Nicholas Morgan

Security Platform Immunefi Launches Smart Contract Bug Bounty Vaults

Bug bounty platform Immunefi is launching a new system to improve cooperation between developers and security researchers at a time when hackers are wreaking havoc across the DeFi ecosystem. To do this, Immunefi announced the launch of Vault Systems, a smart contract system that allows developers to safely deposit funds earmarked for paying hackers or researchers for reporting vulnerabilities in their code. The funds only get released to a hacker when a vulnerability report has been verified. Th...

Terra Classic Community Votes to End Minting, Reminting of USTC Tokens

The Terra Classic community has voted to end the minting and reminting of Terra Classic USD (USTC) tokens more than a year after its collapse sparked a widespread meltdown in cryptocurrency markets. A week of voting on whether or not to end the token concluded on September 21, and ended with about 59% of the community in favor of ending all minting activities. About 40% voted against the proposal, while just under 7% of voters chose to abstain. In a post, the community said the proposal aims to...

The APT token powers the blockchain network Aptos. Image: Shutterstock.

South Korea’s UpBit Temporarily Freezes Withdrawals Following Scam Token Airdrop

Upbit, the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals after reportedly mistaking a scam token for legitimate ones from Aptos (APT). The freeze took place on Sunday when Upbit discovered an "abnormal deposit attempt" while monitoring flows of APT into and out of its wallet system, according to a statement. The company has since resumed account services, but cautioned users that there may be pricing differences when interacting with...

Coinbase Bitcoin Holdings Rival Those of Cryptocurrency Creator Satoshi Nakamoto: Arkham

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is holding onto $25 billion in Bitcoin reserves, an amount that rivals the holdings of Bitcoin’s founder Satoshi Nakamoto. In a post by Arkham Intelligence on Saturday, the company identified an estimated $25 billion in Bitcoin held in about 36 million wallets belonging to Coinbase and used for depositing and holding the tokens. The largest identified cold wallet holds about 10,000 Bitcoin, which is worth about $265 million as...

Europe is ‘Eating America’s Lunch’: U.S. Held Back by Bitcoin ETF Paralysis

It’s been a good summer for digital assets in Europe—especially when compared to the cold reception they have endured in the United States. In August, the continent welcomed the launch of its first exchange traded fund (ETF) in Bitcoin spot markets with the listing of the Jacobi FT Wilshire Bitcoin ETF in Amsterdam. On the regulatory front, the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), a comprehensive framework designed around digital assets, created legal clarity for digital asset comp...

Trevor Lawrence. Image: April Visuals / Shutterstock.com

First Celebrities Settle Lawsuits Over FTX Deals

A trio of celebrities have settled lawsuits against them related to sponsorship deals struck with the failed crypto-exchange FTX before it collapsed last year. Trevor Lawrence, an NFL quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, reportedly settled a suit that accused him of misleading investors in FTX for an undisclosed sum. Youtubers Tom Nash and Kevin Paffrath also agreed to settlements, but the terms were not disclosed. These developments were first reported by Bloomberg News. Before FTX colla...

A CBDC, like the ring of power, ought to be "cast into the fire" and destroyed, says Rep. Warren Davidson.

'Cast It Into the Fire': GOP Moves to Advance Bills That Ban CBDC

Is a central bank digital currency (CBDC) necessary to protect the United States’ financial preeminence or a step towards authoritarianism? Congress returned to these questions again as Republicans move to advance new bills aimed at stopping a CBDC from going online. A House Financial Services Committee hearing today focused its attention on a trio of bills that would put limits on the Federal Reserve’s ability to operate a CBDC if passed. These bills, all sponsored by Republican lawmakers, inc...

Feds Want $5.2 Million in Bitcoin Returned by Teen Hacker—And A Sports Car, Too

The U.S. Department of Justice is moving to seize millions of dollars in Bitcoin that a teenage hacker had stolen from crypto executives four years ago. Prosecutors are also making sure they recover the sports car he bought with the stolen Bitcoin back, too. Last week, a federal judge signed off on an order demanding that Ahmad Wagaafe Hared turn over $5.2 million in Bitcoin that he stole back in 2016, according to a report in The San Francisco Standard. The Bitcoin and the car were stolen as p...

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. AI-enhanced image (extended background). Credit: Alexey Smyshlyaev/Shutterstock

Hacker Steals Over $690,000 After Hijacking Vitalik Buterin's Twitter Account

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin appears to have fallen victim to a hacker on Twitter, who went on to steal $691,000 from users who followed a corrupted link posted to his feed. The hack was first noticed on Saturday when a post appeared on Buterin’s post announcing the launch of a set of commemorative non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from software provider Consensys. This malicious link—which could have been shown to many of his 4.9 million followers—prompted victims to connect their wallets to mint...

Shaquille O'Neal at the 2022 FIA Formula 1 championship in Austin, Texas. Image: Shutterstock

Shaq Got Nearly $750,000 From FTX Amid Millions In Celebrity Deals

Failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-profile marketing and sponsorship deals to celebrities like Shaquille O’Neal, Naomi Osaka, and David Ortiz, among others, according to court documents in its ongoing bankruptcy procedures. In a court filing submitted to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware by FTX’s current management, the company disclosed a detailed list of celebrities, businesses, and sports teams that received payments over the years as par...

