The United States Federal Reserve Board rejected Custodia’s request to join the central bank as a member of its payment system. The news notes a blow to the cryptocurrency industry as it aims to receive more mainstream acceptance.
The Federal Reserve stated in a press release that Custodia’s business plan and crypto assets focus could lead to significant “safety and soundness risks.” It also did not receive federal deposit insurance.
According to Custodia, it is a “special purpose depository institution.”
The Reserve explained further,
“The Board has previously made clear that such crypto activities are highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices. The Board also found that Custodia’s risk management framework was insufficient to address concerns regarding the heightened risks associated with its proposed crypto activities, including its ability to mitigate money laundering and terrorism financing risks.”
Reports show that Custodia used a Cheyenne, Wyoming-based special state licence to issue cryptocurrencies. Formerly Avanti, Custodia later filed a lawsuit against the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, citing claims the latter delayed a crucial decision to access the Fed as a master account.
Master accounts provide firms with access to payment systems linked to the Federal reserve. This allows streamlined transactions when switching from cryptocurrencies to fiat currencies.
Caitlin Long, Custodia’s chief executive, responded: “Custodia is surprised and disappointed by the Board’s action today. The Board’s denial is unfortunate but consistent with the concerns that Custodia has raised about the Federal Reserve’s handling of its applications, an issue we will continue to litigate.”
Federal Reserve Cautions against Crypto Deposits
The news comes after the Fed previously dismissed cryptocurrencies as having safe and sound banking practices. Michael Barr, Federal Reserve vice chair of supervision, stated that banks accepting crypto firm deposits could face increasing liquidity risks.
Barr explained that the Fed was working jointly with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Doing so would allow the Fed to warn the finance sector of the risks linked to moving to deposits in the crypto industry. He added banks may face massive deposit fluctuations due to price swings across cryptocurrencies.
South Bend, Indiana, 31st January, 2023, Chainwire
Leading enterprise blockchain solutions provider SIMBA Chain announces it has been selected for a $30M STRATFI with the U.S. Air Force (USAF), following up on multiple projects the company has completed for the military branch in recent years.
The USAF STRATFI is focused on identifying and advancing technologies that have the potential to secure its future dominance. The $30M investment reflects a significant budget increase compared to previous blockchain initiatives, and will focus on the development and deployment of blockchain applications in supply chain management. These programs are designed to be used by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research & Engineering, the USAF, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and the Defense Logistics Agency.
Commenting on the new partnership, Stacy Betlej-Amodeo, Vice President of Government Operations at SIMBA Chain, elaborates “Our new project for the USAF will pave the way to more efficient and comprehensive management of assets within the Department of Defense supply chain. SIMBA is thrilled to build upon our existing partnership with the DoD to scale blockchain technology across the enterprise.”
Previously, SIMBA Chain has developed various blockchain applications to improve crucial USAF activities, including the tokenization of the organization’s budget to enhance accounting, as well as the tracking of critical components vital to the air service branch. The STRATFI will significantly accelerate development of the SIMBA Blocks platform while delivering in-transit visibility that supports the USAF strategic mission.
“Through STRATFI our Government partners are sending a strong demand signal for blockchain technology. Given the interconnectedness of the DoD supply chain, it also signals an opportunity to collaborate and increase adoption within the commercial industry,” says Bryan Ritchie, CEO of SIMBA Chain, of the opportunity.
About SIMBA Chain
Incubated at the University of Notre Dame in 2017, SIMBA Chain (short for Simple Blockchain Applications) is a fully integrated development platform that government agencies use to bridge and connect to Web3. SIMBA Blocks is at the core of this offering, abstracting the complexities of blockchain development to make Web3 accessible to all.
SIMBA Blocks is a fully integrated platform that addresses governments’ unique challenges when implementing blockchain-based solutions. From resilient information sharing and rapid decision-making to military supply chains, SIMBA’s exceptional network performance and robust security features safeguard government data systems.
