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Amber Group co-founder Tiantian Kullander has died. He passed away in his sleep on Nov. 23.

Known as TT, Kullander helped found Amber in 2017 and turn it into a major crypto market maker worth about $3 billion at its last fund raise. Like many of the Amber co-founders, he had a background in trading, having worked on the floor at Goldman Sachs and then Morgan Stanley.

”He put his heart and soul into the company, in every stage of its growth. He led by example with his intellect, generosity, humility, diligence and creativity,” Singapore-based Amber said in a statement. 

Kullander also sat on the board of e-sports organization Fnatic and founded KeeperDAO, the statement said.

He is survived by his wife and son, the statement said. 

© 2022 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.

XDao, a startup that helps DAOs expand across different blockchain networks, has raised $2.3 million in a seed round at a $50 million valuation. 

Investors in the round include Panony, DWF Labs, Telos Foundation and Grizzly Capital, CEO Vlad Shavlidze said in an emailed statement. The funds were raised through a token sale, which closed on Nov. 21. The investment terms include a 12-month cliff and a 36-month linear vesting period, with the tokenomics tailored to the crypto bear market, Shavlidze said. 

The Singapore-based startup enables the creation of decentralized autonomous organizations through its DAO framework. Users can establish a DAO, deposit crypto assets, manage them by voting and directly interact with DeFi protocols, the company said in a release. 

“XDao came about in the process of solving our personal pain,” Shavlidze said in the release. “As a member of the DAO syndicate I noticed how difficult it was to set up operations in web3.” 

No central authority

DAOs are community-led organizations with — theoretically at least — no central authority. Their governance is typically managed through token distribution with decisions being managed publicly on a blockchain. 

“XDao is attractive because of its functionality, multichain approach and ease of use,” Laurent Perello, an advisor to Tron DAO and investor in the round, said in the release. “With XDao, the process of creating DAOs is greatly simplified and DAOs can easily scale over time.” 

The funds from XDao’s raise will be used to expand the team and further develop the product, according to the release. 

XDao currently has a “pro” service, which provides users with consulting services. The firm is also planning to provide a DAO registration service in jurisdictions friendly to the DAO structure. 

The startup has received several grants from leading projects in the crypto ecosystem, including Binance, Polygon, Optimism and Tron. 

© 2022 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.

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch is introducing a feature called RabbitHole that’s designed to prevent MetaMask users from getting hit by a certain form of frontrunning.

The issue at hand is sandwich attacks. This is where a trader frontruns a large buy order by buying the token first, pushing up the price. Once the buy order goes through, the token’s price rises higher, at which point the trader sells at the higher price (or vice versa for the whole maneuver). It results in the victim seeing the trade executed at a worse price.

The reason this happens is because blockchain transactions are typically broadcast to the network as a whole and there is a period of time before they are included in blocks in the chain. As a result, traders who are able to get their transactions into the chain first — through a range of different methods — are able to frontrun transactions, if it’s profitable enough.

RabbitHole checks for transactions that are likely to be subject to such sandwich attacks. If it determines a transaction is likely to be attacked in this way, it uses an alternative method to get the transaction into the blockchain. It submits the transaction directly to a validator, such as Flashbots, avoiding it being broadcast publicly.

RabbitHole is designed for MetaMask users and will initially be free to use. Depending on community opinion, 1nch may monetize the feature in the future.

© 2022 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.

Altcoins and memecoins led gains, while major cryptocurrencies dipped slightly.

Bitcoin fell 0.2% from yesterday, trading at $16,492 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern, according to CoinGecko. Ether was changing hands for $1,192, dipping 0.3%.

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

Several altcoins were trading higher today, with DOGE and XRP tacking on gains of 7.8% and 7.4%, respectively. Elsewhere, SHIB added 2%, and SOL was up 0.6%. 

DOGEUSD chart by TradingView

Grayscale’s GBTC product continues to lift off its lows from earlier in the week. GBTC is currently trading at a discount to NAV of -39%. The firm’s flagship product was trading at -45% on Monday. 

Grayscale’s ether product, ETHE, is currently trading at a discount of -40%. 

