FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Binance, the world’s leading centralized crypto exchange, has announced zero maker fees on all TUSD spot and margin trading pairs. 

All users will be eligible from June 30 until further notice, the company said in an announcement, adding that standard taker fees will still apply. Notably, the BTC/TUSD, TUSD/BUSD and TUSD/USDT trading pairs will also have zero taker fees during the promotion period.

Binance’s zero trading fees for USD stablecoin pairs will also expand to include all existing and new USD stablecoin pairs on Binance’s spot and margin markets from the same date.

BUSD zero maker fees

Additionally, Binance is extending its BUSD zero maker fees until December 31. This includes existing and new BUSD spot and margin trading pairs, except for BNB/BUSD, BTC/BUSD and ETH/BUSD. 

The TUSD stablecoin has increased in popularity since Binance adopted it following regulatory issues for the exchange’s associated BUSD stablecoin. TrueUSD, the issuer of TUSD, paused minting the stablecoin through Prime Trust on June 10.

The announcement comes amid falling monthly exchange volume and regulatory pressure after Binance was sued earlier this month by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations it violated securities laws. Last week, Le Monde reported that Binance was also under investigation for alleged money laundering in France.

© 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 Starknet Foundation, which oversees the Starknet Layer 2 network, said it appointed former Facebook executive Diego Oliva as its first chief executive officer. Oliva will manage Starknet’s ecosystem and steer the network’s growth efforts, the foundation said in a press release.

Oliva previously served as the regional director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at Facebook (now Meta) from 2009 to 2015. He also co-founded Glue Home, an IoT company, and held a board position at Just Eat.

The newly appointed CEO said he would focus on growth and expanding the community of Starknet developers and contributors.

“My top priority will be supporting, empowering, and expanding the strong community of devs and others who are making Starknet the most vibrant ecosystem for building and scaling Ethereum,” said Oliva.

Starknet is a widely used Layer 2 scaling network for Ethereum. The Starknet Foundation, holding 50.1% of the initial mint of 10 billion Stark (STRK) tokens, operates and manages Starknet’s underlying Layer 2 technology based on ZK-Starks. The foundation also leads community engagement efforts for the network, overseeing project governance and organizing educational events.

© 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.

Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark is set to acquire two turnkey U.S. Bitcoin mining campuses in Dalton, Georgia, for a cash payment of $9.3 million. 

The two mining facilities will house over 6,000 Bitcoin mining machines, including the latest generation Antminer S19 XP and S19j Pro+ units. These machines were ordered and paid for by CleanSpark earlier this year, according to a press release. The acquisition is part of CleanSpark’s plans to meet a growth target of 16 EH/s by the end of 2023.

“This acquisition ensures that we have more than enough infrastructure to reach our year-end target of 16 EH/s,” CleanSpark CEO Zach Bradford said in the release. “These two additional sites are testament to our deepening ties with rural communities in Georgia and the regional expertise we are developing there as a large, flexible load. Importantly, our efforts are generating economic growth for the suburban and rural areas where our operations are located.”

The deal is expected to finalize later this week, boosting CleanSpark’s computing power by just under 1 exahash per second (EH/s) — an approximate 15% increase compared to its existing 6.7 EH/s hash rate.

This latest deal follows a series of machine purchases by the firm this year. On June 1, CleanSpark purchased 12,500 new Bitmain Antminer S19 XP machines at a discounted price. The company also bought 20,000 Antminer S19j Pro+ units in February and an additional 45,000 Antminer S19 XP units in April. Those three deals will add a total of 10.5 EH/s to CleanSpark’s current hash rate when activated later this year.

“We continue to make use of opportunities created by current market conditions to prepare for next year’s Bitcoin halving,” said CleanSpark CFO Gary A. Vecchiarelli.

CleanSpark claims it predominantly mines Bitcoin with low-carbon energy sources — accounting for over 90% of its energy mix.

© 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.

Maverick Protocol, a project focused on DeFi infrastructure, raised $9 million in a round led by Founders Fund.

A bevy of top crypto investors also participated, including Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures and Apollo Crypto.

According to an announcement today, the firm will focus on building more-efficient liquid staking token infrastructure to tackle cross-chain liquidity breakdowns. It will use the fresh injection to grow the protocol, incorporate new chains, and attract new developers and projects to its ecosystem.

New incentivization tools

Maverick raised a seed round in 2021, followed by another $8 million strategic round last year.

“We founded Maverick to provide the critical market infrastructure required to eliminate inefficiencies from DeFi and help the industry grow to new highs,” said Alvin Xu, founding member of Maverick Protocol, in a written statement, adding: “In a very short period of time, we’ve delivered consistently strong levels of capital efficiency to liquidity providers, and equipped token projects with new incentivization tools to build liquidity using precisely targeted rewards.”

Maverick launched its own decentralized exchange in March — which, so far, has amassed $37 million in total value locked, according to today’s announcement.

© 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.