The robust platform delivers a low-configuration environment that auto-generates REST APIs capable of connecting to smart contracts on multiple blockchain protocols. With the ability to choose and migrate between public, private, and hybrid chains, governments can optimize their blockchain applications while future-proofing Web3 investments. Most importantly, as a government-proven platform, SIMBA Blocks ensures blockchain-based applications interact seamlessly with legacy systems across public and private domains. Visit simbachain.com to learn more.
Contact
PR Manager
Simon Moser
[email protected]
Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, 31st January, 2023, Chainwire
Venom Ventures Fund, a Web3 and blockchain innovation fund managed by Abu Dhabi-based investment fund manager Iceberg Capital Limited, has announced a strategic partnership with Everscale, a premier blockchain that aims to solve the scalability issues bogging down the Web3 industry.
Venom Ventures Fund has committed a $5 million investment in Everscale to help it further expand its development teams and boost the number of projects. The investment will be in stages, based on the progress and cooperation indicators.
Everscale has been diligently working on expanding its reach and integrating its technology solutions in Asian countries over the past two years, while also building a strong community. Its dynamic sharding technology enables it to efficiently adapt to varying workloads, thus making it an easy and practical option for creating large-scale Web3 and other types of applications.
The Venom Ventures Fund was launched by Iceberg Capital Limited in partnership with Venom Foundation, the first officially licensed and regulated Layer-1 blockchain operating within the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).
Venom Ventures Fund Chairman Peter Knez, ex-CIO of BlackRock, said, “For us, this is a strategic investment aimed at the technological development of projects and teams around technologies that we focus on and actively develop. In particular, we are talking about the Venom blockchain project and its ecosystem, which is planned to be launched soon and for which Everscale is a potential Layer 2 solution.”
Venom and Everscale teams will be working together on the further development of the core and the ecosystem bringing the adoption of blockchain closer to real business use cases. Current initiatives such as digital asset tokenization platforms, a full framework for CBDCs and stablecoins and payment solutions with crypto to fiat gateways are already making good headway.
Commenting on the investment, Everscale Foundation Board Member Moon Young Lee said, “This is a milestone for both the Everscale and Venom networks. The technological capabilities of Everscale are immense but they have been underappreciated by a wider audience. Now, Everscale will be able to operate as an experimental network where updates and complex technical solutions can be introduced before they are brought to Venom. This investment will allow Everscale to gain the recognition that it deserves.”
Designed as a network of blockchains, Venom has no limit to the number of other auxiliary networks at the Layer 2 level and no limit to the economy type or operation at the Layer 2. This particular architecture means that mass adoption is now achievable on the Venom blockchain.
About Everscale
Powered by an infinite sharding mechanism, the Everscale network adapts to any workload it is tasked with, without the size of the load affecting transaction times or processing fees. This makes it the ideal blockchain for hosting high-scale web3 and other load-intensive projects. Over the past two years, Everscale has emerged as one of the leading blockchains in Asia, with a thriving community and robust ecosystem of DeFi platforms.
More About the Everscale network:
Website | Twitter | Whitepaper | Github | Telegram Ann | Telegram | Discord
About Iceberg Capital
ICEBERG Capital Limited is regulated by FSRA as a Prudential Category 3C investment manager based in ADGM. ICEBERG capital is a fast-growing alternative asset management company that provides diversified investment management platforms that includes direct and private equity, venture capital, technology, and virtual assets. ICEBERG capital also offers traditional asset management services such as investment portfolios as well as specialized platforms for securities, and blockchain technology.
For media inquiries, please contact: Abdullah Al Weshah, [email protected]
For more information about Iceberg Capital, visit: Website | LinkedIn
About Venom Foundation
Venom is the world’s first regulated blockchain. The decentralized network operates under the jurisdiction of the ADGM, with a license to issue utility tokens. The ADGM is an oasis for investors and financial services firms, positioning Venom as the world’s first compliant blockchain, affording authorities and enterprises the freedom to build, innovate, and scale.
