Breaking Crypto Daily News
Sam Bankman-Fried buys 7.6% of Robinhood; stock jumps
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has bought a 7.6% stake in Robinhood for US$648 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
See related article: Terra shuts down indefinitely after coming back online; LUNA, UST still on life support
Fast facts
- Bankman-Fried bought the stake through a firm called Emergent Fidelity Technologies, the filing says, where Bankman-Fried is the sole director and majority owner.
- Emergent used working capital for the purchase and Bankman-Fried acquired the shares because they “represent an attractive investment,” the filing said.
- Shares of Nasdaq-listed Robinhood jumped about 30% at one point after the announcement and closed at US$8.56 on Thursday, up 5%.
- The equity and crypto trading platform’s shares have lost half their value so far this year, reflecting an across-the-board slump in stock markets and cryptocurrencies. forkast.news
Terra shuts down indefinitely after coming back online; LUNA, UST still on life support
Terra officially halted block production at 09:58 am HKT on Friday, block height 7607789, after restarting the network from an overnight shutdown to prevent possible governance attacks. Terra said validators are working on a plan to restart the network but did not release any further details.
See related article: Terra plunges back to earth as UST stablecoin loses dollar peg
Fast facts
- Terra had resumed block production at 01:45 am HKT on Friday after network validators shut down the blockchain for more than an hour and a half.
- A governance attack is a form of a hostile blockchain takeover when a single party controls at least 50% of a network’s governance tokens, giving them rights to majority voting power in the ecosystem.
- The plunge in Terra’s governance token LUNA has significantly reduced the cost to conduct a takeover.
- Terra released a patch disabling delegations — staking tokens to a public validator node to earn further rewards — on the network which was adopted once the network resumed production.
- LUNA was worth US$0.004157 at press time, and Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin has yet to regain its peg to the greenback.
- UST’s peg to the dollar is maintained by regulating LUNA supply.
- Terra proposed an upgrade on Thursday to increase production of LUNA to attempt to save the stablecoin’s peg. forkast.news
CryptoPunks Reaches $2 Billion in All-Time Sales; Gary Vee Reveals His ‘Punks’ Valuation
Buoyed by an increase in sales, CryptoPunks hit a new milestone that places the project just below Axie Infinity when it comes to the all-time ranking of NFTs by volume.
As of April, the NFT collection yielded an overall sales volume of $2.2 billion, according to Be[In]Crypto research. This latest milestone placed CryptoPunks above some of the industry’s most successful NFT projects, including BAYC, MAYC, Art Blocks, NBA Top Shot, CloneX, Azuki, and VeeFriends.
Behind CryptoPunks’ soaring volume
Since January, the NFT project has grown substantially in total transaction counts, including a surge in unique monthly users, reaching 501 transactions and an approximate sales volume of $6.1 million.
As of March, the number of total transactions increased 187%, reaching around 1,400, leaving CryptoPunks with a sales volume of $98.5 million.
Looking back to August 2021, the NFT project reached a then new milestone of $679 million, with over 2,500 transactions. beincrypto.com
UST: When the “Terra” Under Your Feet is Not so Stable
UST: The promise that was intended to take us to the MOON has become a lesson in humility, says Lorena Ortiz
On May 7 there was a small shock in UST (Terra USD) when it began to lose its parity with the dollar (peg) reaching lows of $0.29 four days later.
This first price movement would be the initial sign of the imminent collapse of the Terra project, which many considered promising since its launch in April 2019.
It should be noted that this is not the first time that this peg was lost. The stablecoin launched at the end of 2020, and hit a value of $0.85 a month after its launch. However, the world economic scenario when this happened was very different from the one experienced today. In 2022, we have some new things in the mix including inflationary problems and reeling conventional markets.
Stablecoins – the attraction
One of the main attractions of the so-called stablecoins has always been that, that they remain stable against price variations in the volatile crypto markets. Many have been a safe store of value when price falls have stirred the waters. However, what happened has called into question whether all stablecoins are really useful for that purpose.
Something important that we must consider is that other stablecoins have mechanisms that seek parity through the backing of other things. It could be fiat money or some other cryptocurrency such as Ether or Bitcoin. This is not the case of UST, since it is an algorithmic stable.
Is the TerraUSD (UST) algorithm sustainable to maintain parity against the Dollar?
UST maintained its value at parity to the dollar through a mechanism whereby Luna – Terra’s token – increased or decreased as needed. In addition, tokens were burned. That is, they were taken out of circulation to keep this under control. In the event that the price of UST fell below $1, it was burned in exchange for its equivalent in Luna. And if UST increased its value to more than one dollar a certain amount of Luna was burned to generate more UST.beincrypto.com
OneCoin creator, Ruja Ignatova, declared wanted in Europe
Europol has placed the founder of OneCoin cryptocurrency, Ruja Ignatova, on its list of most wanted criminals.