Metropolitan Corrections Center federal detention building in Lower Manhattan. Image: Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com

SBF Lawyers Again Ask for Pre-Trial Release Because Prison Internet Sucks

The internet in federal jail is apparently not very reliable, and that is prompting Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) legal team to renew their calls to secure him early release so that he may better prepare for his upcoming legal case. In a filing submitted to a federal judge on Friday, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said that their client is not being provided adequate access to the internet to review documents as part of his defense. After being taken into custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Ma...

Image: Volodymyr Maksymchuk/Shutterstock

Prime Trust Bankruptcy Exposes ‘Widespread’ Self-Custody Risks, Says Anchorage Digital Co-Founder

The failure of crypto custodian Prime Trust over the summer laid bare the shortcomings that come with self-custody, but the risks within the industry are “widespread,” said Diogo Monica, the Co-Founder of Anchorage Digital. In an interview with Decrypt, Monica said that the problem at Prime Trust wasn’t related to the technology they used to custody assets. Instead, he said the problem had more to do with Prime Trust appearing not to know how to use it properly—something that is fatal for a com...

Lido Dominance Prompts Warnings About Liquid Staking Derivatives

Liquid staking solution Lido Finance now accounts for about a third of all staked Ethereum (ETH), and that is making some community members worry. The increasing clout of Lido, they say, is undercutting the decentralized character of Ethereum as a whole. "Lido may be the biggest attack on Ethereum's decentralization ('credible neutrality') in our entire history," said Evan Van Ness, an Ethereum developer, in a Twitter post on Friday. In the last year, the amount of ETH staked has risen nearly 9...

Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao speaks at the 2021 Ethereal Virtual Summit.

Binance Is 'Way Ahead of the Game' on US Regulations, Says CZ

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, better known by his initials CZ, is not intimidated by the recent storm of regulatory and media scrutiny aimed at his company. Instead, he sees an opportunity for Binance to prove its merits as it faces what he says is FUD. In a Twitter Spaces event on Friday, CZ accused Binance’s critics of attempting to paint his company as akin to FTX, the failed cryptocurrency exchange operated by CZ’s former rival Sam Bankman-Fried, amid its ongoing legal troubles. Despite the w...

A JC Penney retail store in Indianapolis in 2015. Image: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock

SEC Charges Hawaii Man for Fake Crypto Pump-and-Dump Scheme

A man from Hawaii has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for a scheme in which he allegedly pumped up the price of unsecured loans by spreading fake press releases that promised high returns for early redemptions. He also lied about converting the loans into a cryptocurrency, the agency said. The SEC’s New York office charged Jeremy Koski on Friday. He allegedly distributed fake press releases and redemption notices on shares that he owned in a trust fund operated by retaile...

Prime Trust Filing Reveals Cascade of Failures That Led To Bankruptcy Filing

Irresponsible spending. Misjudging summer 2022's crypto market implosion. Getting locked out of its own cryptocurrency wallet. These are some of the missteps detailed in a court filing submitted by battered crypto custodian Prime Trust as it seeks bankruptcy protection. In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Thursday, Prime Trust CEO Jor Law explained how the company was battered by a combination of the collapsing cryptocurrency market and a management team that failed to ch...

OnlyFans creator Leana Lovings, 24, has over 150,000 followers on Instagram and 235,000 followers on Twitter. Photo illustration.

OnlyFans' Ethereum Holdings Sank—But 2022 Was Still A Good Year

More fans, more creators, more money. For the content creator site OnlyFans, 2022 was a pretty good year. For Ethereum? Maybe not so much. Over the weekend, Crypto Twitter zeroed in on a financial statement submitted by OnlyFans’ parent company Fenix International Limited to British authorities on Thursday. It showed that the company had owned over $19 million in Ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native token, but its value was slashed to about $11.4 million by the end of the reporting period in November...

Oman Invests Millions In Crypto Amid Questions of Whether It's Sharia Compliant

The Sultanate of Oman, located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, is tightening its embrace of cryptocurrency after a recent round of multi-million investments this month. The West Asian nation is pursuing a strategy designed to make it a digital hub in an increasingly competitive region. In August, the Omani government announced close to $800 million in fresh investments in cryptocurrency mining operations. On August 23, a $300 million deal was announced with the Abu Dhabi-bas...

Crypto exchange Gemini bolsters security for mobile traders. Image: Shutterstock

'Failure to State a Claim': Gemini Pushes to Get SEC Case Dismissed

Embattled cryptocurrency exchange Gemini is urging a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit filed in January by the Securities and Exchange Commission because the federal regulator did not establish a clear case that the company was selling unregistered securities. In a 15-page filing submitted on Friday, Gemini’s lawyers assailed the SEC’s argument that its interest-earning Gemini Earn program and a separate loan program qualified as sales to customers. Based on the SEC’s assertions to date, they...

Donald Trump Crypto Wallet Holds Over $5 Million, New Filings Show

Former President Donald Trump was recently revealed to be the owner of an Ethereum wallet that held about half a million dollars in value. Now, it turns out that he may own much more—putting the high-profile crypto-skeptic in the ‘whale’ category. In a fresh set of financial disclosure documents submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, Trump reports owning just over $2.8 million in cryptocurrency held in an Ethereum wallet. The updated figure was uncovered by the Washington-based ethics wa...

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