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With competition remaining fierce among major players in the centralized crypto exchange sector, it is easy to forget that Binance dominates both spot and derivatives trading volume — and its competitors aren’t even close to catching up.

Over the last 24 hours, Binance garnered just over 55% of the total spot volume for cryptocurrency exchanges tracked by The Block Research. Only three crypto exchanges accounted for more than 5% — Upbit (6.1%), OKX (5.4%) and Coinbase (5.3%) — while Kucoin and FTX accounted for 4.7% and 4.5%, respectively.

Binance’s U.S. exchange also beat out FTX.US, with the former garnering 1.4% of the total volume and the latter accounting for 0.6%.

Binance accounts for more than half of the spot crypto market. Source: The Block Research

The story remains the same when it comes to crypto derivatives trading — at least, as far as Binance is concerned — with the exchange laying claim to a similarly high 54.4% of the total volume over the past 24 hours.

The difference on the derivatives front comes down to Binance’s competitors claiming larger pieces of the pie. OKX holds claim to the second highest derivatives volume at just over 14%, while Bybit comes in third with 10.2%. FTX, meanwhile, has 8.8%.

Binance also accounts more more than half of the crypto derivatives market. Source: The Block Research

Binance’s apparent dominance on the volume front coincides with increasing market share in the stablecoin sector. The supply share of Binance USD (BUSD) in the overall stablecoin market continues to set new all-time highs after Binance began converting other stablecoins to its own stablecoin last month. 

Meanwhile, Binance continues to make regulatory inroads into Europe. Last Thursday, the exchange announced that Cyprus had approved its registration as a Crypto Asset Services Provider. Previously, it gained regulatory approval in three other European countries — France, Italy and Spain. Binance also gained regulatory approval in New Zealand and opened a local office earlier in October.

© 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.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty rose roughly 3.4% late Sunday.

The move was modest compared to the 13% increase from earlier this month. 

The mining difficulty automatically adjusts every 2016 blocks, occurring roughly every two weeks. The difficulty exists to ensure that transactions process at a steady pace regardless of how high or low the network hash rate is at a given time. 

The bitcoin mining hash rate hit an all-time high of 266 EH/s this month. The current network hash rate was roughly 263 EH/s as of Saturday. 

According to the most up-to-date estimate, miners have generated roughly $420 million in revenue thus far this month.

© 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 investment platform Freeway halted services on Sunday, triggering a significant decline in the value of its in-house token. 

The token has dropped by more than 80% in the past 24 hours and users on Telegram were unclear as to the exact nature of the situation. The Freeway token is trading at $0.00110245, according to CoinGecko. 

Freeway claims to offer up to 43% annual rewards on so-called “Superchargers” denominated in crypto and fiat currencies. Users deposit funds and purchase Superchargers, which generate yield. These products can then be sold back and the funds returned back. However, Freeway said in its statement that “we will not be buying Supercharger simulations until our new strategies are implemented.”

“As all of you will be aware, there has been unprecedented volatility in Foreign Exchange and Cryptocurrency markets in recent times,” the firm said in its message. “Freeway has therefore decided to diversify its asset base to manage exposure to future market fluctuations and volatility ensuring the long term sustainability and profitability of the Freeway Ecosystem.”

Co-CEO Graham Doggart didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment via LinkedIn.

A discussion erupted on the company’s Telegram channel, with one user saying: “I can’t liquidate my supercharger and get my funds bc FREEWAY is ‘temporarily’ not buying back the superchargers they sold me.”

Freeway wrote: “We will notify you when we are ready to recommence partial Supercharger simulation purchases (buy-backs) and then again as we can recommence full Supercharger simulation purchases as well as on platform Freeway Token (FWT) Deposits and Buys.”

© 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.

Brokerage app Robinhood is hiring sanctions investigators for its finance crimes compliance unit. 

The hires could be linked to compliance related to self-custody wallets, which the company is releasing officially in the coming months. Robinhood Wallet, a standalone app on the Apple Store in beta, allows users to trade and swap crypto without network fees.

The position requires two-plus years of experience working in financial crimes investigation, and one-plus years investigating cryptocurrency transactions. While not required, “Chainalysis experience” is welcome, per the post.

