- SOL Token Holds Price Support After Million-Dollar Hack Brings Bad Optics for Solana
Solana’s SOL token held on to critical support early Wednesday even as a multimillion-dollar hack in the Ethereum alternative ecosystem saw several investors vent frustration, saying they’d consider shorting, or positioning for a decline in, the cryptocurrency.
The exploit saw an unknown attacker drain at least $5 million worth of SOL, SPL and other Solana-based tokens from the Phantom and Slope digital wallets.
The hack drew the investor community’s ire, with several Twitter participants calling a short position in SOL. A trader initiates a short position by selling a borrowed security or its derivative (futures contract) in the expectation of buying it back later at a lower price.
While SOL is trading weaker in the wake of the news, so far sellers have failed to penetrate the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) support at $37.50. At press time, the token changed hands at $38.50, a 4% drop on a 24-hour basis.
- Robinhood Crypto Fined $30 Million by New York Regulator for ‘Significant Failures’ in Multiple Areas
The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) announced Tuesday that Robinhood Crypto LLC (RHC) will pay a $30 million penalty to New York State for “significant failures in the areas of bank secrecy act/anti-money laundering (‘BSA/AML’) obligations and cybersecurity.”
The failures resulted in violations of the department’s Virtual Currency Regulation, Money Transmitter Regulation, Transaction Monitoring Regulation, and Cybersecurity Regulation, the DFS detailed.
Superintendent of Financial Services Adrienne A. Harris commented:
As its business grew, Robinhood Crypto failed to invest the proper resources and attention to develop and maintain a culture of compliance — a failure that resulted in significant violations of the Department’s anti-money laundering and cybersecurity regulations.
- Meet Crypto Twitter’s Latest Meme: ‘Let’s Form Group!’
As with every great meme that has graced this benighted civilization, it began with an elegant and moving story, captured in all its fleeting delicacy by a Forbes “contributor.”
The story appeared under the headline, “Tiffany & Co Releases Those CryptoPunk Pendants And They Are Expensive, Here’s All The Intel.” There followed a rollicking article about the co-president of Tiffany and Co., Alexandre Arnault, boosting the market value of a series of CryptoPunk-themed pendants by way of a “guerrilla marketing campaign via his personal social media handle.”
More importantly, this line midway through the article was immediately seized on by Crypto Twitter: “He signed off the tweet ‘LFG,’ the NFT community speak acronym meaning ‘let’s form group.’”
https://decrypt.co/106582/meet-crypto-twitters-latest-meme-lets-form-group
- Gucci Accepts ApeCoin With BitPay Integration
The luxury fashion brand Gucci has provided the option of making payments using Apecoin via Bitpay in certain Gucci boutiques across the USA. This announcement came from Gucci via one of its most recent Twitter posts. This is viewed as to be an extension of Gucci’s fashion label to the world of web3.
The popularity of crypto is increasing despite the times when these instruments aren’t putting up their highest price performance. Despite the fluctuation and volatility, businesses and giants of industry around the globe are taking advantage of cryptocurrency and jumping on the wave.
While some jump onto the bandwagon to get publicity, some are truly convinced about crypto and the technology’s real potential. Gucci decided to take a risk in the month of May when it announced it would be accepting cryptocurrency as part of an experiment to see the way things are going. Nearly three months after the announcement it appears that things are going well for the fashion company as it confirmed the acceptance of ApeCoin through BitPay.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7165179
- Binance, KuCoin, OKX CEOs flex security amid Solana FUD storm
With Solana hitting the headlines for succumbing to a hack on Wednesday, prominent crypto CEOs — including Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, KuCoin’s Johnny Lyu and OKX’s Jay Hao — recommended that Solana (SOL) investors move their holdings over to their own exchanges as an immediate security measure.
Numerous blockchain investigators and crypto investors flagged an alleged widespread private key compromise, allowing the attacker to steal native SOL tokens and Solana-compatible SPL tokens such as USD Coin (USDC) from Phantom and Slope wallets. However, the root cause of the attack remains a mystery as all parties, including Solana and Phantom, denied faults at their ends. Phantom’s official stance on the matter shared with Cointelegraph:
“We are working closely with other teams to get to the bottom of a reported vulnerability in the Solana ecosystem. At this time, the team does not believe this is a Phantom-specific issue.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-kucoin-okx-ceos-flex-security-amid-solana-fud-storm
- MicroStrategy Reports $918M Impairment Charge on Bitcoin Holdings in Q2
MicroStrategy (MSTR) took a non-cash digital asset impairment charge of $917.8 million on its bitcoin (BTC) holdings in the second quarter, up from $170.1 million in the first quarter and $424.8 million in the second quarter of 2021, according to its latest earnings report.
