Category: Crypto News

Leading Swiss-based financial institution and bank PostFinance has entered a partnership with Sygnum, the world’s first digital asset bank, to offer a suite of crypto banking services to its customers.

PostFinance to Offer Crypto via Sygnum

According to a blog post, the partnership will enable PostFinance to expand its digital asset products for customers. The retail bank’s clients will be able to purchase, store, and sell crypto assets like bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). 

Commenting on the alliance, Philipp Merkt, Chief Investment Officer of PostFinance, said:

“Digital assets have become an integral part of the financial world, and our customers want access to this market at PostFinance, their trusted principal bank. A reputable and established partner like Sygnum Bank with an excellent service offering is more important than ever.”

PostFinance’s customers will gain access to the bank’s crypto services through Sygnum’s business-to-business (B2B) banking platform. Sygnum’s B2B enables partner banks to enjoy regulated and compliant products in a fast and cost-effective way.

As a bridge between crypto and traditional finance, the digital asset banking platform will provide PostFinance with a range of cryptocurrencies and revenue-generating services like staking.

PostFinance said it discovered that its customers had strong demand for crypto investment services. The bank will leverage Sygnum’s platform to integrate the new offering into its infrastructure.

“Our all-in-one B2B banking platform enables our fifteen-plus B2B partner banks to expand their range of regulated digital asset services at scale and speed. We are pleased to empower PostFinance to deliver institutional-grade digital asset services to their customers. We are committed to continuously drive further innovation and positive change for the industry and our partner banks’ customers,” said Fritz Jost, Chief B2B Officer at Sygnum Bank.

Switzerland Embraces Crypto

The recent move by PostFinance, a government-wholly-owned institution, shows that Switzerland is pro-crypto. The bank is the financial services unit of Swiss Post, Switzerland’s national postal service.

Swiss Post started issuing digital collectibles tied to physical stamps in 2021 and is currently building its crypto custody platform. The postal service company recently announced the launch of Crypto Stamp 3.0, a new limited version of crypto stamps with physical and non-fungible token (NFT) versions scheduled to go live in May.

Dogecoin (DOGE), the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has been on an upward trend in the last 24 hours. The latest surge in DOGE value can be attributed to Elon Musk’s decision to replace Twitter’s traditional bluebird logo with Dogecoin’s picture. 

Elon Musk Uses DOGE as Twitter’s Logo

The American billionaire and Twitter CEO recently changed the platform’s logo to Dogecoin’s icon. As a long-time fan of DOGE, Musk’s move once again pumped the meme coin’s price.

In a tweet, the Dogefather mentioned that he had fulfilled his promise before he bought Twitter for $40 billion. Musk acquired the social media platform last year after going back and forth with the agreement.

With the recent development, the bluebird picture displayed on the icon used to return to Twitter’s homepage on a desktop browser, and the login page has changed to an image of DOGE.

The meme coin was trading at $0.076 before Tweeters noticed the change and then pumped to $0.105 as the news spread, according to data from Cryptocurrenciestowatch.com.

A Positive Outlook for Crypto

Although it remains unclear if the logo change is permanent, the news sparked a lot of optimistic comments on Crypto Twitter. 

Johnny Lyu, the chief executive officer of Seychelles-based crypto exchange KuCoin, said: “#Dogecoin has paved the way for the growth of meme coins. Excited to see that the developments in the crypto ecosystem are promising, with a positive outlook for growth. Today, we witness meme coins blooming. Who will be next?”

Several crypto traders indicated they were capitalizing on Dogecoin’s activity and amassing profits, while other enthusiasts cheered the change. 

In addition, the prices of DOGE-related tokens, including Shiba Inu, Baby Doge Coin, Doge Killer, and Dogelon Mars, all pumped alongside Dogecoin’s rally.

Meanwhile, not all users were happy about the change as they saw the meme coin’s promotion as a distraction from the benefits that Bitcoin provides. 

One @bradmillscan said Musk was contributing to wealth inequality and financial illiteracy through his actions.