A portfolio of in-house dApps and protocols has been developed on the Venom blockchain by various companies. It now harbors the potential to become a bridge for the adoption of CBDCs in the Middle East, North Africa, and worldwide.
For media inquiries, please contact: Adam Newton, [email protected]
For more information about Venom Ventures, visit: Website | Twitter
For more information about Venom Foundation, visit: Website | Twitter
Contact
Adam Newton
[email protected]
New York, United States, 31st January, 2023, Chainwire
BNB Chain decentralized exchange Biswap has published its 2023 roadmap which includes a number of proposed improvements and upgrades. It includes details of a new AMM, route optimization, and perpetual trading.
Take a look at the main Biswap benefits: https://biswap.org/.
A new AMM protocol with concentrated liquidity will allow Liquidity Providers to accumulate their capital to smaller price intervals than from 0 to infinity, increasing capital use efficiency and providing users with more profitable exchange conditions with less slippage.
Improved routing to find the best trading pairs will allow users to execute larger transactions with less slippage and increase capital efficiency, as well as receive greater rewards from trading fees for Liquidity Providers.
To reduce pressure on the price of the native Biswap token and provide opportunities for more earnings for long-term BSW token holders, the Biswap team has developed several initiatives. In the future, they will be explained and put forward to BSW holders for voting.
Evolving market trends have also prompted the Biswap team to implement decentralized futures trading (with an on-chain order book on the BNB network). To implement this idea in a safe manner, the team has decided to connect a ready-made solution from ApolloX at this stage of product development.
As part of the Biswap ecosystem expansion, there are plans to create a widget that will increase trading with Biswap Liquidity and make it more convenient for users to exchange tokens. This will be available for implementation on third-party products.
Biswap’s progressive DEX on BNB Chain features a Multi-type Referral Program and low trading fees of 0.1%. The platform provides various services with cryptocurrencies, such as Exchange, Farming, and Staking. Moreover, the project has its native BEP-20 token, BSW, which allows users to join the most popular features on the platform. The primary BSW function is to incentivize liquidity provision to the Biswap platform.
High LP rewards allow Liquidity Providers to get 0.15% back from token swap transactions. Also, Liquidity Providers can stake LP tokens on farms to earn BSW tokens with competitive APYs. Up to 50% trade fee reimbursement returns users the transaction fee when they exchange tokens. The system automatically gives back the fee in the form of BSW tokens. Explore Biswap NOW
About Biswap
Biswap is the progressive DEX platform on the BNB Chain network with a Multi-type Referral Program and the lowest trade fee of 0.1%. The platform provides various services with cryptocurrencies, such as Exchange, Farming, Staking and others.
Contact
Marketing Biswap
Biswap
[email protected]
Tel Aviv, Israel, 31st January, 2023, Chainwire
Addressable, an innovative end-to-end solution for Web3 marketing, announced today that it secured $7.5 million in a seed funding round, led by Viola Ventures and Fabric Ventures, with participation from Mensch Capital Partners and North Island Ventures. The funding will be used to accelerate adoption and expansion of Addressable’s best-in-class solution, including support for additional blockchains and social media integrations.
“Marketing is all about knowing your audience, but since crypto wallets are anonymized by design, Web3 marketers rarely know their audience’s age, country or purchasing history,” says Dr. Asaf Nadler, co-founder and chief scientist at Addressable. “In the face of anonymity, our solution allows Web3 marketers to associate anonymous blockchain audiences with social media activity, ultimately addressing the most significant barrier to Web3 growth today.”
Addressable’s SaaS solution provides Web3 marketing teams with a powerful platform to launch campaigns and more effectively target new audiences by matching blockchain activity with social profiles. This precise targeting reduces cost-of-acquisition dramatically compared to the broad targeting of existing web2 tools. Leading Web3 companies like Polygon, Bancor, Immutable, and Kryptomon are already using Addressable’s technology to acquire new users in an era when traditional Web2 marketing campaigns are no longer effective.
