FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Around 9,800 bitcoin tied to the Silk Road is on the move, according to two unconfirmed transactions. That would be the largest movement of funds linked to the now shuttered darknet marketplace in months.

Out of the total, 8,200 bitcoin is being transferred to new wallets. The remainder is being sent to change wallets, and there’s debate over whether that counts as officially moving as these funds may be sent back to their original wallets under new addresses.

In the first transaction, 0.01 BTC is being sent to the wallet 361yog, while 506 BTC is going to a change address. These funds originate from two wallets, primarily this one.

In the second transaction, 8,200 BTC is being sent to the same 361yog wallet, while 1,118 BTC is going to a different change address. The funds originated from this wallet.

Both transactions used the replace by fee function. This is typically used to replace an earlier transaction with one showing a higher fee. It’s designed to allow Bitcoin users to speed up their transactions during times of congestion.

The Silk Road bitcoin

The U.S. government seized over 50,000 bitcoin in November 2022 from James Zhong, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud over the hack of the same amount of bitcoin from Silk Road in 2012. Zhong was sentenced in April.

The legal filings, as well as those related to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, contained details of related Bitcoin wallets, enabling blockchain analytics firms to track these addresses.

In June, there was a movement of funds somewhat related to the Silk Road wallets, but it was disputed as to whether the funds were controlled by the U.S. government. The wallet at question was one hop away from wallets cited in legal documents related to the case, and the movement of funds also used the replace by fee option in a similar pattern.

In March, the U.S. government sold 9,861 bitcoin and said it planned to sell the remaining bitcoin in four more batches throughout the year. The government has around 41,490 bitcoin left from the funds it seized in the Zhong case.

The U.S. government appears to have been selling its bitcoin on Coinbase, an exchange that the SEC claims is an unregistered securities exchange.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto exchange Coinbase has introduced an encrypted messaging feature in its wallet offering, in collaboration with the Extensible Message Transport Protocol project, known as XMTP.

Coinbase Wallet’s messaging will enable crypto users to establish secure communication channels between Ethereum Layer 1 and Layer 2 accounts, using crypto domain names provided by cb.id, Ethereum Name Service and Lens profiles for identification.

According to official documentation, XMTP’s design makes it compatible with any identity solution associated with blockchain accounts, without necessitating changes at the blockchain level.

Messages tied to a Coinbase user’s wallet can be securely ported to any other decentralized social media apps on Lens Protocol and other platforms that integrate with XMTP, such as Lenster, Orb, and Converse.xyz, without requiring any additional steps.

That means conversations can seamlessly continue across different platforms, underscoring the service’s flexibility. Moreover, the messages are encrypted with security keys exclusively shared between the conversation participants, adding an extra layer of security.

USDC payments with messaging

Coinbase stated that the update will also let users send payments to others using the USD Coin without incurring any gas fees, all within the messaging interface. This integration simplifies the transaction process, removing the usual complications associated with address input, and merges the convenience of messaging with the functionality of payments, the exchange noted.

Coinbase Wallet will be the first and only self-custodial wallet to feature integrated messaging on XMTP, providing users with ownership of their cryptocurrency, identity, and communications. The messaging feature will go live today and be accessible to users receiving an invitational QR code from the company.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Cool Cats Group, the firm behind the blue-chip NFT project of the same name, is partnering with three video game development firms, two of which are owned by Animoca Brands.

A Cool Cats partnership with nWay will yield a competitive multiplayer arcade game, with iCandy helping to develop an endless running game. Sync Studios, meanwhile, will help Cool Cats release a “match3” game, or a puzzle-like matching game like Candy Crush.

Cool Cats and its video game development partners are currently working on the games, which are slated to launch by the end of 2024.

“Gaming is an immersive content distribution platform that builds emotional connection with the characters and story through engaging game play,” Cool Cats CEO Stephen Teglas said in a statement. “Our new games are critical to our ongoing mission of developing Cool Cats into a globally known character brand, and a robust storytelling and content company.”

Cool Cats immersive gaming entertainment

“With nWay, iCandy and Sync Studios, we are partnering with three innovative leaders to provide immersive gaming entertainment to engage our current fans and introduce our brand to the broader global audience,” he added.

nWay and iCandy are owned by Animoca Brands, the same firm that led a strategic funding round for Cool Cats in October of 2022. 

Cool Cats brought in nearly $246,000 in trading volume during the first week of July. For 2023, the project netted high of $8.1 million in sales in mid-February, The Block data shows.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin edged toward $31,000 as U.S. inflation data for June came in below expectations, with prices rising 3% over the past year. 

