NFT Updates

ABNORMAL TOKEN PRICE MOVEMENTS ON BINANCE NOT HACK-RELATED, CONFIRMS CZ 📈📉

On Dec. 11, Binance issued a notice about abnormal price movements for some trading pairs. As a result, the exchange began an investigation to narrow down suspicious accounts responsible for the issue.

Crypto exchange Binance began investigating suspicious behavior on its platform after noticing abnormal price movements for certain trading pairs involving Sun Token (SUN), Ardor (ARDR), Osmosis (OSMO), FUNToken (FUN) and Golem (GLM) tokens. Nearly 40 minutes into the investigation, Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao revealed that the price movements “appears to be just market behavior.”

On Dec. 11 at 3:10 am ET, Binance issued a notice about abnormal price movements for some trading pairs. The exchange began an investigation to narrow down suspicious accounts responsible for the issue. To investors’ relief, Binance’s investigation did not point to the possibility of compromised accounts or stolen API keys.

In CZ’s words:
“One guy deposited funds and started buying. (Hackers don’t deposit). Other guys followed. Can’t see linkage between the accounts.”

However, the exchange took a proactive measure against possible manipulation. It temporarily blocked withdrawals for some accounts that made profits during the volatility, which according to CZ, sprouted complaints across social media.
CZ further addressed the concerns related to centralization and company intervention during similar occasions as he stated, “There is a balance to how much we should intervene.”

When asked about the possibility of using stolen or compromised accounts for carrying out manipulative trades, CZ clarified that Binance actively monitors such accounts, adding that:

“If you leave your account details with a 3rd party platform that gets hacked, and the hacker is cautious in using it, it can be hard to detect on our side. But we try.”

Binance has confirmed to keep investors updated as soon as ongoing investigations reveal new information about the ongoing price movements.

The ill-intent of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried set back the crypto industry by a few years, said CZ during Indonesia Fintech Summit 2022.

“I think basically we've been set back a few years now. Regulators rightfully will scrutinize this industry much, much harder, which is probably a good thing, to be honest,” CZ added, emphasizing that the episode was devastating for the industry.

©️ Cointelegraph (Author: Arijit Sarkar)

FALCONX SAYS EXPOSURE TO FTX REPRESENTED 18% OF ITS 'UNENCUMBERED CASH EQUIVALENTS' 📈

Cryptocurrency trading company FalconX has disclosed that it suffered losses in the collapse of FTX.

According to the company, its assets locked on FTX represent only 18% of its “unencumbered cash equivalents.” However, the company added that this ratio fell well within their counterparty exposure limits.

FalconX insisted that despite its exposure to the now insolvent FTX, its finances remain strong, as it continues to facilitate “billions of dollars” in daily trade volume for its clients. The company also claimed that its monthly volume has grown by “80%+ month-over-month.”

“In a 0% recovery scenario of FTX balances, FalconX remains one of the best-capitalized firms in digital assets,” the company said, adding that it was “highly liquid” with a 4% debt-to-equity ratio and with over 80% of its balance sheet in regulated United State banks.

Despite suffering losses in the FTX collapse, FalconX maintained it had no exposure to Genesis, Alameda Research or BlockFi.

Since the abrupt closure of FTX, some cryptocurrency companies have downplayed their exposure to the failed exchange, while others have been caught lying to their investors and clients about the impact the collapse had on them.

BlockFi, which initially denied having a majority of its assets custodied on FTX, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 28.

On Dec. 5, blockchain-based institutional capital marketplace Maple Finance cut all ties with Orthogonal Trading due to its alleged misrepresentation of finances following the collapse of FTX. According to Maple Finance, Orthogonal Trading had been “operating while effectively insolvent.”

©️ Cointelegraph (Author: Judith BannermanQuist)

VITALIK BUTERIN DISCUSSES HIS EXCITEMENT FOR THE FUTURE OF ETHEREUM 👨‍💼

Vitalik Buterin says that money, blockchain identities, decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and hybrid applications are the top developments he is excited about in the Ethereum ecosystem. In a Dec. 5 blog post, the Ethereum co-founder describes his experience of using Ether as a means of payment in a cafe in Argentina:

"When we walked in, the owner recognized me, and immediately showed me that he has ETH and other crypto-assets on his Binance account. We ordered tea and snacks, and we asked if we could pay in ETH. The coffee shop owner obliged, and showed me the QR code for his Binance deposit address, to which I sent about $20 of ETH from my Status wallet on my phone."

That cafe visit occurred last December, when Ethereum was still proof-of-work, so the transaction didn’t really make “pragmatic sense,” Buterin conceded. Network fees accounted for one-third of the transaction, and the funds took several minutes to arrive. But due to Ethereum’s merge to proof-of-stake in September, "transactions get included significantly more quickly, and the chain has become more stable, making it safer to accept transactions after fewer confirmations."

Then, addressing the rise of DeFi, Buterin wrote that the industry started off honorably but quickly became "an overcapitalized monster that relied on unsustainable forms of yield farming." However, he added that DeFi is in the "early stages of setting down into a stable medium, improving security, and refocusing on a few applications that are particularly valuable."

Next, Buterin praised the rise of blockchain identification methods, such as Sign In With Ethereum (SIWE), and their ability to enhance user privacy. "It [SIWE] allows you to interact with a site without giving Google or Facebook access to your private information or the ability to take over or lock you out of your account," wrote Buterin. Furthermore, he said such protocols could also be used to prove eligibility in events like governance or airdrops without compromising users' personal data.

Regarding DAOs, Buterin said while the term "captures many of the hopes and dreams that people have put into the crypto space to build more democratic, resilient and efficient forms of governance," greater work needs to be done to improve censorship resistance and susceptibility to internal organization. Highlighting the example of MakerDAO, Buterin wrote:

"MakerDAO has $7.8 billion in collateral, over 17x the market cap of the profit-taking token, MKR. Hence, if governance was up to MKR holders with no safeguards, someone could buy up half the MKR, use that to manipulate the price oracles, and steal a large portion of the collateral for themselves."
Finally, the Ethereum co-founder noted the potential of merging Ethereum blockchain technology with off-chain processes such as voting. In one scenario, Buterin wrote: "Votes are published to the blockchain, so users have a way independent of the voting system to ensure that their votes get included. But votes are encrypted, preserving privacy, and a ZK-SNARK-based solution."

As for the next steps, Buterin stuck to his belief in prioritizing projects with long-term value propositions rather than those fixated on short-term profit. "Many of the more stable and boring applications do not get built because there is less excitement and less short-term profit to be earned around them: the LUNA market cap got to over $30 billion, while stablecoins striving for robustness and simplicity often get largely ignored for years," he wrote. Post-Merge, Ethereum's next major anticipated update is the Shanghai hard fork, which will enable users to withdraw their staked Ether. The upgrade is scheduled for the second half of 2023.

Credit: Cointelegraph (AUTHOR: ZHIYUAN SUN)