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This unsung Central European success story features famous philosophers, a striking landscape and a high quality of life. And the No. 14 spot in CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023 has a crypto ecosystem that punches vastly above its weight.

Technical improvements and a listing on EDX Markets have likely fueled trading interest in bitcoin cash tokens.

Chibi Finance, a recently launched DeFi project operating on Arbitrum’s Layer 2 network, has been accused of staging a “rug pull,” allegedly absconding with roughly $1 million in user deposits.

On-chain analysis carried out by security analysts at PeckShield showed that 555 ether (ETH), equivalent to $1 million, was drained from the platform’s liquidity pools.

The team behind Chibi Finance withdrew tokens staked by users on its platform and converted them to ether. The funds were then funneled from the Arbitrum network to Ethereum and routed through Tornado Cash, a popular Ethereum mixing service used to obfuscate transaction trails, according to PeckShield.

The Chibi team vanishes

Amid these movements, the Chibi Finance team’s digital presence vanished overnight. Its social media accounts on Twitter and Telegram, as well as the project’s website, chibi.finance, are no longer accessible. The Block was not able to contact the project for comment. 

Meanwhile, the price of the project-issued chibi tokens, which hovered at around $1 yesterday, took a sharp nosedive, plummeting to just $0.017, according to DEX Screener data.

This incident is the latest in a series of apparent exit scams that have resurfaced on Arbitrum and the broader Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem recently. Last month, the developers of an Arbitrum-based project known as Swaprum disappeared with nearly $3 million in a similar case. Earlier, in April, a decentralized exchange named Merlin, operating on zkSync, exited after siphoning off user funds worth $2 million.

© 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.

Portugal’s coastal capital offers a top-shelf European quality of life at discount prices. The No. 15 spot on CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023 attracts creative and entrepreneurial expats with a lively calendar of Web3 events, prized “digital nomad” visa and crypto-friendly tax laws.

Bitcoin mining and data center hosting company Riot Platforms has agreed to purchase 33,280 next-generation bitcoin miners from manufacturer MicroBT, nearly doubling its existing capacity by mid-2024.

The miners will be produced by MicroBT within the United States for Riot’s Corsicana facility in Texas at a cost of $162.9 million, according to an announcement on Monday. Once deployed, the new machines will see Riot’s existing self-mining hashrate rise to 20.1 EH/s. 

The purchase agreement represents a 35% increase in Riot’s current 94,176 miners, according to its website. Riot also has the option to secure an additional 66,650 M56S++ miners from MicroBT under the same terms, which could expand its computing power by a further 15.3 EH/s to 35.4 EH/s, if executed.

The new miners, designed and produced specifically for immersion cooling systems — like those used at Riot’s Corsicana facility — are among the most powerful and efficient miners to date.

“These new miners will contribute an additional 7.6 EH/s to Riot’s self-mining capacity when fully deployed and will further enhance our already strong fleet efficiency in advance of the upcoming Bitcoin halving,” Riot CEO Jason Les said in the announcement.

Made in the USA

MicroBT will manufacture the miners at its facility in Pittsburgh. 

“The M56S+ and M56S++ are the most powerful machines we have developed,” said MicroBT COO Jordan Chen. “All machines purchased by Riot will be manufactured in our facility in the United States, and this order will drive expansion of our operations allowing us to hire and train new staff to fulfill our growing United States-based manufacturing business.”

The delivery of the new miners is set to begin in December 2023, with deployment planned to start in the first quarter of 2024.

In March, Riot reported $259.2 million in revenue for the year ending December 2022. It also tripled its hashrate last year.

© 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.

As a number of asset managers line up to gate-crash the crypto fund world with new spot bitcoin ETFs, industry incumbent Grayscale quietly posted its best month in estimated revenues since May 2022. 

According to The Block’s data dashboard, Grayscale — a subsidiary of Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group — clocked in an estimated $44.13 million in revenue from its flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Ethereum fund, ETHE. 

The calculation is based on the value of the funds’ total U.S. dollar holdings each month multiplied by Grayscale’s fees. GBTC has a 2% annual fee and ETHE has a 2.5% annual fee.

BlackRock’s recent spot bitcoin ETF filing has breathed new life into a beleaguered crypto asset management market, with funds seeing nearly $200 million in inflows last week, according to data compiled by European issuer CoinShares. In the wake of BlackRock’s filing, a long list of firms have also resubmitted their applications for a spot bitcoin ETF, including Bitwise, Invesco, and WisdomTree. 

Grayscale looks to upgrade GBTC 

Grayscale has its own ambitions to upgrade GBTC to a spot bitcoin ETF and is currently locked in a legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to do so. It first submitted its filing in October 2021 to trade GBTC as an ETF on the New York Stock Exchange. That upgrade would grant Grayscale Regulation M relief, which would allow the firm to redeem and create shares, which it currently is restricted from doing. Reg M relief, in theory, would result in GBTC trading at net asset value.

But an upgrade, as well as increased competition, might also hit Grayscale’s coffers. 

Seyffart, who recently joined an episode of The Scoop, noted that a BlackRock fund would knock Grayscale’s valuation.

“If BlackRock wins approval for their ETF, which isn’t guaranteed, it may decrease Grayscale’s valuation because Grayscale would be forced to lower fees sooner than might have been assumed,” Seyffart noted.

“On top of that, if GBTC converts to an ETF then the fund will be subject to potential outflows,” he added.

© 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 spread has flipped negative with consistent institutional selling of ether calls. Some of these positions could be rolled over ahead of Friday’s expiry, leading to captivating shifts in volatility, crypto exchange Deribit said.

Trading platform Robinhood (HOOD) has cut 7% of its full-time staff, about 150 employees, in the third round of layoffs since April 2022.

The platform automates the due diligence process for buying cryptocurrency bankruptcy claims in firms like FTX or Celsius, providing previously missing liquidity for creditors owed around $50,000.

The Seven Seven Six-backed SYKY platform will work with a group of 10 digital designers to grow their skills in the year-long incubator program.