Day: March 2, 2023

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and colleagues demand to see Binance’s balance sheets

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Three United States senators led by Elizabeth Warren have sent a letter to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder expressing concern over a number of facets of Binance’s activities and requesting information from the companies that includes their balance sheets.  Crypto skeptic Warren’s cosigners were fellow Democrat Chris Van Hollen and Republican Roger Marshall. They claimed there is evidence that the companies attempted to evade U.S. regulators, that the companies sanctions evasion and facilitated the laundering of at least $10 billion and they lack transparency. “What…

Bitcoin leverage ramps up as BTC’s margin long-to-shorts ratio hits a record $2.5B high

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Crypto traders’ urge to create leverage positions with Bitcoin (BTC) appears irresistible to many people, but it’s impossible to know if these traders are extreme risk-takers or savvy market makers hedging their positions. The need to maintain hedges holds even if traders rely on leverage merely to reduce their counterparty exposure by maintaining a collateral deposit and the bulk of their position on cold wallets. Not all leverage is reckless Regardless of the reason for traders’ use of leverage, currently there is a highly unusual imbalance in margin lending markets…

US lawmaker behind crypto mining legislation urges Zuck not to offer metaverse to teenagers

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Two United States senators have penned a letter asking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to halt a plan to allow young adults to access the firm’s metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds. In a March 1 letter, Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal said that Meta’s reported plan to “invite young users into a digital space rife with potential harms” should not be implemented if the strategy was driven by profit. According to the two lawmakers, allowing teenagers between 13 and 17 years old access to the virtual environment posed “serious risks”, citing…

Will DeFi Emerge From Crypto Winter Stronger?

There is a domino effect at play here. Last year MakerDAO, the largest DeFi protocol with $8.6 billion in total value locked, pushed further into traditional asset financing, with five traditional finance asset vaults and a $30 million DAI loan using bond token collateral out to a subsidiary of French finance juggernaut Société Générale. Then, a few months ago, private-equity giant KKR tokenized exposure to its $4 billion health-care fund on Avalanche. Subsequently, in November, Apollo announced plans to offer an upcoming fund on a public blockchain through Figure. Just…

Russian bank issues first on-chain bank guarantee in Chinese yuan

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Moscow Credit Bank has issued a blockchain-based bank guarantee denominated in Chinese currency, claiming the product is the first in the country. The bank guarantee exceeds 100 million Chinese yuan — or nearly $144,600 USD at time of publication.  According to a statement, the transaction was performed through the Masterchain blockchain platform, andthe Russian national blockchain network created to transfer digital assets​ between its participants. As one of the advantages of performing the transaction on-chain, the financial institution mentioned that “the beneficiary does not need to wait for the paper…