The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization rose 0.5% at 9:50 a.m. in New York to $30,633. It’s up almost 18% over the past month. 

The inflation deceleration might not be enough keep the Federal Reserve from another rate rise this month, but some analysts think that rate cuts in early 2024 are already being priced in.

“The euro dollar futures curve shows the market is pricing in a rate cut in the March to June 2024 time frame,” Ravi Doshi, head of trading at Genesis, told The Block. “Historically when there is a U-turn, rate cuts happen faster than rate hikes.”

Regulatory uncertainty a major overhang

But Doshi argued that rates aren’t the major factor determining bitcoin’s price trajectory at the moment. Instead he pointed to regulatory uncertainty. He highlighted August 13 as a date to watch, as it’s one of the deadlines for a decision on the ARK 21Shares spot Bitcoin ETF from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

On Wednesday, buoyant signals emerged in European markets ahead of the CPI release. In London, the FTSE 100 maintained a solid position above its March low at 7,204, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.9% by early afternoon.

The Bank of England is signaling a more aggressive stance toward future interest rate hikes compared to the Fed, primarily driven by the need to control the UK’s persistent inflation issues. This forecast has bolstered the pound, which briefly achieved ia 15-month peak against the dollar on Wednesday.

The prospect of higher interest rates also boosted UK bank stocks, supported by a favorable financial stability report from the Bank of England.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The company’s ChatGuardian is designed to be as “safe as possible” and will allow kids to play and interact with their Cryptoys NFT, while allowing parents to filter and control the conversations.

Osmosis, the largest decentralized exchange protocol on the Cosmos network, has introduced a variant of concentrated liquidity pools called “supercharged liquidity” with the aim of improving the capital efficiency of the network.

Osmosis operates as a decentralized exchange-based blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem that facilitates the creation and management of customizable liquidity bootstrapped pools (LBPs) with adjustable bonding curves. Currently, Osmosis has the most significant number of daily active users within the Cosmos ecosystem.

The supercharged liquidity feature is meant to enable liquidity providers (LPs) to designate specific price ranges for their liquidity. Until now, the platform has allowed LPs to provide liquidity across an infinite range, which led to capital being spread over all possible price points of an asset pair. This can result in capital being locked up at price points that see little trading activity, potentially decreasing capital efficiency.

Concentrating capital on specific price ranges

The mechanism allows LPs to concentrate their capital on specific price ranges, potentially resulting in more efficient use of their funds. Osmosis estimates suggest that this new feature could improve capital efficiency more than 100 to 300 times compared to their previous model. Supercharged Liquidity shares similarities with the concept of concentrated liquidity found on Ethereum decentralized exchanges like Uniswap.

“The Supercharged Liquidity feature is designed to provide a platform for liquidity providers to manage their positions more efficiently. It provides a mechanism that allows for more precise control over liquidity provisioning,” a representative from Osmosis stated.

To support the transition to this new system, Osmosis will offer a 5% migration bonus to liquidity providers during the initial launch of supercharged liquidity. This is intended to encourage LPs to transition to the new system.

According to data from DeFiLlama, Osmosis reportedly has over $150 million in monthly trading volume and about $130 million in locked assets.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Web3 music firm Sound has raised $20 million in Series A funding. 

a16z crypto led the round. Additional participants included Palm Tree Crew, A Capital, Sound Ventures, Collab + Currency, Scalar Capital, Snoop Dogg, Ryan Tedder and Tay Keith.

“The funds will give us resources to grow our team and further our mission to make Sound the home of music discovery on the web and mobile,” the firm’s co-founder David Greenstein told The Block.

Sound is not currently disclosing its valuation, the co-founder added. 

Web3 minting tools

In addition to announcing the fresh funding, Sound opened up its web3 minting tools.

“Previously, it was only accessible to a limited group of artists during the test period,” Greenstein said. “Today, these tools will be available to all artists on Sound.”

Sound allows artists to mint and sell music as NFTs. The platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain and deploys the ERC-721A token standard.

Sound also added Optimism support on June 12 to decrease gas fees and accelerate transaction times. Users can buy music with ETH or a credit card. 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The company aims to help artists make a living for their music by minting their songs on-chain and selling them directly to fans.

Layer-1 blockchain Sui announced the release of DeepBook, a decentralized central limit order book (CLOB) that will support all applications built on the network.

Crypto crimes are raking in far less revenue this year due to a dry-up among hacks and scams, according to Chainalysis.