- IMF Had Warned G-20 That Widespread Crypto Use Would Impact Banks
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had warned the Group of 20 (G-20) nations that the widespread proliferation of crypto assets could lead to banks losing deposits and curtailing lending.
The IMF’s report on “Macrofinancial Implications of Crypto Assets” given to the G-20 in February during a meeting in India, was made public on Monday, days after the collapse of crypto-friendly banks Signature Bank (SBNY), Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and Silvergate Bank (SI).
“A widespread proliferation of crypto assets comes with substantial risks to the effectiveness of monetary policy, exchange rate management, and capital flow management measures, as well as to fiscal sustainability. Moreover, changes may be required to central bank reserve holdings, and the global financial safety net, yielding potential instability. Finally, banks may lose deposits and have to curtail lending,” the report said..
- Binance CEO announces recovery funds conversion from BUSD to ‘native crypto’
The failure of three major crypto-friendly banks — Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank — caused the USD Coin USDC tickers down $0.99 stablecoin to fall to as low as $0.87 from its $1 peg.
Amid the concern mounting around stablecoins, Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao tweeted on March 13 that with the “changes in stablecoins and banks,” the exchange will be converting the remaining $1 billion funds in its Industry Recovery Initiative to “native crypto.“ The native cryptocurrencies listed by CZ included Bitcoin BTC tickers down $22,108, BNB tickers down $297 and Ether ETH tickers down $1,581. He then posted links to the hash ID for the BTC and ETH transactions, saying $980 million took 15 seconds to move with a $1.98 transaction fee.
- DZ, Germany’s Second-Largest Bank, Taps Metaco for Digital Asset Custody
DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest lender by assets after Deutsche Bank, has tapped Swiss firm Metaco for its digital asset custody services.
This is the fourth such partnership Metaco has made with major financial institutions in the last eight months. The deal follows pacts with Citibank (C), Societe Generale (GLE) and DekaBank in selecting the Lausanne, Switzerland-based firm to develop digital asset offerings for institutional clients.
DZ will use Metaco’s custody tech platform Harmonize to handle its crypto services for institutional clients.
“With the offering we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our clients that can also meet the requirements of digital currencies and decentralized financial instruments,” said Nils Christopeit, DZ’s digital custody design solution lead.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7420162
- ‘Very Lucky’ Solo Miner Solves Bitcoin Block for $148K Reward
A solo Bitcoin miner was rewarded for adding block 780,112 to Bitcoin’s blockchain, beating the odds as countless others raced toward the same goal.
The miner used the Solo CK Pool mining service to establish a solo mining pool, where they produced a valid hash for the block and received a reward of 6.25 BTC and a fee reward of around 0.63 BTC—worth about $148,000—according to BTC.com’s Bitcoin explorer.
A Twitter user pointed out how lucky the solo miner was to produce the valid hash, saying it would typically take a miner much longer to create a valid transaction given the limited computing power they used.
https://decrypt.co/123266/very-lucky-solo-miner-solves-bitcoin-block-for-148k-reward
- FBI Warns About Cryptocurrency Theft Scams Using Play-to-Earn Games
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning about the introduction of play-to-earn games in schemes destined to steal funds from unsuspecting users. On March 9, the institution issued a PSA on this, explaining how criminals are luring users to put funds behind play-to-earn games.
According to the PSA, criminals establish a relationship with the selected victims, in order to gain their trust. After this, they lure them to participate in online play-to-earn games, that offer rewards for their actions, and to put funds in a cryptocurrency wallet as a form of staking mechanism.
The rewards advertised are proportional to the number of funds stored in the cryptocurrency wallet, so users are incentivized to put in more funds to get more rewards.
https://news.bitcoin.com/fbi-warns-about-cryptocurrency-theft-scams-using-play-to-earn-games/
- Crypto-Friendly Signature Bank Shut Down by State Regulators
New York-based Signature Bank, which has a number of crypto clients, was shut down Sunday by state regulators, the Federal Reserve announced.
In a statement, New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrianne Harris said the Federal Depository Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had taken receivership of the bank. This marks the third bank collapse in under a week, following Silvergate Bank’s voluntary liquidation and Silicon Valley Bank’s shutdown on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.
Harris said the action was taken “to protect depositors.”
- Solo Bitcoin miner defies odds to mine valid BTC block, gets $150K block reward
A solo Bitcoin miner has managed to mine the 780,112th block in the Bitcoin blockchain, receiving a 6.25 Bitcoin BTC tickers down $22,193 block reward in return. The estimated value of the payout is over $150,000.
The solo miner was also lucky to have produced a valid hash after just two days of mining, as the event itself is rare, and it can take months for a solo miner to produce a valid hash.
The rare event occurred on March 10 and was the 270th solo mined block in Bitcoin’s 13-year-long history. The event is rare because a solo miner of this size usually solves a block, on average, about once every 10 months.
- Crypto Firm Circle Defies Downsizing, Boosts Workforce By 25%
The fact that Circle wants to increase its workforce by 25% this year has been said by chief financial officer Jeremy Fox-Geen.
The Boston-based crypto firm that was an issuer of the previous USD Coin stablecoin (USDC) had about 900 employees at the end of last year and by 2023. They are expected to grow from 15% to 25%. 25%, or an additional 135 to 225 workers. That is a lower growth rate than in 2022 when the number of people per capita will almost double from 2021.
The Circle is still hiring even as many crypto companies are laying off employees. Some have filed for bankruptcy during a difficult time in the crypto market after experiencing two Terra-LUNA shocks in May and continued downhill with the rapid demise of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto empire.
“We are growing and investing, and we are fortunate to be financially able to sustain our investments (…). We have experienced down growth prudently and are focused on what matters most.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7419999
- Crypto Market Rallies on FDIC Banking Intervention, USDC Regains Dollar Peg
The market cap of all cryptocurrencies is back above the $1 trillion mark.
After a joint statement from the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, and FDIC declared that all depositors of now-shuttered Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be able to get their funds out on Monday, the battered crypto market turned green.
Late on Sunday night, Bitcoin (BTC) was up to $22,300 and Ethereum (ETH) was at $1,596, both up around 8% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap price data.
Top-30 coins Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), Avalanche (AVAX), and Filecoin (FIL) were all up by more than 10% as well.
- Binance Trains Ukraine’s Cyberpolice and Security Service
The world’s largest digital asset exchange, Binance, has provided training to Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies in the form of online seminars for their staff devoted to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
A representative of the crypto trading platform informed the participants about Binance’s anti-money laundering policy, the crypto news outlet Forklog reported. Methods developed by the exchange to detect and prevent fraud were also presented.
Employees of the Ukrainian Cyberpolice, which is the cybercrime combatting unit of the National Police of Ukraine (NPU), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) attended the classes.
https://news.bitcoin.com/binance-trains-ukraines-cyberpolice-and-security-service/