That Robinhood is looking to expand its compliance team with a focus on crypto is unsurprising, given its past challenges on this front. Earlier this year, Robinhood Crypto was fined $30 million by New York finance regulators. 

The day-to-day responsibilities of the role include:

• Reviewing and analyzing alerts of potential matches of Robinhood customers to denied parties
• Managing the investigative process from initial detection to disposition and reporting
• Annotating findings providing proof of evidence and a final decision
• Escalating any matches that cannot be resolved to Sanctions Investigation management
• Escalating any true positive matches to the Sanctions Office.

Robinhood unveiled plans for a web3-centric wallet earlier this year. 

© 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.

After strong pushback from decentralized finance proponents earlier this week, Sam Bankman-Fried has once again taken to Twitter to share his thoughts on how he envisions the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA) affecting the DeFi sector. Still, many remain unconvinced.

Bankman-Fried acknowledged the importance of comments made by the wider DeFi community before noting that the “core goal” of the DCCPA bill is to answer: “How can a regulated centralized entity interface with DeFi?”

“In particular, it is *not* making claims about what DeFi devs, smart contracts, and validators must do,” Bankman-Fried tweeted. “It’s looking to eventually establish guidelines about how e.g. FTX’s platform–or Fidelity’s–could interface with DeFi contracts.” The FTX CEO also noted that he’d only support a version clarifying that developers and validators are not (and shouldn’t be regulated as) platforms.

The intersection of centralized entities with DeFi, in particular, was highlighted as a sticking point by pseudonymous ApeWorX Ltd. builder “señor doggo,” who tweeted that “it should *never* be the case that there is a mandate to access DeFi through a centralized intermediary’s interface,” further noting that: “Devs should be allowed to build whatever interfaces they want.”

The fear exists that DCCPA won’t allow developers to build whatever interfaces they want — at least, not without centralized entities grabbing a piece of the pie. CEHV partner Adam Cochran noted that “the revised version still reads at how can there be a moat that lets centralized entities control at least part of the flow into DeFi, so they can profit from it.”

The desire for regulation-driven profit is something with which some crypto proponents are taking major issue — especially because Bankman-Fried’s industry endeavors have been extremely profitable. “I’m all for people hustling hard and winning,” 1492.eth tweeted to their 50.3k followers. “FTX/Alameda has clearly hustled hard and is winning big[.] The issue is making money by fleecing retail and then trying to pose as the savior for crypto regulation and consumer protection in the U.S.”

Meanwhile, some argue that anyone working with regulators to benefit the crypto industry isn’t actually doing so to benefit the crypto industry. “The people ‘saving crypto’ aren’t even the lobbyists,” said Preston Byrne, partner at Brown Rudnick. “They’re mostly the devs who are making it harder to ban, harder to stop, and more useful for end users. Crypto will win not by colliding with regulation but by outrunning it.”

© 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.

With Halloween fast approaching, the crypto markets could be in for a fright — particularly if the macroeconomic picture continues to sour.

A notable lack of volatility among major cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and ether is drawing frightening parallels to 2018, before the markets experienced a final capitulation. That, combined with a struggling Japanese yen has made some traders uneasy. At the same time, the month has already been plagued by hacks — and some are wondering which protocol will be exploited next.

Still, the supply of new ether since Ethereum’s switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake is expected to turn negative — and that’s giving some Ethereum proponents a reason to be positive.

Japanese yen in trouble?

Cryptocurrency market participants have been forced to also watch traditional markets lately, thanks to riling by global macroeconomic uncertainties. Because of this, the yen may come further into focus after last week’s actions from the Bank of Japan.

Last Thursday, the BOJ conducted emergency bond-buying operations to the tune of 250 billion yen ($1.67 billion) in an effort to set a floor for bond prices. The yen, meanwhile, traded near 32-year-lows against the U.S. dollar while 5- and 20-year bold yields increased — signaling a lack of demand.

The economic situation in Japan is causing concern over yen inflation. Should things become more volatile in that country, the markets may react — and anytime inflation is driving an economic narrative, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin become part of the discussion.

