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National Australia Bank (NAB) said it had blocked some payments to “high-risk” cryptocurrency exchanges over the past few months to protect its customers.

The bank said in a Monday statement that it had intervened in more than A$270 million ($183.8 million) worth of payments that raised scam concerns between March and July. The bank did not disclose how many of these alerts were triggered by crypto-related scams.

“Introducing payment prompts, taking action on spoofing and stopping the use of links in unexpected text messages are among key measures we’ve introduced recently,” Chris Sheehan, NAB Executive for Group Investigations and Fraud, said in the statement.

“We’re now also taking action to block some payments to high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges in a further effort to stop scammers,” he added, without elaborating on the specific exchanges involved.

NAB noted that Australians lost over A$221 million ($150.5 million) last year due to crypto-related scams. 

Stricter banking on crypto scams

NAB has joined a number of other Australian banks in becoming more cautious about potential crypto scams in recent months. 

Last month, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia took measures to limit its customers’ ability to send money to crypto exchanges due to crypto-related scams. 

NAB said nearly 50% of scam funds reported to the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange were linked to cryptocurrency in a recent 30-day period. 

“These scammers are part of organized, transnational crime groups. Increasingly, we’re seeing them use cryptocurrency platforms to send stolen funds quickly and often overseas,” Sheehan said.

© 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.

Matter Labs, the core developer of Ethereum Layer 2 zkSync Era, has unveiled Boojum, a STARK-powered proof system capable of being run on consumer-grade GPU hardware, promising superior performance.

The proof system is based on a new Rust-based cryptographic library from zkSync that powers the prover’s upgraded Zero-Knowledge (ZK) circuits — vital components of zkSync Era and ZK Stack.

Until now, zkSync Era has relied on a proof system (prover) leveraging a type of zero-knowledge proof called SNARKs. This system helps its Layer 2 sequencer (off-chain transaction aggregator) process more than 100 transactions per second (TPS) currently. Boojum, which is based on STARKs, promises several times more throughput, according to the team.

In the context of Layer 2 solutions for blockchains, a prover is a component responsible for creating a proof of computation. This proof is then verified by the main blockchain (Layer 1) or other validators. The aim is to offload computational work from the main blockchain, thus enhancing scalability for apps.

Faster transaction proofs

“The increased performance from Boojum means the system can prove transactions faster, and the reduced hardware requirements improve the network’s access to cheaper machines for increased horizontal scalability,” Anthony Rose, SVP of technology at Matter Labs, told The Block. 

A key highlight of Boojum is its ability to run on consumer-grade GPUs, requiring only 16 GB of GPU RAM. This feature promotes accessibility and inclusivity by enabling users with regular hardware to participate in the network.

The Boojum upgrade is currently live on the mainnet in an experimental phase. During the early phase, it’s generating and verifying ‘shadow proofs’ using real production data. This testing process will help zkSync Era fine-tune the system, identify any potential issues, and mitigate risks ahead of the full migration. 

© 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 standard-setter called for crypto companies to adapt now, after allegations of misuse of client funds at FTX

cLabs, the core developer behind the Celo blockchain, has put forward a plan to transition its Layer 1 network into a Layer 2 solution built on Ethereum — a radical move that could result in improved security guarantees.

The proposal, posted on the project’s governance forum, states that the future version of Celo will be based on a Layer 2 rollup model — publishing security proofs to the Ethereum mainnet in order to maintain security. “Celo would inherit Ethereum’s security (providing stronger security assurances than Celo provides on its own),” the cLabs team explained.

The team hopes to use the OP Stack, a modular tooling offered by Optimism, to facilitate this transition and custom-build its chain’s requirements. The same approach was previously used by crypto exchange giant Coinbase to develop its Layer 2 network, Base.

As part of its Layer 2’s architecture, cLabs said it would develop a decentralized sequencer using Celo’s existing validator set, which is intended to ensure that multiple entities would be able to secure the chain. The team is also planning to make use of a data availability layer, EigenDA, from the re-staking project EigenLayer, to achieve lower storage fees for the network.

Blue chip backers

Celo is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain that raised $30 million in 2019 from prominent venture firms like a16z and Polychain Capital. It closed another $20 million round in 2021.