The European law enforcement agency took this step in its concerted efforts to capture the “crypto queen” who is responsible for a multi-billion dollar fraud.
The agency stated that Ignatova
Is suspected of having prompted investors worldwide to invest in this worthless “currency.”
It offered a reward of €5,000 for any information that’ll lead to the arrest of the alleged criminal mastermind.
OneCoin operated as a Ponzi scheme
Ignatova disappeared from the radar in 2017 after taking a flight from Sofia to Athens, where she was last seen with two Russian men. She created OneCoin in 2014, claiming it’ll be the token that replaces Bitcoin.
“We are the Bitcoin killer. We’re faster, safer and cheaper,” she promised.
But it turned out that all those promises were false because the coin didn’t even make it to the blockchain. Instead, she spent the money on herself, and OneCoin turned out to be a Ponzi.
Prosecutors told a US court that the scheme operated as a multilevel market network rewarding members for recruiting others.cryptoslate.com
World’s largest crypto exchange is granted crypto license in France
The largest crypto exchange in the world is now listed as a registered digital asset service provider in France. Binance is now listed as a registered digital asset service provider by French stock market watchdog AMF. This enables the exchange to offer trading services for cryptocurrencies.
According to a report by Crypto Compare, Binance spot market volumes reached $490 billion in March of this year, capturing 30.2% of the total market.
In a statement on their blog Binance notes that Binance France has been granted a Digial Aseset Service Provider registration by the the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF).
When asked about the news in France on Bloomberg, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO, and Founder of Binance, expresses his admiration for the country as well as indicating that it is a stepping stone for regulation in other markets,
The largest crypto exchange in the world is now listed as a registered digital asset service provider in France. Binance is now listed as a registered digital asset service provider by French stock market watchdog AMF. This enables the exchange to offer trading services for cryptocurrencies.
According to a report by Crypto Compare, Binance spot market volumes reached $490 billion in March of this year, capturing 30.2% of the total market.
In a statement on their blog Binance notes that Binance France has been granted a Digial Aseset Service Provider registration by the the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF).
When asked about the news in France on Bloomberg, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO, and Founder of Binance, expresses his admiration for the country as well as indicating that it is a stepping stone for regulation in other markets,
“This is one of the first G7 countries that’s given #Binance regulatory approval, this opens doors for us to get more licenses in the region and elsewhere in the world”
A commitment to developing Web3 in France
The announcement makes France the first major country in Europe to allow Binance to operate under regulation. At Paris Blockchain Week, Zhao gave a keynote address where he made his commitment to driving adoption in France clear.
Last year, Binance opened up new offices in Montrouge, a suburb of Paris. Earlier this year at Paris Blockchain Week, Binance positioned itself favorably in France by announcing that Binance would help build Web3 projects at Station F, a start-up incubator in Paris. They also committed to investing 100 million euros in the country. cryptoslate.com
TerraForm Labs CEO Do Kwon announces recovery plan for LUNA, UST following crash
· Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon announced a possible “solution” to deal with the massive crash LUNA and UST experienced over the last couple of days.
· TerraUSD (UST), a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, lost over 50% of its value in an unheard-of event in the crypto space.
· Stablecoins serve as hedging havens during extreme volatility because they have the backing of stable assets. However, unlike other stablecoins, TerraForm Labs leveraged a different mechanism to keep UST stable. Specifically, the stablecoin project leveraged complex algorithmic processes linked to Terra (LUNA).
· However, LUNA plummeted after investors bailed following the de-pegging of UST. As a result, the coin lost 98.49% of its value over the past seven days. LUNA is currently trading at 0.8755. Its trading volume has also shed over 50% in the day.
· At the time of writing, UST is changing hands at $0.3434 after losing 64.18% over the last seven days. Earlier today, the stablecoin traded as low as $0.2998. www.coindesk.com
LUNA, UST Still Available on FTX and Other Exchanges Despite Terra Blockchain Halt
Despite a second halt of the Terra blockchain by its validators, the protocol’s LUNA and UST tokens remain available to trade on FTX and other minor exchanges as of late morning Asia time.
- FTX and China-focused exchange Gate.io continue to trade the Luna token.
- Between its USD and USDT trading pairs, FTX has nearly $445 million in volume during the last 24 hours according to CoinGecko.
- Meanwhile, Gate.io reports $84 million in volume during the last 24-hours for Luna.
- Thai-based exchange Bitazza was trading both Luna and UST up until early this morning Asia time, then pulled the plug on both.
- UST continues to be traded at FTX and KuCoin, with $678 million in volume during the last 24 hours at FTX and $248 million at KuCoin.
- Binance and many other major exchanges halted trading of Luna and UST as both tokens neared the $0 point and the Terra blockchain was shut down the first time.
- It’s unclear if the Terra blockchain will ever be restarted, meaning that the trades may never be settled and traders unable to cash out. www.coindesk.com