New ether supply since Merge slated to go negative

Barring an unforeseen reversal in the overall trend, the supply of Ethereum’s native asset, ether, may fall below pre-Merge levels — meaning more coins will have been burned than created since the network switched from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

As of the time of this writing, about 1,814 ETH ($2,365,148) have been added to the supply since The Merge, according to data from ultrasound.money. If the switch to proof-of-stake had not happened, it may have been more than 454,648 ETH, a difference of about $590 million.

The ether supply officially becoming negative in the post-Merge timeframe would likely cause a celebration among Ethereum proponents.

The supply of new ether since The Merge is nearing 0. Source: ultrasound.money

C’mon, do something

Though things continually seem to be ratcheting up in the world — and by “things,” we mean “everything” — the crypto markets have been undeniably boring, as far as price action is concerned.

Major cryptocurrencies’ prices, driven by Bitcoin’s price, remain range-bound. 

BTC / USD on TradingView

More than one analyst in the cryptocurrency space has drawn comparisons between Bitcoin’s current price stagnation and that experienced in late 2018 — right before a capitulation move down. Others are of a different mind and say that an impending pivot from the U.S. Federal Reserve regarding interest rates will create a floor for cryptocurrency prices.

Either way, the increasing tension of the current wait-and-see market condition is almost palpable — and a big move feels likely to happen sooner rather than later.

Hacktober isn’t over

October has already proven to be the worst month in the worst year of hacks for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry — totaling more than $720 million —  and it will be worth watching out for more exploits in the coming week.

There is little reason to assume there won’t be at least one more exploit in October. Just today, an investigation conducted by trading-bot platform 3Commas and cryptocurrency exchange FTX revealed that API keys were used to conduct unauthorized trades for DMG trading — though the total amount of damage is not yet known. 3Commas claims that the API keys in questioned were not obtained from the platform, but rather phished or hacked from users.

© 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.

The price of Aptos (APT) has increased more than 30% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko, after significant post-listing price drops occurred across major cryptocurrency exchanges — including Binance, FTX and OKX.

The Aptos price surge came after many short-hungry traders were liquidated — commonly known as a “short squeeze.” Funding rates for APT across many crypto exchanges were negative until price action to the upside caused a surge of liquidations, forcing shorts to close and increasing the crypto asset’s price.

There is speculation that the negative funding was a result of widespread hedging after Aptos embarked into a less-than-receptive industry audience. Additionally, perpetual swaps going live on various exchanges immediately after spot trading increased the ability of traders to gain short exposure to the trending asset.

Aptos liquidations experienced sharp increases as the price increased. Source: Coinalyze / TradingView

Aptos — which originated from the Facebook blockchain project Libra — has been one of the hottest topics in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry over the past week. Its mainnet went live on Oct. 17 and has been viewed as something of a Solana killer.

Many in the industry have shown skepticism toward the VC-funded project — particularly after its opaque tokenomics were explained only one day before APT trading went live.

© 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.

The chance of a recession in the United States has now hit 100%, according to new Bloomberg Economics model projections — meaning that it is “effectively certain” the country’s economy will contract over the next year.

Bitcoin, the first and foremost cryptocurrency, was born out of a global economic recession — but has never existed inside one. The same goes, of course, for Ethereum and every crypto protocol spawned after it. If the aforementioned projections are correct, the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry will enter a new, distinct and defined chapter of existence.

Central bank policy vs. tokenomics

The uncertain and fluid economic policy for fiat currencies has come into even sharper contrast with the fixed, mathematics-based “tokenomics” of major cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, for example, has a set amount of new coins minted every block — with an ultimate supply cap of 21 million coins. (Though many have already been permanently lost, making the real total supply effectively smaller).

“The current macroeconomic situation is precisely the environment Bitcoin is meant to thrive in,” Hunain Naseer, head of content at COIN360 told The Block. “It is purpose-built to withstand the kind of arbitrary controls that are wreaking havoc on fiat currencies around the world.”

Ethereum’s economics, meanwhile, have stolen the spotlight following its high-profile move from an energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the more environmentally friendly proof-of-stake, which was dubbed “The Merge.”

The supply growth of ether has declined to -0.04% over the past 30 days, according to tracker ultrasound.money, making it deflationary over that span. Proponents of the second-ranked crypto protocol have already expressed excitement over ether’s deflationary potential in periods of increased demand — such as a future bull market.