Currently, the network hosts several Ethereum-based decentralized applications such as Uniswap and Sushiswap, as well as native applications including Valora, Mento, and UbeSwap. 

The proposal noted that migrating its EVM-compatible Layer 1 to an Ethereum L2 will be a technical upgrade that will not impact the existing Celo ecosystem of apps.

© 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 rising flows into Toronto-based Purpose’s spot bitcoin ETF, which received approval by Canadian regulators in 2021, reflect strong appetite among retail investors for these types of products and are a promising sign for U.S. companies who have recently filed spot BTC applications with the SEC.

Daily volume for Grayscale’s GBTC has been on a tear in the wake of a flurry of new spot exchange traded fund filings, hitting the highest level of the year on July 13.

As per The Block’s data dashboard, daily volumes for Grayscale’s largest fund product topped $183 million on July 13. On June 20, it topped $170 million. 

Grayscale, which is in the process of suing the Securities and Exchange Commission to upgrade GBTC into a proper spot bitcoin ETF, has seen the product’s discount to net-asset-value shrink since BlackRock’s surprise announcement that it would file for a spot bitcoin ETF on June 15. Across the crypto asset management space, issuers are racing to bring a product to market, kicking off a broader increase in inflows across existing products. 

The Block’s data dashboard shows the discount has tightened from -44% on June 13 to -28% on July 10. 

© 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 venture investor and former Department of Justice prosecutor Katie Haun weighed in on a recent court decision in Ripple’s three year long legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

In a tweet, Haun said that the court’s decision, which found that sales of XRP across public exchanges have not constituted the sale of unregistered securities, was “a good outcome for the industry.”

“The consensus is that the court drew a reasonable line—distinguishing between XRP itself (not an investment contract and thus not a security) and certain XRP transactions in which institutional investors paid money to Ripple directly and Ripple made contractual commitments in exchange, creating an investment contract under Howey,” Haun said in a tweet. 

Haun previously worked with Chris Dixon, running a16z’s crypto funds. She launched Haun Ventures, which reportedly raised more than $1 billioin in assets, in 2022. 

Haun said that an appeal of US District Judge Analisa Torres’s decision is “possible,” but added that an “immediate appeal seems unlikely both because the agency would have to ask the court to split this decision from the portion going to trial and because I am skeptical the SEC actually wants legal clarity.”

To be clear, Ripple’s battle with the SEC is far from over. Furthermore, Judge Torres also ruled that Ripple violated securities laws when it offloaded XRP to sophisticated institutional investors. 

Still, a number of market participants noted the development could bode well for other crypto firms in their own ongoing legal proceedings, with investment banking giant JPMorgan noting it could benefit Coinbase. 

“The ruling appears on the surface to be a win for Coinbase in its recent lawsuit by the SEC,” JPMorgan equity analysts led by Kenneth Worthington wrote in a report on Friday. “We see Coinbase in the best position to benefit from the improved confidence and regulatory clarity given Coinbase’s market-leading position and respected reputation in the industry.”

© 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 trading volumes across spot exchanges increased following a judge ruling that Ripple’s sales of XRP on public trading venues did not constitute the sale of securities. Data from The Block data dashboard shows the seven day moving average for spot trading volumes increased from $12.74bn on July 12 to $16.56bn.

While the future of the case — which could now go to trial or be appealed — is not clear, the market has rallied on the news with crypto equities like Coinbase and XRP surging in the wake of the ruling from a judge in New York’s Southern District.

© 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 broader rally in global equities and cryptocurrencies has not helped the market capitalization of one of the decentralized finance market’s darlings. 

While Coinbase has seen its shares surge by more than 213% since the beginning of the year–supercharged by BlackRock’s surprise filing for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund–the market cap of DeFi exchange Uniswap hasn’t budged. The market cap of the DEX has held steady, hovering around $4 billion for much of the year. 

Coinbase, meanwhile, has seen its market cap increase from over $7 billion at the beginning of the year to nearly $25 billion on Friday. 

The Block’s data dashboard shows the ratio between the two firms’ market caps has surged, hitting a yearly high of 6.2 on July 13.

Coinbase rallied more than 20% on Thursday alongside the broader crypto market after a judge ruled that Ripple Lab’s sales of XRP on exchanges did not violate securities laws. 

© 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.