News - Optimisus

FTX Takes Legal Steps to Reclaim $400 Million from JPMorgan: New York Times

1 year ago 1 min read

FTX Launches Legal Battle to Retrieve $400 Million from JPMorgan: New York Times

FTX crypto exchange is reportedly negotiating the return of a $400 million investment made by its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, in Modulo Capital, a relatively unknown hedge fund. According to sources cited by The New York Times, FTX’s new leadership is in talks with Modulo to recover the funds. Modulo is a multi-strategy hedge fund that was founded in 2022 by two former traders from Jane Street, a proprietary trading firm where Bankman-Fried worked before venturing into the crypto industry. The fund’s holdings were converted to cash and placed in an interest-bearing account with JPMorgan, its prime broker, following FTX’s collapse.

1 year ago 1 min read

US Senator Elizabeth Warren pushes for stronger crypto regulations

Senator Elizabeth Warren is once again spearheading an initiative to broaden anti-money laundering laws to cover a range of participants in the cryptocurrency industry. This includes blockchain network participants, validators, digital asset wallet providers, and miners, among others. The proposed legislation will provide regulators with the tools to curtail the flow of crypto to criminal elements such as drug traffickers and nations such as North Korea. During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on crypto guardrails on Tuesday, Warren claimed that anti-money laundering rules have failed to apply adequately to crypto firms. The bill, which Senator Warren will introduce with Senator

The FSC in South Korea has issued guidance defining security tokens

1 year ago 1 min read

South Korean Crypto Industry to Implement Self-Regulation Guidelines

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) in South Korea has issued guidance defining security tokens as tokens that are digitized using distributed ledger technology, which brings regulatory clarity for South Korean securities firms and token issuers. This move aligns South Korea with other jurisdictions in Asia, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, that require firms to regulate themselves in the first instance. The new regulatory framework is expected to encourage digital asset innovation in South Korea’s capital markets and players in traditional finance are already responding, including Shinhan Investment and Securities. While there may be growing pains as regulators and businesses

Mainnet beta launch of Polygon's zkEVM Layer 2 slated for March

1 year ago 1 min read

Polygon’s zkEVM Layer 2 set for mainnet beta release in March

Polygon is set to launch its new Layer 2 scaling solution, zkEVM, on March 27 with the aim of expanding the scaling capabilities of the Ethereum network. This zero-knowledge or ZK-Rollup scaling solution is expected to perform off-chain computations on a secondary layer, prioritizing security and enabling faster and cheaper transactions. According to Polygon, its zkEVM is equivalent to Ethereum’s Virtual Machine, meaning that the network is expected to support the same code as Ethereum. This allows developers to onboard apps from Ethereum and use them on Polygon’s zkEVM network without making significant changes. Polygon has been working on the

1 year ago 1 min read

Binance CEO says crypto likely to shift towards non-USD pegged stablecoins

In a recent Twitter Spaces event, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, predicted that the crypto industry would begin using stablecoins based on currencies such as the euro, yen, and Singapore dollar in the future. This will be to reduce the industry’s reliance on the United States dollar-based stablecoins. While it makes sense to use gold as a standard of value, CZ explained that most people’s costs are still in fiat currencies. For this reason, most investors calculate their investment returns in dollars, which is why U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins remain essential. However, CZ argues that the recent actions taken by the

Crypto Exchanges Binance and Huobi Freeze Funds Tied to Harmony Bridge Hack

1 year ago 1 min read

Binance and Huobi Seize $1.4 Million in Crypto Related to Harmony Bridge Theft

Two major crypto exchanges, Binance and Huobi, have frozen $1.4 million in cryptocurrency related to the Harmony Bridge heist and its alleged North Korean hackers. According to Elliptic, a crypto tracing firm, it provided intelligence to the two exchanges that led them to freeze accounts. Elliptic traced the funds back to the $100 million hack of a “bridge” that enabled Harmony blockchain users to move crypto assets between different ecosystems. Binance and Huobi have not yet commented on the situation. Federal investigators have attributed the attack on the bridge to the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacker group, as part

