On September 28th, financial technology company NAKA launched a payment solution and a self-hosted payment card that are both based entirely on smart contracts and comply with the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) standard.
NAKA's new payment solution and self-hosted payment card will undergo initial testing in Switzerland and El Salvador, both of which have developed POS terminal infrastructure and accept Bitcoin payments, making them ideal for evaluating NAKA's new products.
#BTC!

According to CryptoSlam data, the total sales of NFTs on the ImmutableX layer 2 expansion network of Ethereum has exceeded $600 million, reaching $602,398,769 at the time of writing. The total number of on-chain transactions is approximately 17.088 million, with nearly 170,000 independent buyers and over 182,000 independent sellers. Historical data shows that the total sales of NFTs on the ImmutableX chain exceeded $500 million in mid-last month, meaning that it has grown by more than 20% in less than a month.
#BTC!

New York Attorney General Letitia James has expanded the state's lawsuit against Digital Currency Group and tripled the estimated size of alleged fraud to more than $3 billion.
After a continued investigation, James said the office became aware that more investors were defrauded, leading to an additional $2 billion in assets that were lost, according to a statement released on Friday. The lawsuit hinges on a crypto lending program called Gemini Earn.
"While the initial suit focused largely on the losses of retail investors participating in the Gemini Earn investment program, as more complaints have been made, it became clear that the complicated nature of the fraud also swindled other investors who contributed their money directly to DCG’s affiliate Genesis," the NYAG said.
The NYAG sued Gemini, Genesis and its parent company DCG in October over the Gemini crypto lending program. At the time, James said the three entities defrauded more than 29,000 New Yorkers of more than $1 billion. James also said DCG and Genesis "disguised $1.1 billion in losses through a months-long campaign of misstatements, omissions, and concealment."
The NYAG has now found that the companies defrauded more than 230,000 investors out of more than $3 billion, according to the new amended complaint.
“After months of false promises, we pulled the curtain back and revealed that DCG was lying to investors and defrauding them out of billions,” Attorney General James said in a statement. “The fraud and deceit were so expansive that many additional people have come forward to report similar harm.
DCG did not respond to a request for comment.
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Settlements
This comes after Genesis Global Holdco, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2022, said it reached a settlement with the NYAG in a court filing on Thursday. DCG is the parent company of that firm.
"After months of hard-fought negotiation, the Debtors and NYAG have reached a resolution of the NY Action," Genesis said in a document filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. A judge would still have to approve that settlement.
Last week, Genesis Global Holdco settled a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and agreed to pay $21 million.
The SEC said the Gemini Earn program was an unregistered securities offering where they were able to raise "billions of dollars'" worth of crypto from thousands of investors. The SEC said Genesis lacked enough liquid assets to meet withdrawal costs a year into the program leaving investors dry, among other allegations. New York's James said Genesis hid $1.1 billion in losses.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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The upcoming Duncan upgrade on Ethereum, expected in mid-March, will introduce what's known as "proto-danksharding."
This upgrade is drawing attention from Ethereum enthusiasts for its potential to enhance Layer 2 solutions such as zkSync, Optimism, Arbitrum, and others, marking Duncan as a crucial development for their future.
Proto-danksharing (or EIP-4844) aims to incorporate off-chain ‘data blobs’, enabling the inclusion of more data in Ethereum transactions without affecting block processing times. This is being touted as key for the scalability of Layer 2s on the network, offering them the capability to utilize increased data capacity.
Consequently, a major decrease in transaction costs on Ethereum Layer 2s is anticipated. “The overwhelming difference that users will notice with the EIP-4844 upgrade is that the transaction fees will be substantially reduced,” Anthony Rose, head of engineering at Matter Labs — the core contributor to zkSync — told The Block.
zkSync, which functions as a Layer 2 network atop the Ethereum mainnet, aggregates hundreds to thousands of transactions into batches, which are then verified on the mainnet. However, this verification incurs fees, which are passed on to users.
At the time of writing, transaction fees on zkSync are averaging about $0.20. The component that EIP-4844 will affect — related to data costs — is roughly $0.08–$0.10 per transaction. The team predicts that this data-related component could potentially reduce nearly ten-fold after Duncan, which may bring down the average fee (per transaction) to under $BTC Leveraging Boojum
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Matter Labs has implemented code enhancements to zkSync in the past year, in line with EIP-4844, targeting performance and improving the capability to batch transactions and verify them.
“We’re working on a number of improvements to the protocol that, combined with the changes specific to EIP-4844, will have a big impact on the performance of zkSync,” Rose said.
Among them is the roll-out of Boojum, a STARK-based proof system designed to enable the network to compress and publish a lot more data to the mainnet within its batches.
Boojum was instrumental in the amount of data zkSync aggregates to Ethereum per Layer 2 batch, and now the cost efficiency that Duncan would bring would make it more cost-efficient.
“With the Boojum upgrade, we included some changes to the way we publish data to L1 (partly to prepare for EIP-4844), but this also allowed us to introduce better data compression, and simultaneously, we increased the L2 batch sizes,” Rose explained.
“Our batches will be bigger, and the transactions will get cheaper,” he added.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Horizen announced that it will permanently disable the shielded pool after the main chain upgrade through hard fork at block height 1502800 on February 7th at 20:00. It is recommended that users withdraw funds from the shielded pool before this time. Funds can be transferred to their own transparent address using Sphere by Horizen or zen-cli. After February 7th, funds in the shielded pool will no longer be able to be transferred to any other address.
#BTC!