The business software firm also announced that it had named Phuong Le, the company’s president, to replace Michael Saylor as its CEO. Saylor, who had served as MicroStrategy’s CEO and chairman of the board since he founded the company in 1989, and took it public in 1998, will continue to serve as chairman of the board and will also take on the new role of executive chairman.
While Tesla (TSLA), another prominent company with bitcoin on its balance sheet, sold roughly 75% of its holdings in the second quarter to raise cash, MicroStrategy has continued to hold on and even add to its position, despite bitcoin’s sharp decline over the last few months. During the period from May 3 to June 28, MicroStrategy bought an additional 480 bitcoins for about $10 million – an average price of $20,817 per coin.
- Socios.com Will Invest $100 Million in FC Barcelona Metaverse Push
Sports clubs are now trying to diversify their revenue streams by getting into the metaverse, grabbing the attention of VC firms in the process. Socios.com, a company that designs fan engagement tools for sports clubs, announced it will invest $100 million into the metaverse, NFT, and Web3 division of the soccer club FC Barcelona, called Barca Studios.
With the investment, Socios.com will receive a 24.5% stake in the mentioned company, as the club announced, and it will allow it to “accelerate the club’s audiovisual, blockchain, NFT and Web3 strategy.” This capital influx will allow the company to focus on developing new products that include these new technologies to build new long-term revenue sources.
According to Socios.com, Barca Studios will now have access to its Chilliz Chain, a new blockchain that will allow developers to issue NFTs and fan tokens, and build defi products and play2earn games.
https://news.bitcoin.com/socios-com-will-invest-100-million-in-fc-barcelona-metaverse-push/
- Solana, USDC Drained From Wallets in Attack
An unknown attacker drained thousands of wallets containing at least $4 million worth of Solana and USDC late Tuesday night. The hack, which was still ongoing at 8:00 PM PST, seemed to originate on the Solana browser wallet Phantom and was believed to compromise user keys—possibly involving seedphrases that were re-used among wallets on different chains
“Over 5,000 Solana wallets have been drained in the past few hours,” blockchain audit firm OtterSec reported earlier in the evening. “These transactions are being signed by the actual owners, suggesting some sort of private key compromise.”
Solana’s status updates Twitter account reported that 7,767 wallets have been affected, and noted that “engineers are investigating the root cause” on Wednesday morning. A data dashboard tracking hacked funds and wallet activity suggests a much higher figure, however.
https://decrypt.co/106590/multiple-wallets-including-sol-and-usdc-drained-in-unfolding-attack
- The NY Times Feature On Bitcoin Maximalism Is Full Of Surprises. Here Are A Few
Is The NY Times changing its tune? Not exactly, but it’s a start. And a big improvement over the mainstream media’s constant attacks on bitcoin. The newspaper interviewed notable bitcoiners, quoted them without twisting their words, and let them present the case for bitcoin supremacy. Of course, The NY Times also sneaked their usual points of contention against bitcoin. It’s only fair and we take it.
The piece, a feature on bitcoin maximalism of sorts, comes with the odd title “The Crypto Market Crashed. They’re Still Buying Bitcoin.” And they are, but geez! At the center of The NY Times’ story is Swan Bitcoin’s Cory Klippsten. He famously denounced both Terra and Celsius’s deficiencies and vulnerabilities way before both projects crashed and burned and ruined many lives. That’s where the article starts.
“In the crypto world, Mr. Klippsten is known as a Bitcoin maximalist, or “maxi” — a hard-core evangelist who believes Bitcoin will transform the financial system even as fraud pervades the rest of the crypto ecosystem. The maxis are just a subset of the crypto industry, but their ranks include influential figures like Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter and an early Bitcoin proponent.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7164879
- EU crypto community has two weeks to join conversation on crypto data
The European Union’s securities regulator continues to strengthen its focus on cryptocurrency regulation, initiating a move to implement increased scrutiny of crypto transactions.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on Tuesday issued a public tender document aiming to collect additional information about trading data on crypto transactions.
The regulator is specifically looking for “crypto off-chain data” or crypto-related transactions that do not originate from a blockchain. According to ESMA, such transactions include spot and derivatives trade at centralized exchanges or over-the-counter trading platforms.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-crypto-community-has-two-weeks-to-join-conversation-on-crypto-data
