The cyber arm of Israel Police’s Lahav 433 unit worked with the country’s defense ministry, intelligence agencies and crypto exchange Binance to target the accounts in question, according to the report. It added that any funds seized are destined for the Israeli national treasury. Source
Executives scrambled to move over $1 billion worth of various assets to different storage devices as the exchange was getting drained of funds, ultimately managing to save the majority of the money. This means a majority of the exchange’s entire balance was at risk of getting stolen, as per the report. Source
Bitcoin application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Bitmain has paused employee salary payments for September and beyond. According to recent local news reports, citing multiple Bitmain employees familiar with the matter, the firm has allegedly cut all “bonuses and incentives” for its staff and still has not paid remuneration due since last month. In addition, employees face a 50% cut to their base salary. A message allegedly from Bitmain reads: “For the month of September, the company has yet to achieve a net positive cash flow, especially in the orders of…
Representatives in the European Union are reportedly negotiating a plan for additional regulations on the largest artificial intelligence (AI) systems, according to a report from Bloomberg. The European Commission, European Parliament and the various EU member states are said to be in discussions regarding the potential effects of large language models (LLMs), including Meta’s Llama 2 and OpenAI’s GPT-4, and possible additional restrictions to be imposed on them as a part of the forthcoming AI Act. Bloomberg reports that sources close to the matter said the goal is not to…
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit has been targeted by hackers on more than 159,000 occasions in the first half of 2023, according to its operating firm. The figures were reported by Dunamu — the firm operating Upbit — to South Korean Representative Park Seong-jung of the People Power Party, according to an Oct. 9 report by South Korea-based Yonhap News Agency. The figure marks a 117% increase from the first half of 2022 and a whopping 1800% increase from the first half of 2020. Upbit is one of South Korea’s largest…
Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, just released its 11th report for its reserves, and the numbers are staggering as always. According to the report, Binance’s XRP holdings, in particular, have increased in the past month. This is evident, as there have been reports of investors depositing XRP into exchanges in the past month. Binance Releases Proof Of Reserves Showing Massive XRP Holdings According to Binance’s Proof of Reserves report, the exchange holds a staggering amount of XRP to cover 104.15% of customer balances. Binance currently has over 2.738…
Officials at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were reportedly considering an enforcement action against Stephen Ehrlich, the former CEO of crypto lending firm Voyager Digital. According to an Oct. 6 Bloomberg report, CFTC staff were considering taking action against Ehrlich following an investigation concluding the former CEO violated U.S. derivatives regulations prior to Voyager’s bankruptcy filing. The firm filed for Chapter 11 protection in July 2022 amid the crypto market downturn. Ehrlich was reportedly “angered and perplexed” by the claims: “These allegations appear to be one of…
The unexpected strength in the labor market presents a dilemma for the Federal Reserve. Policymakers are grappling with the question of whether to raise interest rates further to cool the economy and combat rising inflation. In a welcome development for the US economy, the Labor Department released its monthly Employment Situation Report, revealing that nonfarm payrolls surged by an impressive 336,000 in September. The standout feature of the September jobs report is that the increase in nonfarm payrolls surpassed the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 170,000 by a considerable margin.…
Lawmakers in Taiwan are reportedly aiming to push out a first draft of a special law by the end of November 2023, according to a report from The Block. Yung-Chang Chiang, an official in the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan, said in an interview that he intends for the first draft to be available for reading by parliament by the end of November or sooner and that such an act is “necessary” to regulate crypto-related businesses. This comes as lawmakers in Taiwan have growing concerns over activity in offshore markets and…
Major global cryptocurrency exchange Binance has reportedly continued to lose its market share amid ongoing regulatory issues in the United States. Binance’s spot market share fell for a seventh consecutive month in September 2023, Bloomberg reported on Oct. 5, citing analysis from cryptocurrency data provider CCData According to the report, Binance’s spot market share dropped from 38.5% in August to 34.3% in September. In January 2023, Binance’s spot market share accounted for as much as 55.2%. Binance’s global spot market share percentage chart year-to-date. Source: Bloomberg Apart from the spot…