On February 17th, Estes, co-head of the General Crimes Bureau in the southern district of New York, stated that due to the rise of cryptocurrency assets, the amount of losses in the FTX case will cause intense controversy during sentencing. If all clients and creditors are compensated, the defense may argue for a significant reduction in the amount of losses, even to $0.According to relevant US laws, for cases of fraud that cause lower losses, the recommended sentencing range is 24-30 months. Therefore, SBF may receive a lenient sentence in next month's ruling.
#BTC!

Republican senators have a bone to pick with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler over inaccurate statements the agency made in its lawsuit against crypto startup DEBT Box.
Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Katie Boyd Britt of Alabama, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and JD Vance of Ohio said the SEC's mission of protecting investors and maintaining fair markets was "compromised" by its handling of the case in a letter penned to Gensler on Wednesday.
"We are greatly concerned by the Commission’s conduct in this case," they said in the letter. "It is unconscionable that any federal  agency—especially one regularly involved in highly consequential legal procedures and one that, under your leadership, has often pursued its regulatory mission through enforcement actions  rather than rulemakings—could operate in such an unethical and unprofessional manner."
The SEC first sued Digital Licensing Inc., doing business as DEBT Box, in July, for defrauding thousands of investors of at least $49 million by offering customers so-called "node licenses" to receive revenue from mining 11 tokens, though they were never mined.
The agency later said in late December that it made inaccurate statements and said it "fell short" of the expectations to be accurate and candid in the court. Utah U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby had criticized the agency's lawyers and ordered the SEC to explain "false or misleading" statements after it claimed the company was trying to move assets overseas in order to escape the regulator's jurisdiction.
Plans to dismiss the case
The SEC told the court last week that it planned to dismiss the case against DEBT Box without prejudice, meaning the SEC can still refile its case.
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"Regardless of whether Commission staff deliberately misrepresented  evidence or unknowingly presented false information, this case suggests other enforcement cases brought by the Commission may be deserving of scrutiny," the senators said in their letter. "It is difficult to maintain confidence  that other cases are not predicated upon dubious evidence, obfuscations, or outright  misrepresentations."
The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American Securities Association, a trade group representing regional financial services firms, also criticized the SEC's handling of the case.
“The SEC Director of Enforcement holds a position of trust and confidence, and the American people expect him to act with the highest ethical and moral conduct," said Chris Iacovella, CEO of ASA in a statement. "Instead of upholding that standard, his division intentionally misled a federal court in pursuit of a political agenda against an industry the SEC doesn’t like.”
Lawmakers, many Republicans, in Washington have been critical of Chair Gensler's approach to regulating crypto. Gensler has said many cryptocurrencies are securities and has brought charges against large crypto exchanges who he says need to register with the agency.
Sen. Hagerty, who signed this week's letter, has said that Gensler's "posture" is hurtful to the industry. Others are working on bills to regulate the industry, including a bill focused on stablecoins. Top Democrat of the House Financial Services Committee Maxine Waters of California told Politico on Wednesday that negotiators are "very, very close" to reaching agreement on that stablecoin bill after talks over the summer dissolved over a provision that allows state regulators to approve stablecoin issuances without Federal Reserve input.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and the police warned the public today to beware of suspected fraudulent activities involving an entity that claims to be a virtual asset trading platform. The entity operates under the name "MEXC". MEXC is suspected of using the guise of providing free investment advice to lure victims into joining social media or instant messaging chat groups. In these chat groups, victims interested in purchasing cryptocurrencies are recommended to the website operated by MEXC. Victims are asked to deposit funds into a designated bank account for investment purposes, but later encounter difficulties in withdrawing funds. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission listed MEXC and its website on the list of suspicious virtual asset trading platforms on February 9, 2024.
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Merlin Chain announced on the X platform that it has launched a staking function.
#BTC!

