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Crypto exchange Binance applied to deregister in Cyprus, just over a week after getting sued by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Binance Cyprus Limited Under examination for application for deregistration,” reads the website of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. Binance Cyprus received registration from the regulator in October 2022.

It is unclear when Binance applied for deregistration and why it no longer wants to operate in Cyprus. The company did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.

The development comes after Binance and its U.S. entity Binance.US were sued by the SEC last week for allegedly violating securities laws.

Binance Cyprus had been granted Class 3 registration as a Crypto Asset Services Provider (CASP) by the Cyprus SEC. The registration allowed Binance to offer services, including spot, custodian, staking and card services, in compliance with the requirements of the CySEC’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) rules. 

At the time, the exchange said it was “another milestone” for the company in its regulatory efforts and follows similar registrations for Binance’s local entities in France, Italy and Spain. 

“Registration in Cyprus is an important step in our European growth and is another sign of our commitment to the region,” Martin Bruncko, executive vice president of Europe at Binance, said at the time. “We look forward to building out our local team in Cyprus and helping to develop the local crypto ecosystem.”

© 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.

Binance won registration as a crypto asset service provider (CASP) in Cyprus in October last year.

An arbitrage bot executed a series of intricate transactions on Ethereum involving a $200 million flash loan, all to make a profit of just $3.24.

Flash loans facilitate uncollateralized lending, as long as the borrowed assets are repaid within the same transaction block. If the loan isn’t returned within the same block, it fails, leaving the network unchanged.

The arbitrage bot leveraged the flash loan, drawing a $200 million loan in DAI stablecoin from MakerDAO through the ‘DssFlash’ contract, Arkham Intelligence said in a Twitter thread. This contract enables “zero-fee borrowing on any amount of DAI,” with a debt ceiling of up to $500 million.

Zachary Lerangis, Arkham’s head of operations, explained that these automated bots would execute any transaction that results in a profit, even if the net gain might be slim.

A price disparity game

An arbitrage opportunity presents itself when there’s a price disparity for the same asset across different markets. Traders, or in this case, a bot, can capitalize on these differences to earn a profit.

After securing the flash loan, the bot employed it to deposit funds on Aave, a decentralized lending platform. It again borrowed a relatively small sum of $2,300 in Wrapped Ether (WETH) against the deposits, Arkham said. WETH, an ERC-20 token that can be used in smart contracts and is equivalent to Ethereum in price, was subsequently utilized to purchase Threshold Network (T) tokens on the Curve exchange.

Upon completing the arbitrage loop, the bot sold the Threshold Network tokens on the Balancer exchange, generating a gain of 0.019 ETH, approximately $33. However, transaction costs and a $1 fee to an Ethereum block builder significantly eroded the net gain, reducing it to just $3.24.

Despite the bot having access to a considerable sum of $200 million in DAI, it may not have fully leveraged the funds due to constraints such as liquidity limitations or the extent of the price disparity. If it borrowed only a modest sum of $2,300 in WETH from Aave, this could account for the small profit relative to the size of the flash loan.

© 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 integration makes it easier for crypto users to participate in staking without operating the physical infrastructure.

Two of the top crypto communities on Reddit — r/Bitcoin and r/Ethereum — reached a new all-time high last week in terms of the number of subscribers.

There were over 364,000 new subscribers to the r/Bitcoin subReddit and 461,000 new subscribers to the r/Ethereum community during the week of June 4 to June 11. This was during the week that saw the two biggest crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, getting sued by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The subReddits r/EthTrader and r/Cryptocurrency also saw a surge in subscribers, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard.

The surge resulted in the total number of subscribers in r/Bitcoin going above 5 million and r/Ethereum reaching over 2 million subscribers.

Bitcoin and ether have also remained relatively stable in price compared to other tokens that have been described as unregistered securities in the SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. Bitcoin and ether — the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization — were not implicated as securities in the lawsuits.

Yesterday, several crypto subReddits, including r/Bitcoin and r/Ethereum, went private for at least 48 hours to protest the site’s new API pricing terms. The blackout came reportedly after Christian Selig, the developer for a popular third-party Reddit app called Apollo, said he would sunset his business because of Reddit’s proposed pricing changes, which would cost him millions of dollars.

© 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.

A throwback is a countertrend move where prices reverse direction and move back towards a breakout point, paving the way for a strong rally.

The latest price moves in bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets in context for June 14, 2023. First Mover is CoinDesk’s daily newsletter that contextualizes the latest actions in the crypto markets.

Block Green aims to unlock liquidity from institutional investors for miners and incentivize green mining.

Bittrex U.S., the American arm of cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex, is preparing to allow customer withdrawals from tomorrow following a ruling by a Delaware bankruptcy court, CoinDesk reported. 

Bittrex was once one of the largest exchanges in the U.S., with a market share of USD support of nearly 23% at the start of 2018, according to data from The Block. However, in March, Bittrex U.S. announced it was shutting down operations after its volumes fell to just 1% of the market, blaming regulatory uncertainty. 

Bittrex U.S. initially said it would process withdrawals for users until April 30. Bittrex Inc. then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged it with running an unregistered exchange, similar to the recent charges against Coinbase and Binance. At the time, the company said it had assets and liabilities each estimated to be worth between $500 million and $1 billion, and more than 100,000 creditors, including the U.S. government. 

Judge Brendan Shannon, in his ruling on Tuesday, granted Bittrex U.S. and its affiliates permission “to permit their customers holding undisputed, noncontingent, and liquidated claims to withdraw cryptocurrency assets and fiat currency from the Debtors’ trading platform to the extent of such claims.” However, the judgement did not determine ownership of the assets or favor customer claims over those of the government. It also mentioned the possibility of clawbacks in the future, CoinDesk said.

According to Patty Tomasco, a partner at the Quinn Emanuel law firm representing Bittrex, “the platform will be up and running for withdrawals on Thursday, June 15,” CoinDesk said.

While the bankruptcy court’s ruling allows for customer withdrawals, the legal battle regarding the ownership of assets and claims against Bittrex remains.

© 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.

An arbitrage bot flash loaned $200 million worth of the dai stablecoin from MakerDAO on Wednesday, making a $3.24 profit after transaction fees.