Half-day on Wall Street

Markets are open on Wall Street today, with trading wrapping up at 1 p.m. Eastern. 

Block was trading up marginally in pre-market trading. Shares in Jack Dorsey’s firm were trading at $64.19, up 0.4%.

Silvergate shares rose over 2%, trading around $29 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern.

MicroStrategy and Coinbase were muted in pre-market trading.

© 2022 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.

Belgium’s financial regulator clarified that crypto assets like bitcoin and ether should not fall under regulation for securities as they have “no issuer.”

Crypto assets without an issuer — for example those “created by a computer code” — should be exempt from securities regulation, the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority said in a statement on Thursday. It named bitcoin and ether as examples.

However, the FSMA added that other regulations may apply if crypto assets have a “payment or exchange function.” As coins such as bitcoin and ether are used for payments, the FSMA suggests they may fall under national rules for virtual asset service providers, which largely cover anti-money laundering provisions.

Crypto assets with payment functions are also not exempt from regulations on marketing of financial products to retail clients.

The FSMA claims that their outline is technology-neutral, stating that “the qualification as security, financial instrument or investment instrument does not depend on the technology that is being used.”

The European Union is expected to pass a final vote on the Markets in Crypto Assets regulation, which will streamline laws on crypto assets and their service providers across the member states. The FSMA acknowledged that its recommendations may alter based on MiCA.

In the U.S., crypto assets are largely considered securities, according to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. Discussions surrounding crypto, and especially ether, doubling as securities came to the foreground after the Ethereum Merge.

The SEC has even filed a lawsuit against crypto payment system Ripple for allegedly operating unregistered securities sales.

© 2022 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.

Binance has released its proof-of-reserves system, starting with bitcoin, in order to show that the exchange is healthy and solvent.

This comes just weeks after rival exchange FTX collapsed, after seemingly swapping user funds for other, more illiquid tokens — eventually leading to a liquidity crisis. Binance’s goal is to show that it holds its users’ assets in the same tokens that they have deposited.

For bitcoin, Binance has provided a snapshot of account balances and the exchange’s bitcoin reserves. It claims it has 582,485 bitcoin in its reserves, while its users have a net balance of 575,742 bitcoin — giving it a margin of 6,743 bitcoin. It also provided a link for Binance users to verify their own bitcoin on the exchange.

Binance said it will add further tokens and blockchains in the next few weeks. It also wants to involve third-party auditors to check the proof-of-reserves system and to implement zero-knowledge proof technology to provide cryptographic proof of its claims — while protecting user privacy.

© 2022 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 exchanges Huobi and Poloniex could merge in the future, Justin Sun, founder of Tron and member of Huobi’s global advisory board, told The Block.

Earlier today, China-based crypto reporter Colin Wu tweeted that Poloniex will merge with Huobi, citing sources familiar with the matter. But Sun said the two companies are independent and “haven’t had any plan to merge yet.” However, when asked if a deal could happen in future, he said it “could be” possible.

Sun has relations with both Poloniex and Huobi. In 2019, he confirmed an investment in Poloniex after initially denying his involvement. 

A similar situation occurred last month when Huobi announced the sale of a majority stake to Hong Kong-based investment company About Capital Management. At the time, Wu reported that Sun is the “real buyer” of the Huobi stake sale. But Sun denied the claim and said he is only an advisor to Huobi. Sun, however, has been at the forefront of recent changes at Huobi.

Earlier this week, he put forth strategies for Huobi to reclaim a position among the top three crypto exchanges at the company’s rebrand launch event in Singapore. Huobi Global rebranded itself as simply Huobi and replaced the Chinese character “coin” in its name with a character that means “must.” The “must” character represents Huobi’s ambition to become one of the world’s top three cryptocurrency exchanges, the company said.

Founded in 2013, Huobi is currently the fourth-largest crypto-only exchange by volume, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. Poloniex is the sixth-largest. Huobi had a trading volume of about $16 billion last month and Poloniex only around $1 billion during the same period.

If and when the merger of Huobi and Poloniex takes place, it could help further consolidate the crypto industry. The third quarter of this year saw 60 merger and acquisition transactions, making it the fourth-busiest in the crypto sector’s history, according to The Block Research.