On February 17th, according to Lookonchain monitoring, in the past two weeks, 83 new wallets (possibly belonging to the same institution) have withdrawn a total of 11,097,687 LINK tokens ($216.4 million) from Binance.
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According to Arkham data on February 8th, Grayscale transferred 1500.6 BTC worth approximately $67.7 million to the Coinbase Prime Deposit address 20 minutes ago. They also transferred 2276.6 BTC to a new address, which may be a new custody address for Grayscale.
#BTC!

The cryptocurrency payment company Ramp is launching a new plan that allows potential customers to skip the steps of providing a tax identification number and taking a selfie during registration. The company believes that by eliminating the need for potential customers to send their government ID photos, more people will register, thereby increasing adoption rates. It is reported that this service will initially only be launched in Brazil and will help Ramp integrate users of supported platforms, including MetaMask, TrustWallet, BitPay, and Sorare.
#BTC!

Pyth Network has launched the second phase of its retroactive token airdrop to over 160 eligible dapps. Qualified dapps are those that rely on Pyth's price data for protocol operations, including trading, asset valuation, and on-chain settlement. Approximately 100 million PYTH governance tokens (worth about $47 million) will be distributed to dapps. Dapps that have received the distribution include Synthetix, Mango Markets, Bonfida, Helium, and PancakeSwap, covering DeFi use cases such as DEX, lending, structured products, stablecoins, and data analysis. According to sources, some dapps have completed the claiming process and may have already started receiving tokens, or will soon receive them, with distribution awaiting legal review, as each dapp needs to complete KYC procedures.
#BTC!

Blockchain security company Hacken recently revealed the connection between a hack against Ripple co-founder and chairman Chris Larsen's personal wallet and XRP authorized wallets. The hack occurred on January 31st and caused Larsen to lose 213 million XRP, worth $112.5 million. Hacken revealed that the hack involved two core wallets related to XRP authorized wallets. Due to the complexity of the incident, the investigation initially focused on a wallet with the address starting with "rJNLz3A1", which was identified as the compromised XRP wallet. Through analysis of incoming and outgoing transactions, Hacken's research indicates that most of the stolen funds were transferred to different exchange addresses, including one from Kraken, which was reportedly used to transfer funds. Specifically, a wallet address starting with "rU1bPM4" had a significant amount of transactions with Larsen and was associated with the wallet used by the hacker. This account has a long-standing relationship with XRP and, prior to the incident, sent 64.6 million XRP to Larsen and participated in a transaction with Kraken's deposit address, reportedly used to transfer funds from the attack. Although Hacken did not reach the conclusion that the attack was carried out by insiders, the connection between the wallets involved and XRP authorized wallets is unusual.
#BTC!

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad," predicts that the prices of Bitcoin and silver will "take off," while gold will fall below $1,200. He urges investors to prepare for the "biggest crash in history" that he predicted in his book years ago. Kiyosaki also emphasizes that the Federal Reserve is "destroying" the U.S. economy and advises, "I'd rather trust gold, silver, and Bitcoin than believe in the Federal Reserve."
#BTC!