The LocalBitcoins platform has announced that it will cease operations, Kraken will close access to staking services for US customers, the Tron community has approved a new fee model and other events of the outgoing week.
Bitcoin tested below $22,000
Chapter’s last interview Fed Jerome Powell at the Economic Club of Washington was provoked by volatility in the crypto asset market. After breaking through the $23,000 level on the night of February 8, the bitcoin rate began to correct. At the time of writing, digital gold is trading near $22,000.
At the same time, Glassnode analysts noted that there is a cyclical transition in the bitcoin market, which occurs against the backdrop of a sharp change in the ratio of total profits and losses.
On the daily chart, the moving averages (MA) formed a “golden cross” pattern, and on the weekly “death cross” – the harbingers of the bull and bear markets, respectively.
The last time a “golden cross” was observed was in September 2021, two months before Bitcoin reached its all-time high.
Almost all digital assets from the top 10 by capitalization closed the week in the “red zone”. The exception was the Polygon (MATIC) token. Its price rose by 2.5%.
The total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market amounted to $1.07 trillion. The Bitcoin Dominance Index dropped to 39.5%.
LocalBitcoins has announced the closure
The popular P2P platform LocalBitcoins has announced the cessation of work. Representatives of the company said that the reason for the decision was the protracted crypto winter.
Since February 9, registration on LocalBitcoins is not available. Her wallets will only work in withdrawal mode – users have 12 months to do this.
FTX Requests Return of Donations from US Politicians
The FTX Group sent closed letters to politicians demanding the return of donations received earlier from the former head of the exchange, Sam Bankman-Freed. According to the documents for the court, we can talk about $ 93 million.
Tron Community Approves New Fee Model
On February 2, the Tron team proposed to review the fee calculation model. It provides for the introduction of a mechanism for the dynamic regulation of energy consumption in contracts, including in order to combat “low-value or fraudulent transactions.”
Because of this, on February 6, the developers of the Trust Wallet cryptocurrency wallet suspended USDT withdrawals on the Tron network. The next day, the update was released for Android, and the next day for iOS.
At the end of the week, the Binance exchange revised the fee structure for the withdrawal of assets in the Tron network, but subsequently canceled the decision under pressure from the community.
What about troubled companies?
At the beginning of the week, information appeared in the media about the possible sale of the Holdnaut crypto-lending platform and its requirements for FTX. Journalists reported that the process is under negotiations with investors.
The Digital Currency Group (DCG) holding and its subsidiaries from the Genesis Group, which is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, have reached an agreement in principle on the terms of the restructuring plan with major creditors. The deal provides for the gradual zeroing of the Genesis loan portfolio and the sale of insolvent structures.
According to the FT, DCG has begun selling shares in some of the largest crypto funds managed by Grayscale Investments at a significant discount.
Coin Cloud, which manages over 4,000 bitcoin ATMs in the US and Brazil, has filed for bankruptcy. The obligations of the Las Vegas-based company to ~10,000 counterparties are estimated in the range of $100-500 million.
Voyager Digital users will be able to get some of their funds back through their Binance.US accounts in March. The registration period for Voyager customers on the platform started last week. The final amount of payments will depend on market conditions. The lender has a relatively high percentage of altcoins that have performed worse than BTC/ETH.
What to discuss with friends?
- A rehabilitation center in Spain offered a course of treatment for addiction to crypto trading.
- A court in the Russian Federation found a participant in a P2P transaction guilty of fraud.
- John Ray earned $690,000 in two months as the new CEO of FTX. The services of lawyers will cost the company nearly $20 million.
- Vitalik Buterin donated 99 ETH to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria
Kraken has closed staking services to US customers. The exchange will pay the SEC a fine of $ 30 million
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has settled charges filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The attention of the department was attracted by the staking program, the offer and sale of which Kraken “did not register.”
Kraken did not admit or deny the allegations, but agreed to close the program for US customers and pay $30 million in fines. According to Dune Analytics, the exchange included into the top three Ethereum stakers, second only to Lido and Coinbase.
The CEO of the latter, Brian Armstrong, opposed the ban on staking for retail investors, calling it a “terrible path.”
This week, the head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, called the regulation of cryptocurrencies a priority in 2023 and urged industry representatives to pay attention to the Kraken story.
Binance Introduces Tax Calculation Tool and Suspends USD Transfers
Binance has introduced a free service for tax calculation and reporting – Binance Tax. The platform allows you to import your transactions on the exchange into a calculator in order to estimate possible fiscal payments.
Binance Tax is in the early stages of launch and does not yet support all types of transactions. In addition, only residents of Canada and France received access to the service.
Since February 8, Binance has temporarily suspended bank transfers in USD due to a counterparty. According to platform CEO Changpeng Zhao, the restrictions will affect 0.01% of active users.
The exchange also updated its Proof-of-Reserves procedure to include zk-SNARK. Currently available for verification are: BTC, ETH, BNB, USDT, BUSD, USDC, LTC, XRP, SOL, LINK, CHZ, DOT and SHIB.
3AC founder to launch OPNX exchange to trade claims rights
Su Zhu, co-founder of bankrupt hedge fund 3AC, announced the opening of a waiting list for admission to the OPNX exchange. The platform will provide an opportunity to trade claims and derivatives on them.
Investors affected by the collapse of centralized intermediaries will be able to exchange stuck funds for cryptocurrency, or use them as margin collateral. The platform estimates the claims market at $20 billion.
Crypto Companies Won’t Show Super Bowl Ads After FTX Crash
Unlike in 2022, the upcoming Super Bowl on February 12 will not contain promotional videos for digital asset-related projects. This year, four crypto companies expressed interest, but after the collapse of FTX, the deals “were not completed”.
The previous year was remembered for record spending by industry representatives – then Coinbase, FTX, Crypto.com, eToro and others declared themselves, and posting a 30-second video cost $6.5 million.
Uniswap Community Voted to Deploy Protocol on BNB Chain
Despite the struggles of major UNI stakeholders, Uniswap users supported the deployment of the third version of the decentralized exchange protocol on the BNB Chain network.
65.89% of participants voted in favor of the relevant Plasma Labs offer, 33.57% were against.
ChatGPT provoked a rise in prices of AI-cryptoassets
Due to the growing popularity of ChatGPT, the total market capitalization of artificial intelligence and big data tokens has reached $5 billion. According to CoinMarketCap, from February 6 to February 7, the price of the largest coins like GRT, AGIX, FET and OCEAN increased by 20% or more.
This week, Google invested $300 million in competitor ChatGPT and introduced the Bard chatbot. Subscribe to the Telegram channel bitcoinlinux AIin order not to miss the latest news from the world of artificial intelligence.
Also on bitcoinlinux:
- PayPal customers purchased $604 million worth of cryptocurrencies.
- The Optimism team has announced the second OP token airdrop.
- Joseph Lubin ruled out the recognition of Ethereum as a security in the US.
- Tether earned $700 million in net profit in the fourth quarter.
What else to read?
Traditional digests collected the main events of the week in the fields of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector continues to attract increased attention from cryptocurrency investors. bitcoinlinux has collected the most important events and news of recent weeks in a digest.
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