“In the Web3 era, the key barrier to growth is the inability of marketers to deliver their messages to their targeted audiences, simply because they don’t know much about them”, says Leon Stern, director of growth at Polygon – an Addressable customer. “Most users aren’t attentive on Discord – they’re on social media, and you need to effectively get their attention there. This is where the value of Addressable lies.”
Addressable was founded by Tomer Sharoni, Tomer Shlomo and Dr. Asaf Nadler, data analytics veterans with more than 20 publications on blockchain, machine learning and big data.
“We are witnessing an increasing number of Web3 companies investing in meaningful and sustainable user growth through social media, where almost all users spend their time,” says Tomer Sharoni, Addressable’s CEO. “Our unique ability to pinpoint Web3 audiences on social media is the missing piece for mass adoption of Web3. In today’s blockchain ecosystem, we’re the only Web3 marketing SaaS platform addressing user acquisition at scale.”
“Effective user acquisition became the major concern for Web3 businesses over the turbulent past year”, said Richard Muirhead, Chairman and Managing Partner at Fabric Ventures. “Addressable’s Web3 marketing platform combines a compelling go-to-market opportunity for any web3 business with a user-centric approach for which this sector craves. We are excited to take part in Addressable’s journey and to welcome them into the Fabric family”.
“Addressable is solving a huge problem for web2 and Web3 companies that want to understand their Web3 audiences”, says Omry Ben David, General Partner at Viola Ventures. “Its platform enables marketers to connect the dots between on-chain blockchain data with off-chain social media accounts and use precision targeting for a crisper value proposition and thus superior ROI and conversion. Coupled with an A-class founding team, we believe Addressable is best positioned to lead the marketing stack category in web3”.
About Addressable
Addressable is an innovative end-to-end Web3 marketing solution. The company’s best-in-class SaaS platform provides Web3 marketing teams with a powerful platform to effectively target new audiences by matching blockchain activity with social profiles. Addressable is a trusted partner of leading Web3 companies including Polygon, Bancor, Immutable, and Kryptomon. Founded by data analytics veterans Tomer Sharoni, Tomer Shlomo and Dr. Asaf Nadler, Addressable has raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round led by Viola Ventures and Fabric Ventures.
Contact
Co-Founder
Asaf Nadler
Addressable
[email protected]
Singapore, Singapore, 31st January, 2023, Chainwire
Datamall Chain (DMC) DMC Foundation announced today that it has formed a strategic partnership with AlephCrypto.xyz. DMC Foundation and AlephCrypto.xyz will cooperate in many aspects, including blockchain technology development and distributed storage.
Both parties will cooperate and support the development of quality projects in the blockchain industry, the Ethereum community, the DMC ecology, and the DMC community. The cooperation will accelerate innovation in the blockchain industry overall and significantly enhance the progress of Web3 technology worldwide.
“We’re very excited to have AlephCrypto.xyz as a strategic partner,” said Victor Chen, DMC Foundation Chair. “Both DMC Foundation and Aleph Crypto are firm believers in the potential and promise of Web3. Having Aleph Crypto as a strategic partner adds significant technical credibility and momentum to the DMC ecosystem.”
“It is our great honor to be one of the very first DMC Foundation strategic partners,” said Zainan Zhou, co-initiator of AlephCrypto.xyz and one of the key contributors of Ethereum open standard procedure Ethereum Improvement Proposals such as authoring the ERC-1202 Voting Standard. AlephCrypto.xyz also features a network of renowned technical advisors from the Ethereum developer community such as NFT (ERC-721) first author William Entriken to provide technical advisory and open standard review for its partners from an Ethereum compatibility point of view. “In order for Web3 to be successful, decentralized storage needs a highly efficient and fully decentralized marketplace. When we saw DMC’s technical architecture, we were super excited about the potential that it provides a much better solution for decentralized users than many of the existing options. We can’t wait to provide as much help and support as we can to DMC Foundation’s vision for Web3 and the blockchain industry, and we look forward to our ongoing collaboration.”
