge contract and submitted the required 5 ETH safe deposit. Thinking that the team would be slow to react during the weekend, the attacker timed the exploit attempt on a Saturday.
Despite the hacker’s plan, the CEO highlighted that there were automated watchdogs in place that fought off the malicious transaction. Within 31 seconds, the attempt was suppressed, leading to the hacker losing their safety deposit.
Union Bank Becomes First Philippines’ Bank to Offer Mobile Bitcoin (BTC) Trading Services.
According to a report by local news outlet Inquirer.Net, Union Bank of the Philippines has become the first bank in the country to offer cryptocurrency trading services to its clients.
More Details About the Offering:
Customers of the Union Bank of the Philippines can access the service through the bank’s mobile application. Notably, Union Bank customers can buy and sell Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, directly from the app without needing any third-party wallet service.
The initiative will make buying and selling the top asset class easy and convenient for Filipinos. However, the offering will be rolled out to selected Union Bank customers for the time being. While some Union Bank customers can see the virtual asset feature on their mobile app, others may not yet have access to the functionality during the initial phase of launch. The idea is to test the new feature to identify whether any technical glitch can occur. The report added that a full rollout would occur if everything ran smoothly.
The launch is in compliance with the Central bank of the country the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP).
Ethereum Foundation Approves EIP-3475 To Bring Bonds On Ethereum.
The Ethereum Foundation has finally approved the EIP-3475 proposal, introducing bonds on Ethereum (ETH). With the proposal being accepted as a new Application Programming Interface (API) standard, it now becomes the ERC-3475 standard. The new standard will further boost Web 3.0 and DeFi adoption.
The ERC-3475 standard will enable individuals and institutions to issue bonds and derivatives in secondary markets.
Debond Protocol in an official announcement on August 25 said the Ethereum Foundation has adopted the EIP-3475 and accepted it as an API standard. Thus, making it possible to “issue bonds with multiple redemption data.” The proposal has been under evaluation and debate for a long time by the Ethereum Foundation.
“The proposal had been evaluated and debated. Ultimately, it was deemed secure, complete, and ready to be presented not only to EF experts but to all Web 3.0 and decentralized finance (DeFi) enthusiasts.”
The ERC-3475 standard will enable anyone to create custom-made bonds on Ethereum. Debond Protocol believes the standard will help introduce bonds and add value to the Ethereum infrastructure and ecosystem.
The ERC-3475 is an Abstract Storage Bonds standard that lowers gas fees on the Ethereum protocol. Moreover, it eliminates the need to issue contracts every time a new LP pair is added. Thus, the multi-layer pool use helps avoid common attack vectors like an impermanent loss.
Closing
That’s it for now! Thanks for reading todays newsletter! Be sure to have a look at the Blog section to read our previous editions as well! Have a look at our Guides section if you’re interested in learning more about crypto! And finally, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!