“For someone at the very top of the 0.1% who benefited the most from our broken money system, instead of standing behind the principles of #Bitcoin, the people’s money – he promotes degenerate get-rich-quick crap,” he stated.

Leading cryptocurrency exchange firm, Binance, announced it had acquired 100% of  Japanese-registered crypto exchange Sakura Exchange BitCoin (SEBC). Binance revealed the SEBC acquisition on its blog on Wednesday.

Binance takes a big step in its commitment to “enter Japan under regulatory compliance” by fully taking over the licensed Japanese exchange. The take-over has made Binance a Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA) regulated entity.

SEBC is a Japanese-regulated exchange that offers brokerage services to its customers. They allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and have 11 trading pairs already on their service. The pairs include BTC, ETH, XRP, and eight other cryptocurrencies traded against JPY.

SEBC CEO Hitomi Yamamoto, speaking to the press, stated the exchange’s delight in being acquired by Binance, one of the world’s leading crypto-asset exchange service providers. He also noted that in their efforts to prioritize user protection, Binance’s strong compliance system would provide a more compliant atmosphere for users in Japan and help them access key crypto services needed for mass adoption in the future.

Binance Continues its Worldwide Drive for Crypto Adoption

Binance, like most competitors, has already penetrated other top countries and acquired regulatory authorization. It looks set to get its first license in East Asia with the SEBC acquisition, having already achieved that in France, Italy, Spain, Abu Dhabi, Poland, and six other countries.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has shown his commitment to driving crypto adoption worldwide. His recent meetings with Irakli Garishbashvili, the Prime Minister of Georgia, and Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Alabama, have all shown his desire to push crypto adoption further.

Binance’s acquisition of SEBC further pushes the exchange into Asia and propagates crypto awareness and adoption. Takeshi Chino, general manager of Binance Japan, reiterated the importance of the deal to crypto adoption in an interview he granted to the press. He stated that with Japan being one of the biggest economies in the world with a high-developing tech ecosystem, the country would play a key role in the future of crypto adoption.

Crypto lender BlockFi is preparing to file for bankruptcy following crypto exchange FTX contagion, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report comes a few days after the crypto lender halted withdrawals on its platform citing a “lack of clarity” over the status of FTX and its sister company Alameda Research.

Possible Bankruptcy Filing

According to the report, BlockFi is planning to file for Chapter 11 as well as reduce its workforce.

BlockFi neared its liquidity crisis over the past few months following the downfall of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), which also filed for bankruptcy in July. The crypto lender’s exposure to 3AC reportedly led to losses of about $80 million.

BlockFi-FTX Connection

To deal with its liquidity crisis following 3AC’s contagion, BlockFi reached out to FTX for help. And in July, the crypto lender announced it has entered a deal with FTX. The deal included FTX giving a $400 million credit facility to BlockFi with an option to acquire the lending firm for up to $240 Million.

But with FTX recently filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, BlockFi’s financial health appears to have been negatively affected. 

Although the lender denied that the majority of its assets are held at FTX, it admitted having an undrawn line of credit and obligations with the crypto exchange.

“BlockFi has the necessary liquidity to explore all options and we have engaged experts and outside advisors that are helping us navigate BlockFi’s next steps,” the company said in a recent post.

The report stated that BlockFi has recently been working with Kenric Kattner, a bankruptcy partner at Haynes & Boone on its possible bankruptcy filing.

According to reports, BlockFi had between $14 billion and $20 billion of customer deposits as of last year but due to the bear market since mid-May following the downfall of several industry firms, that number has plummeted.

Meanwhile, BlockFi is just one of the many firms affected by the FTX fiasco. Just recently, Nestcoin, a Nigerian crypto startup that builds, operates, and invests in Web 3 applications, revealed it has part of its operational funds stuck on the FTX platform.

Publicly-traded cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported yet another decline as it rolled out its financial report for the third quarter of the fiscal year. Coinbase reported a 55% decline in revenue at approximately $590 million.