1 year ago 3 mins read

PEGA Pool Announces the Official Launch of Its Eco-friendly Bitcoin Mining Pool

Swanage, United Kingdom, 14th February, 2023 UK-based PEGA Pool announces the official launch of its eco-friendly Bitcoin mining pool that enables clients to offset their carbon footprint and incentivizes them to use renewable energy. By allowing clients to connect their ASIC miners to its platform and mine together, it provides them with a more consistent and attractive income than mining alone. PEGA Pool is one of the world’s top 10 largest Bitcoin mining pools, according to BTC.com. With the growing adoption of Bitcoin, the Proof-of-Work mining operations have received a lot of criticism from individuals, corporations, and governments over the industry’s fossil fuel

The UK FCA is taking a hard line on unregistered ATMs

1 year ago 1 min read

UK FCA to Crack Down on Illegal Crypto ATMs

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is taking a hard line on unregistered cryptocurrency automated teller machines (ATMs) in the United Kingdom. The FCA and the cyber team at West Yorkshire Police have targeted several sites in and around Leeds city, which are suspected of illegally hosting crypto ATMs. The FCA emphasizes that none of the crypto ATM operators in the United Kingdom have registered with the FCA, and all crypto exchange providers, including crypto ATM operators, must comply with U.K. money laundering regulations. Crypto products are “currently unregulated and high-risk,” warns FCA’s executive director of enforcement Mark Steward, adding that

South Korea is closely monitoring the Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit in the US

1 year ago 1 min read

South Korean Financial Regulator Keeps Close Eye on Ripple vs. SEC Lawsuit

The South Korean financial authority, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), is closely monitoring the Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit in the United States. The outcome of the lawsuit could potentially influence regulations in the country. The FSS Digital Asset Research Team gathers data on the crypto market and presents it to the FSS, which will examine the lawsuit’s outcome and consider its conclusions for local regulations. The FSS will revise regulations and formats so that token securities can be issued and distributed in accordance with relevant guidelines. It will also hold a briefing session for the industry. The outcome of the

FTX has received court approval to sell select investment assets

1 year ago 1 min read

Certain FTX Assets Granted Approval for Sale by Court

FTX has received court approval to sell select investment assets and subsidiaries, as part of the liquidation process. The court authorized the sale or transfer of certain assets, including investments in privately or publicly held companies, warrants, tokens and token warrants, shares, promissory notes, future equity interests and future token interests. The aggregate selling price of each asset must be less than or equal to $1 million, and the confirmed investment value must be less than or equal to $5 million. Investee entities have five days to file an objection to the sale, after which FTX liquidators will proceed with

DBS Bank plans to expand its crypto trading services to Hong Kong

1 year ago 1 min read

DBS Bank set to expand its crypto trading services to Hong Kong

DBS Bank, one of Singapore’s largest banks, plans to expand its crypto trading services to Hong Kong after the Hong Kong government completes its regulatory framework for the crypto industry later this year. DBS Bank Hong Kong CEO, Sebastian Paredes, has stated that the bank plans to apply for a license to sell digital assets to its Hong Kong customers. Despite the risks associated with digital assets, DBS Bank intends to become one of the first lenders to offer crypto in Hong Kong. DBS Bank has already launched crypto trading services in Singapore, and it continues to grow its crypto

1 year ago 1 min read

Binance USD (BUSD) Redemptions Skyrocket to $360M as Investors Panic

Paxos, the issuer of Binance’s stablecoin BUSD, has recently announced that it will stop minting the dollar-pegged asset from February 21. The announcement follows a legal threat from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused the NYDFS-regulated company of selling unregistered securities. Paxos has stated that BUSD is not a security, but the SEC staff disagrees. This move has led to panic, with redemptions of BUSD skyrocketing over the past few hours. Industry analysts are labeling this as a clandestine attack on Binance, and the BUSD run has caused a 2.2% decline in supply in just a few hours.