About DMC Foundation
DMC Foundation was founded in Singapore in 2020. With the technical R&D team from Silicon Valley, DMC Foundation has developed Datamall Chain (DMC), an open-source public blockchain. Datamall Chain is based on the Cyber File System (CYFS), an open-source, next-generation protocol that enables development of completely decentralized applications.
Datamall Chain is a decentralized storage marketplace that provides users with secure, efficient, and authenticated decentralized storage services. DMC aims to promote the development of next-generation Internet infrastructure and blockchain technology, focusing on building the underlying storage architecture in Web3. DMC adopts a unique Proof of Storage Service (PoSS) consensus mechanism to incentivize nodes to improve their own storage capacity and ensure DMC is a high-performance public chain.
The DMC ecosystem consists of three layers: the storage transaction layer, which matches decentralized storage supply with decentralized storage demand; the storage service layer, which helps enforce storage deals; and the storage application layer, which consists of applications that use decentralized storage. One of the first applications on DMC is Foggie, the world’s first all-in-one Web3 virtual appliance from Fog Works. With Foggie, users can obtain additional storage capacity via DMC, or they can share idle storage on DMC capacity and earn crypto rewards.
For more details, please visit the DMC official Twitter and DMC official website.
About AlephCrypto.xyz
Aleph Crypto is a series of initiatives rooted in Silicon Valley. It is initiated by Zainan Zhou (author of ERC-1202 Voting Standard) and co-founded by several seasoned investors and entrepreneurs of Web1 and Web2 Internet. AlephCrypto.xyz focuses and services three areas of interest: Blockchain Infrastructure Layer, “Blockchain+” of Traditional Web, and New Applications Exclusively Enabled by Blockchains.
In May 2022, a key contributor to the Ethereum ecosystem, lead author of NFT (ERC-721), William Entriken, also joins AlephCrypto.xyz as its Technical Advisor.
The founders of AlephCrypto.xyz deeply believe Web3 will advance humanity by improving the collaborations of people through communities. AlephCrypto.xyz champions the spirit of community by establishing its own, including Builder Club, Investor Network, and Media Hub, to support and service everyone who is interested in building Web3 in all the ways we can. The Aleph Crypto also features an early-stage investment fund for angel and seed rounds.
Contact
DMC Press Inquiries
DMC Foundation
[email protected]
Wylie Aronow, Yuga Labs creator, has stepped down from his role to recover from a major health diagnosis, he revealed in a tweet on Saturday.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks chief stated that doctors had diagnosed him with congestive heart failure, forcing him to step away from his position with Yuga Labs.
He stated that the symptoms had developed “last year out of the blue” and later intensified, causing the executive to prioritise his health and wellness.
He said in a statement: “I pushed myself way past my limits. I worked 12 hours a day, nearly every day. I should have taken the advice from everyone around me and sought balance. My goals now are to get the best medical treatment I can and heal.”
Aranow assured that he would remain a board member and strategic advisor to the firm. He added Daniel Alegre, former president and chief operating officer for Activision Blizzard, would join the company as its’ chief executive to manage operations.
The news comes after Aranow said in a recent statement that OpenSea’s stance on royalties has sparked a “race to the bottom in an attempt to gain market share.” Yuga Labs also aimed to change its position on creator and artist royalties amid the ongoing row with OpenSea, he added.
South Korea’s Ministry of Justice announced plans this week to launch a tracking system for cryptocurrencies. The initiative aims to fight money laundering and recoup stolen funds from cybercriminals, reports showed on .
According to a report from khgames, Seoul’s “Virtual Currency Tracking System” aims to provide oversight for transaction histories and end-to-end fund source monitoring.
The report added the authorities would deploy the system in the first half of 2023, with a further independent system for tracking and data analysis opening in the second half.
According to the Ministry, authorities responded to a rise in sophisticated cybercrime by improving forensic infrastructure. It aimed to build criminal justice tools to meet global standards.