Coinbase’s revenue decline was not entirely surprising given the current crypto bear market. Coinbase reported a shortcoming in its core business operations. There was a drop in the monthly transacting users to 8.5 million users against the 9 million users recorded last quarter. Trading volumes also dropped massively to $159 billion with net loss the only improvement as it dropped to $545 million from $1.1 billion recorded the previous quarter.

Coinbase Struggling Amidst Bear Market

Coinbase has declared a decline in three consecutive quarters as revenue dwindles amidst the bear market. Notably, the global financial market has been on a decline since the end of 2021 and it has affected cryptocurrency-related businesses in no small way.

Coinbase’s cash flow reports show a consistent drop in operational cash flow, an event caused by a decline in transacting users. Returns from investments declined in the first quarter of 2022, then rallied in the second quarter before a massive decline in the third quarter.

The uproar seems not to be ending soon as Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas noted that the company is preparing for 2023 with a consecutive bias and assuming that the current macroeconomic headwinds will persist and probably intensify. She predicted that they will be a “sustained low revenue for multiple years.”

The crypto winter has persisted for a while now and despite certain measures the firm has put in place to drive sustainability, it still can’t prevent the decline. Despite reducing the workforce, cutting ties with certain partnerships, and reducing venture-capital investments, Coinbase is still struggling to stay afloat in the bear market.

Digital asset platform Bakkt has reached an agreement with Apex Fintech Solutions, Inc to acquire its crypto project; Apex Crypto. The move was to improve and expand Bakkt’s cryptocurrency product offerings and expand its footprint into additional client verticals including fintech, trading app platforms, and neo-banks.

Apex Crypto is an integrated crypto trading platform developed to serve more than 30 fintech firms. Apex Crypto offers trading in over 44 virtual currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano.

The agreement reached on Thursday will cost Bakkt a maximum purchase cost of $200 million. An initial cash payment of $55 million will be made at the closing of the deal, up to $45 million of Bakkt’s stock depending on the acquired project performance at the end of 2022, and a whopping $100 million in stock and seller notes of Bakkt’s stock depending on the acquired project performance at the end of 2025.

Bakkt recruited Goldman Sachs as a financial adviser for the Apex Crypto acquisition, with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati acting on regulatory matters. Additionally, PC and Alston & Bird, and Sidley Austin acted as legal advisors for the respective companies.

Bakkt Makes Big Moves Amid Bear Market

Commenting on the recent acquisition, Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael noted that the company found Apex Crypto to be a “unique asset.” He believes that the Apex Crypto acquisition will help Bakkt expand its crypto client base and provide “an additional avenue for continued sales to a crypto-savvy audience.”

The Apex Crypto acquisition shows Bakkt’s desire to expand its horizons and explore revenue diversification despite current market conditions. Bakkt also aims to create high-profile synergies with Apex Fintech while also facilitating innovation and development with complementary crypto solutions. 

Meanwhile, Bakkt’s Apex Crypto acquisition follows another landmark partnership with Sullivan bank, a financial institution, in August. The move will likely expand Bakkt’s customer base and aid its ongoing efforts to drive mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Crypto liquidity provider Team Finance announced on Thursday the halt of its services following a $14.5 million exploit.

Team Finance Loses $14.5M

The protocol has a migration feature that enables a switch from v2 tokens to their v3 counterparts. The hacker exploited this feature, thereby transferring real Uniswap v2 liquidity to a new v3 pair under their custody. 

According to on-chain data, the initial fund that got stolen was 1.76 ETH. The exploiter withdrew the fund through the crypto exchange Fixed Float. At the time of writing, the rest of the stolen cryptos remain in the wallet of the hacker. These include 880 ETHs, 6.4 million DAI, 11.8 million TSUKA, and 74.6 trillion CAW.

About an hour into the attack, Team Finance responded, shutting down its protocol activities and addressing the public about the incident. While the platform noted that “all funds currently on Team Finance are not at further risk of this exploit,” the bad actor had already gotten away with $14.5 million worth of crypto assets.

Team Finance’s total value locked (TVL) has dropped, as revealed on crypto aggregator DefiLlama. At the time of writing, the project’s TVL was $128.7 million, which is a 13% decline from its value earlier today.

