U.S. Investigators Subpoena Hedge Funds in Binance Money-Laundering Probe: Report

Recently, Binance has made efforts to increase its commitment to compliance, growing its security and compliance staff by 500% in 2022. Additionally, last fall the company assembled a global advisory board chaired by Max Baucus, a former Democratic senator from Montana. Meanwhile, the exchange seems eager to improve its relations with the U.S. government, recently becoming active in crypto lobbying in Washington, DC. Source

Sam Bankman-Fried’s charitable donations sought by FTX: Report

FTX’s new management is seeking to recover millions of dollars in donations made by the crypto exchange and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, reports the Wall Street Journal.  At the end of September, FTX’s charity arm, Future Fund, had committed more than $160 million to over 110 nonprofit organizations, including biotech startups and university researchers developing Covid-19 vaccines and working on pandemic studies, as well as nonprofit organizations in India, China and Brazil. As per the report, Future Fund committed $3.6 million to AVECRIS, a company working on a genetic…

Metaverse to possibly create $5T in value by 2030: McKinsey report

While the 2022 bear market grazed off the excitement around the budding crypto sub-ecosystems such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), the Metaverse remains well-positioned for long-term disruption. Considering the myriad consumer and business-centric use cases the metaverse could cater to, a McKinsey & Company report highlights the technology’s potential to generate up to $5 trillion in value by 2030. For the Metaverse to reach its full potential, the report highlighted the need for four technology enablers — devices (AR/VR, sensors, haptics, and peripherals), interoperability and open standards, facilitating platforms and development…

Crypto Conglomerate DCG Being Investigated by DOJ, SEC: Report

The prosecutors with the DOJ’s Eastern District of New York office have so far requested interviews and documents from DCG and Genesis, the report said, while the SEC appears to be in a similarly early stage of its own inquiry. The report, which cited people familiar with the matter, said that neither Genesis nor DCG, which is also the parent company to CoinDesk, have so far “been accused of wrongdoing.” Source

$3.9 billion lost in the cryptocurrency market in 2022: Report

Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the Web3 ecosystem, published a report on Jan. 6 revealing that the crypto industry lost a total of 3.9 billion dollars in 2022.  According to the report, hacks were found to be the main cause of the losses, accounting for 95.6% of the total, with fraud, scams, and rug pulls comprising the remaining 4.4%. Immunefi also found that decentralized finance (DeFi) was the most targeted sector, suffering 80.5% in losses, compared to centralized finance (CeFi) which suffered a loss of 19.5%. According…

Huobi net outflows crossed over 60M within the past 24 hours: Report

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has seen over $94.2 million dollars in net outflows within the past week. Within the past 24 hours alone, approximately $60 million has flowed out of the exchange, according to crypto analytics company Nansen. In the past 24 hours, Huobi has seen a significant increase in net outflows $60.9M* of the $94.2M* net outflow in the past week occurred in the past day alone *Contains Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Fantom, & Polygon flows pic.twitter.com/JV1Tg13QMY — Nansen (@nansen_ai) January 6, 2023 Nansen also reported that a significant portion…

ETH Lower, as Markets Await Nonfarm Payrolls Report – Market Updates Bitcoin News

Ethereum was marginally lower on Dec. 6, as markets prepared for this afternoon’s nonfarm payrolls report. December’s report is set to show an addition of 200,000 jobs to the U.S. economy, which would be down from November’s figure of 263,000. Bitcoin was also slightly down ahead of the release. Bitcoin Bitcoin (BTC) continued to hover slightly under the $17,000 level on Friday, as markets consolidated ahead of the latest U.S. nonfarm payrolls (NFP). Today’s report is expected to show an addition of 200,000 jobs to the economy, lower than the…

US authorities are turning their attention to FTX’s Nishad Singh: Report

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission and prosecutors are reportedly investigating former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh for potentially having a role in defrauding investors and users. According to a Jan. 5 report from Bloomberg, U.S. officials are looking at individuals in former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle as part of their criminal probe of the exchange’s collapse. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges against him, but former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder ​​Gary Wang reached plea deals…

DeFi security losses rose 47.4% in 2022 to hit $3.64B: Report

According to a Jan. 5 report published by Chinese blockchain security firm LianAn Technology, decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits across blockchains worldwide totaled $3.64 billion in 2022. This represented a rise of 47.4% compared with the loss of $2.44 billion in 2021. The incidents increased in quantity despite a steep 80% loss in the total value locked in DeFi during the year.  DeFi losses by quarter in 2022. Source: LianAn Technology; Footprint Analytics Out of the 2022 amount, funds lost during cross-chain bridge hacks amounted to $1.89 billion across 12 incidents…

Crypto lender Genesis lays off 30% more staff: Report

Crypto lending platform Genesis Global Trading has reportedly cut 30% of its workforce in the second round of layouts in six months. According to a Jan. 5 Wall Street Journal report, Genesis reduced its staff by 30% following the platform suffering losses from loans to Alameda Research and Three Arrows Capital. An update to its clients on Jan. 4 said the firm planned to reduce costs as part of its business plans. “As we continue to navigate unprecedented industry challenges, Genesis has made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount…