News

In a release on Friday, Russian news outlet Interfax shared updates regarding the nation’s largest bank, Sberbank’s forthcoming DeFi platform. Russia’s leading financial entity is reportedly making steady progress as it approaches its project’s launch date. According to Konstantin Klimenko, Product Director of the Blockchain Laboratory of Sberbank, open testing should kick off by March.  SberBank’s DeFi System to Replace its TradFi Systems At the moment, Sberbank’s platform is undergoing private beta testing. However, Klimenko set a tentative deadline for…

Crypto bank Silvergate is being investigated by the US Justice Department’s fraud unit for its dealings with FTX and its sister trading arm, Alameda Research.  The investigation is reviewing accounts tied up with both businesses, which have been widely accused of engaging in a multi-billion dollar fraud using FTX customer funds.  What Happened at Silvergate? As reported by Bloomberg on Thursday, the La Jolla, California-based bank hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing, and investigations could end without any charges being…

Berkshire Hathaway’s vice chairman Charlie Munger called for cryptocurrency to be banned in the United States on Monday, as has been done in China.  In an op-ed published with the Wall Street Journal, Munger argued that Bitcoin isn’t a currency, commodity, or security, but simply a form of gambling “ with a nearly 100% edge for the house. As such, a federal law should be enacted banning such things from happening. Munger cited the Chinese communist party’s ban on crypto,…

Wybo Wiersma – a 40-year-old Oxford University graduate – has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison after scamming over $2 million in crypto from unsuspecting victims. Following his arrest in 2019, the Dutchman was extradited from the Netherlands back to the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021. Following a five-year investigation by the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU), he pled guilty on January 26 to the Oxford Crown Court.  A Five-Year Investigation As reported by…

At 15:00 UTC on Wednesday, the much-anticipated Zhejiang testnet for staking withdrawal went live on Ethereum’s Beacon chain. Zhejiang will enable the testing of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895 which allows for staking withdrawals. This is in preparation for the network’s next major update, the Shanghai hard fork slated to launch sometime in March. Users Can Make Simulated Withdrawals with Zhejiang In a tweet yesterday, DevOps engineer at Ethereum foundation Barnabas Busa gave details about the Zhejiang testnet slated…

An independent examiner has revealed shocking details surrounding the inner workings of Celsius – a crypto lender that filed for bankruptcy in July 2022. The examiner claimed that Celsius did not operate by the business model that it presented to customers. He likened it to a Ponzi scheme, much like FTX – a company that happened to have used the same accounting software: QuickBooks.  The Truth About CEL Token Per a filing from examiner Shoba Pillay on Tuesday, Celsius had…

The world’s largest crypto exchange has teamed up with Mastercard, the second-largest global payment processor, to bring a prepaid crypto card to Brazil.  The card will enable Brazillian Binance users to pay bills and make purchases using cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and BNB. Per Binance’s announcement on Monday, the card can be used with over 90 million Mastercard merchants worldwide, as well as online. Though still in its beta-launch phase, it will soon become widely available. The card works by converting…

According to a Financial Times report, CEO Elon Musk would like Twitter’s in-progress payment model to incorporate cryptocurrencies. Amid the mooted revelations, Musk’s favorite crypto Dogecoin experienced a notable surge in value. The token hit a daily high but retraced its steps soon after.  Elon Musk became Twitter owner and CEO on the 27th of October last year. Despite still being in the early days of the handover, Twitter has experienced a slew of makeovers in the last few months.…

Get the weekly summary of crypto market analysis, news, and forecasts! This Week’s Summary The Crypto Market ends the week at a total market capitalization of $1,071 trillion. Bitcoin is up by over 3% after a successful week. Ethereum decreased by almost 2% over the past seven days. XRP gained nearly 2% in value this week. Almost all altcoins are trading in the green, with very few exceptions. The DeFi sector decreased the total value of protocols (TVL) to around…