Source: DefiLlama

DeFi – A Playground for Hackers

In recent times, several decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms have fallen victim to attacks by hackers. Earlier this month, Mango Markets, a Solana-based DeFi project, suffered an exploit that swept over $100 million from its custody.

The attacker conducted the exploit by manipulating the oracle price. This was achieved when the hacker “temporarily spiked up their collateral value,” and proceeded to withdraw huge loans from the project’s treasury.

Following the loss, Mango received a governance proposal from the hacker, requesting a bounty reward of about $70 million. The proposal also stated that the Mango team should not freeze the funds after they are returned or conduct a criminal investigation.

Overall, a recent report showed that over $3 billion has been lost to crypto exploits since the start of 2022.

The current crypto bear market has seen several sectors within the industry set new records on the wrong end of the charts. The decentralized finance (DeFi) market is the latest to hit a new unpleasant record.

According to data on the industry tracker, DeFilLama, the total trading volume for decentralized exchanges (DEXes) hit a new low during the past weekend (October 8 and 9). The cumulative trading volume fell below the $1 billion mark, the first time it has fallen below that threshold since 1st January 2021.

(Source: DeFilLama)

The latest metrics are not entirely surprising given the overall cryptocurrency market cap has dropped from nearly $3 trillion approximately a year ago to under $900 billion at the time of writing. The prolonged crypto winter, buoyed by unfavorable macroeconomic conditions, has reduced volume and user demand for DEX swaps.

Amid the drop, however, several leading DEXes, including Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and Curve, have remained predominant. Ethereum-based Uniswap boasts 55% of the total valued locked (TVL) in DEXes. Pancakeswap ranks second with a distant 13% market share, and Curve completes the rankings with 9.30%.

Three of the top leading DEXes controlling roughly 77% of the global market share, provide insight into how lonely things have become on DeFi street. The TVL locked across DeFi protocols currently sits at $54 billion, representing an over 60% decline from last year’s November highs. 

Is the bottom in?

Records on the wrong end of the chart might indicate that the market decline is close to its bottom, and a reversal may be in sight. However, investors will be keen to see other signs that life is returning to the DeFi space and the broader crypto market. 

Ideally, a reversal of volume metrics for DEXes will be a crucial indicator that winter may be finally over and that spring is near!

Polkadot’s decentralized finance (DeFi) hub Acala has suffered a major exploit. The hack caused the protocol’s stablecoin, aUSD, to lose 99% of its U.S. dollar peg.  The aUSD stablecoin is a core product of Acala that powers the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem.

Acala Suffers Major Exploit

According to findings by Twitter user 0xTaysama, the hacker was able to gain access to the network by exploiting a flaw in the iBTC/AUSD pool.

Upon gaining access to the network, the hacker issued more than 1.2 billion aUSD, which led to the stablecoin losing its peg. The funds still sit in the hacker’s wallet and haven’t left the Acala chain.

The Acala team said that they identified a configuration issue with the Honzon protocol, which affected the stablecoin, and that they are passing an urgent vote to cease operations on the network to investigate the issue.

Acala Likely to Recover Funds

0xTaysama explained that, now that Acala has put the network in maintenance mode to prevent the hacker from transferring the funds, they will likely recover the funds as they did on Karura last year. At the time, Karura detected several suspicious XCM transactions that transferred KSM tokens out of its parachain account but were able to quickly recover the transferred funds through a referendum.

While Acala operates on the Polkadot ecosystem, Karura is Acala’s sister network built on Kusama.

DeFi Hacks on the Rise

Meanwhile, as the DeFi space continues to gain traction, one of its major challenges in the market remains the continued security threats. According to research conducted by blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis, 97% of the $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies stolen in the first quarter of this year were taken from DeFi protocols, a 72% rise from 2021.

In June, decentralized lending platform Inverse Finance, suffered its second hack of the year, losing $1.26 million. 

Last week, DeFi protocol Curve Finance was hacked, with the attackers siphoning off $570,000 from the platform. However, the leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, later recovered most of the stolen funds.