On-chain volume for Ethereum is in a general decline. Source: The Block

Focus remains on Fed rate hikes

Despite crypto proponents unsurprisingly finding many cryptocurrencies’ tokenomics favorable, crypto markets remain closely tied to macro factors — including rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The near-unanimous expectation for the Fed’s Nov. 1-2 policy meeting is that another big interest rate hike will be approved. The question many pundits are asking revolves around how much further the central bank can push interest rates before putting too much strain on economic growth.

More hawkishness from the Fed may not portend positive price action for cryptocurrency investors — but blocks will continue to be produced while transparent and math-based economics will remain in play.

© 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.

An investigation conducted by trading-bot platform 3Commas and cryptocurrency exchange FTX revealed that API keys linked to the former were used to conduct unauthorized trades for DMG trading pairs on the latter.

The 3Commas team was alerted to the incident on Oct. 20, when various FTX API keys connected to the platform were used to perform unauthorized trades.

The API keys were not taken from 3Commas and were probably obtained from a third-party phishing attack or hack, the platform said in an official blog post.

Through an investigation, the 3Commas team discovered multiple fake websites claiming to be 3Commas were used to phish information by tricking users into connecting their exchange accounts to fraudulent web interfaces. “The API keys were then stored by the fake website and later used to place the unauthorized trades on the DMG trading pairs on FTX,” 3Commas said — also noting that third-party browser extensions or malware may have been involved.

The trading-bot platform stressed throughout the security alert that it was not to blame for the cases of user data falling into the wrong hands. “To reiterate and clarify, there has been no breach of either 3Commas account security databases or API keys,” 3Commas wrote. “This is an issue that has affected multiple users who have never been customers of 3Commas so there is no possibility that it is a leak of API keys originating from 3Commas.”

3Commas said its “representatives are in close contact with the victims of this 3rd party attack and are working with them to provide assistance and gather more information.”

One user claimed on Twitter to have lost about $1.5 million from the API exploit — a claim that was retweeted by blockchain security and data analytics company PeckShield to its more than 62,000 followers. The Block reached out to the affected user for comment and verification but had not been able to verify the accuracy of the claim by time of publication.

Alameda Research, a principal trading firm with close ties to FTX, backed 3Commas in a $3 million funding round in late 2020. Last month, 3Commas raised $37 million in a Series B funding round led by Alameda Research, Jump Capital, Target Global and Copper CEO Dmitry Tokarev.

© 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.

NFT project Azuki completed an auction for eight Golden Skateboard nonfungible tokens — which will also be redeemable for physical Golden Skateboards — with the lowest and highest winning bids coming in at an even 200 ETH ($261,682.00) and 309 ETH ($404,298.69), respectively, according to its official Twitter account.

The skateboards, though currently only in digital form, are all among the most expensive skateboards ever sold — by a wide margin. Some of the costliest skateboards sold previously include Jamie Thomas’ and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind Skateboard,” which sold in a fundraiser for $38,425 in December 2012, and a Tony Hawk-owned “Beatles’ Blackbird Board,” which features handwritten lyrics to the song and Paul McCartney’s signature and was auctioned for $27,116. 

“The Golden Skateboard is a marvel of art & technology showcasing our first implementation of PBT, which paves the way for a new era of storytelling,” Azuki’s official Twitter account told its more than 314,000 followers. “We broke the record for the most expensive skateboard ever sold (in fact, the 8 most expensive skateboards ever sold).”

The floor price for an Azuki NFT has risen over recent weeks. Source: The Block

The claim window for the physical Golden Skateboards will open in November, according to the project. 

Azuki’s Golden Skateboard auction comes almost exactly one month after The Block reported that the project’s creator, Chiru Labs, was seeking $30 million in a Series A funding round — which would value the company at between $300 million and $400 million.

Azuki is a collection of 10,000 sideways-facing anime characters, displaying different moods and adorned with varying accessories. The costliest Azuki NFT sale occurred in March, when one in a set sold for 420.7 ETH — roughly $1.4 million at the time. 

The floor price for an Azuki NFT, at the time of this writing, is 11.5 ETH ($15,056), according to NFT marketplace OpenSea.

© 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.