The report continued that South Korean police struck a deal with five national crypto exchanges to work jointly on tackling crime. With collaborative investigations, the initiative aims to build a safe and reliable trading environment for investors of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Bithumb Legal Woes
The news comes amid a series of crackdowns on cryptocurrency markets, namely after the collapse of the disgraced trading exchange FTX. Investors lost billions in what has arguably become one of the biggest cases of financial fraud in decades.
Regarding South Korea, its Supreme Court ordered Bithumb to pay investors damages for fintech service failures in November 2017.
The platform had experienced service outages for an hour and a half, leaving investors without access to critical funds. This cost the platform payouts ranging from $6 USD to up to $6,400 USD to 132 affected investors.
Bithumb’s troubles continued after Lee Jung-Hoon, former company chairman, may face up to eight years imprisonment on crypto fraud charges valued up to $70 million USD.
The chairman of the BK Group, Kim Byung Gun, slammed the former executive with defrauding investors, leading to a case at the Seoul District Court.
Kim failed to list the Blockchain Exchange Alliance token on the Bithumb exchange, leading to a massive legal row between the two executives.
The news comes after a CertiK report found that 2023 would continue ongoing trends in cybercrime, phishing, ransomware, and other offences. Last year’s crimes cost cryptocurrency investors $3.7 billion USD, up from $3.2 billion USD in 2021.
A key member of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated authorities cracked down on the Hive crypto ransomware collective.
In a 26 January statement, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated the FBI in Tampa, Florida had received “clandestine, persistent access to Hive’s control panel.”
This allowed authorities to exploit access to Hive’s data, identifying victims and providing more than 1,300 of them keys to decrypt their ransomware-infected networks. To date, the recovered networks total more than $130 million in ransomware payments.
FBI agents also secured additional ghost servers on Wednesday evening. The operation included US personnel, the German Federal Criminal Police, German Reutlingen Police Headquarters, the Netherlands National High Tech Crime Unit, and Europol.
The teams tracked ransomware payments, recovered the assets for victims, and dismantled Hive’s networks, the statement added.
“So, a reminder to cybercriminals: No matter where you are, and no matter how much you try to twist and turn to cover your tracks—your infrastructure, your criminal associates, your money, and your liberty are all at risk. And there will be consequences,” he said in his statement.
Stirring up the Hive
The comments come after Hive launched several cybercrime offences, including attacks on Costa Rica’s Public Health Service and Social Security Fund. Taking place from April to May last year, Hive criminals seized infrastructure with a $5 million Bitcoin ransom.
This caused roughly 4,800 people to miss critical doctors appointments. Wray explained that over the past seven months, victims only reported around 20 percent of attacks.
The news comes after a CertiK report that outlined potential cybercrime set to take place in 2023, where it expected the number of crimes to remain consistent.
Last year, online criminals such as hackers, phishers, scammers, and others stole up to $3.7 billion, with $595 million in thefts taking place in November.
US authorities have accused ex-FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried of using his former company’s funds to invest in venture capital (VC) enterprise Modulo Capital.
The New York Times reported that FTX’s sister company Alameda Research had invested around $400 million USD in the “obscure” VC firm in 2022 — one of its largest investments.
This triggered responses from regulators amid the ongoing cryptocurrency crisis. In the ongoing probe of FTX’s collapse, investigators found the Modulo investments leveraged criminal and misappropriated funds from FTX deposits.
The report added that FTX lawyers were looking at Modulo’s assets as they searched for billions in unrecovered funds across the disgraced crypto platform’s balance sheets.
Former Alameda Research chief executive Caroline Ellison and Bankman-Fried worked for Jane Street. Three co-founders of Modulo formerly worked at the company headquartered in New York.
The news comes after investigators also found key FTX executives had splurged roughly $40 million USD in investor money for personal gain.
Bankman-Fried, Ellison, and others from the firm spent the funds on luxury hotels, shipping, meals, and global travel. Investigators revealed the embezzlement began just months before FTX collapsed.
READ MORE: Former UK Chancellor Hammond Steps in As Copper Crypto Chair