© 2022 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.

MakerDAO token holders and delegates have approved GnosisDAO (GNO) tokens as a new vault type for its multi-collateral DAI stablecoin system.

Data from the voting page shows 91% approval for onboarding the GNO vault. The result means GNO is one step closer to being used as collateral for minting DAI — the stablecoin issued by the Maker protocol. The Maker governance already voted yes to the proposal in September. An executive vote in late December will be the final step in the process.

The approved GNO vault will have a maximum debt ceiling of 5 million DAI ($5 million) with a debt floor of 100,000 DAI. These parameters refer to the maximum and minimum amount of DAI that can be minted using GNO as collateral. Other parameters approved by the delegates include a stability fee of 2.5% and a liquidation ratio of 350%. The former helps to maintain DAI’s parity to the U.S. dollar by balancing the risk of mining the stablecoin against the GNO collateral, while the latter determines the minimum collateralization required to prevent the liquidation of the vault.

The plan to onboard GNO as collateral for DAI is part of a partnership between MakerDAO and GnosisDAO. This partnership will see GnosisDAO conduct most of its stablecoin borrowing on Maker. As part of the agreement, GnosisDAO will ensure that at least 75% of its stablecoin borrowing activities will include the use of highly liquid assets like ether and staked ether as collateral.

Maker also called on GnosisDAO to utilize the $5 million maximum debt ceiling “as soon as possible.” GnosisDAO, for its part, plans to mint 30 million DAI using GNO as collateral. The GNO collateral will come from GnosisDAO’s $635 million treasury. The minted DAI will be used to support the development of the Gnosis chain, the project said in its proposal.

The Maker protocol should also benefit from the arrangement. DAI is the primary stablecoin on the Gnosis chain and is also the token used to pay transaction fees on the network.

© 2022 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.

It’s been a crazy month since Elon Musk took over Twitter, and now even more changes are coming to its verification system.

The social media platform will expand verification options to include gold and gray checks for companies and governments, respectively.

Blue checks will remain in place for individuals, who can also have secondary smaller checks if they are part of certain organizations.

All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before they receive a checkmark, according to Musk. He called the updates “painful, but necessary” in a tweet.

Twitter has undergone profound changes since Musk took the helm of the company, laying off thousands of employees and reinstating formerly banned accounts.

Blue checks were previously reserved for celebrities and public figures, then on Nov. 9 Musk opened up the option to obtain one to anyone willing to pay $8 a month.

Reception to the change was mixed and critics raised concerns that it would increase scams. With anyone able to purchase one, users were able to make accounts impersonating people like former U.S. President George W. Bush and basketball star LeBron James, with an extra veneer of believability due to their blue check status. 

The system was later paused, with Musk saying it wouldn’t reopen until there was “high confidence of stopping impersonation.”

The team at Twitter is working on restarting it, tentatively next week. Some changes have already been introduced, including new accounts having to wait 90 days from creation to buy a Twitter Blue subscription.

More details will be released next week, according to Musk.

© 2022 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 Binance clarified that an initial $1 billion deposit to its crypto industry recovery fund came from its own assets after details of the transferring wallet raised questions among some commentators on Twitter. 

On-chain transactions show the funds came from one of Binance’s cold wallets for BUSD, the exchange’s dollar-pegged stablecoin. 

This wallet was recently listed in Binance’s proof of funds documentation, which shows all the cold and hot wallets the exchange owns as part of a transparency push following this month’s collapse of rival crypto exchange FTX.

Some in the crypto community had raised concerns that Binance could be using customer funds as the wallet is listed as part of  its proof of funds.

“These are not customer funds. These are Binance assets that have been set aside,” a spokesperson for the exchange said in emailed comments. 

Binance launched the recovery fund on Thursday with 1 billion BUSD  in initial capital, which can be verified at the following address. A number of big names in the crypto industry have signed on to contribute including GSR, Jump Crypto and Polygon Ventures. The addresses of other participants will be available in the next week. 

The fund was announced last week to help mitigate the fallout stemming from FTX’s collapse. It’s expected to last for around six months and has already received over 150 applications. Binance has stressed that it’s not an investment fund.

© 2022 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.