Chris Akhavan, the first person to serve in this role at the marketplace, was previously chief business officer at blockchain gaming company Forte. He told CoinDesk that he will work to build out Magic Eden’s efforts to tap into the gaming industry, supporting game developers building with Magic Eden’s infrastructure. Source
The Nomad token bridge announced its relaunch guide after fixing the contract vulnerability that led to a $190 million exploit in August. According to a blog post from Dec. 7, the Nomad protocol will allow users to bridge back madAssets and access a pro-rata share of recovered funds. A redesign for the token bridge was also implemented by the Nomad team, said the company, explaining that without this redesign, the “first people to bridge back their madAssets would receive canonical tokens on a one-to-one basis until there were no canonical…
“The fact that Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust is now trading at nearly 50% discount is just awful for holders of GBTC. It really highlights the vast differences in structure quality between different investment vehicles,” Bradley Duke, co-CEO at ETC Group, said in a note to CoinDesk. Original
However, CBDCs are not without their risks and challenges. They could expose economies to “greater systematic financial risk brought on by volatility and sudden foreign exchange fluctuations,” the report said. Plus, central banks will have to workout how they can use a CBDC to ensure inclusion if not everyone has access to digital technology, the report said. Source
Finiko was popular in Russia in 2020-2021, marketing itself as a crypto investment fund. The company, which had been conducting public events and openly advertising itself, operated as a multilevel marketing scheme, offering rewards for bringing in new users and targeting mostly women from 30 to 50 years old, according to the Russian investigative outlet The Bell. It could have gotten away with as much as $95 million of investors’ money, The Bell said. Source
John Ray III, a restructuring expert who oversaw the Enron Corp. bankruptcy, took over as CEO when FTX filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Jacques’ team is tasked with tracking the funds that went missing from FTX as the firm cratered amid a liquidity freeze. Source AlixPartnersBankruptcyForensicFTXHireInvestigatorsManagersWSJ CryptoX Portal
On Oct. 28, the firm’s core legal entity, BKCoin Management LLC, filed a complaint with the circuit court that alleged Kang had improperly diverted and/or commingled $12 million in cash and other assets out of the multi-strategy funds. BKCoin had terminated Kang’s employment on Oct. 14 but wasn’t sure if he still had access to the accounts. Source
American fintech company ZELF has introduced an anonymous Visa debit card to be accepted at any of Visa’s 80 million locations worldwide. ZELF’s latest initiative will allow users to open up a U.S. dollar checking account with only their name, email, and phone number, sparing them from having to provide documentation such as a social security number and proof of address. According to the fintech company, prospective clients can open a checking account and have an anonymous virtual debit card, which works with Apple and Google Pay, within 30 seconds. …
“It’s not just other funds and investors who can benefit from protection against nonlinear drops in cryptocurrency markets. I think this new fund will be valuable to the entire crypto ecosystem; exchanges, payment processors, project endowments, and really anyone with significant exposure to crypto,” Kvamme said. Source
Developers also agreed to a second hard fork sometime in the fall of 2023, that would address another significant scaling upgrade – proto-danksharding, also known as EIP 4844. EIP 4844 would make Ethereum more scalable through sharding, a method that splits up the network into “shards” as a way to increase its capacity and bring down gas fees. Source