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Bitcoin takes a break after record price-setting Sunday while some traders are plowing BTC into ETH.

Defi insurer Cover Protocol, designed to reduce smart contract failure risks, was exploited by a bug in its smart contract on Monday morning.

BOX proposed a rule change to the SEC for using the Ethereum blockchain to record and publishing end-of-day securities ownership balances.

OKCoin said it will suspend XRP trading and deposits on its crypto exchange, effective on January 4, 2021, according to its statement on Monday afternoon. The exchange specified two key dates along the suspension timeline. “At 3 a.m. UTC time on January 4, the exchange’s users who have borrowed from the XRP/USD margin pair (incl. […]

White House Market, a prominent darknet marketplace, has apparently ceased support for bitcoin payments and now will only accept monero.

According to a statement attributed to the White House Market and posted on Twitter, the platform is no longer accepting bitcoin payments because Morphtoken,  the third party exchange API it used, “has suddenly decided to block access from Tor exit nodes.”

The statement added: “The Bitcoin workaround was supposed to be there just to help with transition to XMR and as we are concerned, it’s done, therefore we are now Monero only, just as planned.”

 The Block confirmed the move by visiting the payment section of the marketplace’s onion website.

© 2020 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.

A macro and bond specialist joins NLW to discuss the economics of 2021.

U.S. crypto exchange OKCoin is suspending XRP trading and deposits on January 4, 2021, until further notice.

Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Monday, OKCoin said the decision was made in light of the recent lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple two of its executives. 

The SEC claims that XRP is a security and alleges that CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen have raised more than $1.3 billion via an ongoing, unregistered securities sale of XRP.

“It is likely that this situation will take time to reach a resolution,” said OKCoin. “We will proactively inform our customers when we have information that may change our position.”

OKCoin CEO Hong Fang told The Block that it was a “business decision taken in the best interest of our customers pending further guidance from the SEC on the case with Ripple.”

Besides suspending XRP trading and deposits, OKCoin is also asking users who have borrowed from the XRP/USD margin pair (including borrowing XRP and USD) to return the borrowed value before January 3. “Delays will trigger a liquidation by our systems to close the loan contracts,” said the exchange.

© 2020 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.

Vauld, a cryptocurrency lender, has raised $2 million from an assortment of investors including Coinbase Venture,  Pantera Capital, and Compound founder Robert Leshner.

The Singapore-based company said in a statement that it plans to use the funds to grow from a lending platform to one that includes payments and trading. It said the money will also go toward plans to develop the firm’s presence in Europe and the United States. 

“We see institutional capital come into the crypto space with the expectation of banking integrations to complement crypto credit offerings,” said Darshan Bathija, CEO of Vauld, in the statement. 

Paul Veradittakit, partner at Pantera Capital, added: “Vauld’s vision to make cryptocurrencies the preferred instrument of banking by making it simple to use and interoperable with the current banking infrastructure is what we are excited about.”

© 2020 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.

Vauld, formerly called Bank of Hodlers, raised $2 million in a round led by Pantera Capital to expand its crypto banking platform.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has obtained an asset freeze order against quantitative trading firm Virgil Capital, according to a statement from the regulator.

The asset freeze is related to allegations of securities fraud filed December 22 against Virgil Capital’s crypto trading fund, Virgil Sigma Fund. The SEC claims the fund’s owner, Stefan Qin, has been knowingly defrauding investors of the Sigma Fund, using the investment proceeds for “personal purposes or for other undisclosed high-risk investments.” 

The new order is to “prevent further harm,” according to the Chief of the Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit, Kristina Littman. 

Virgil Capital reportedly manages $100 million in assets, and was accepting new investors for its waiting list as of April of this year. Qin founded the company in 2016, when he was 19 years old. 

© 2020 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.