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Several mining pools such as Luxor Technologies and AntPool mined blocks on Monday where fees exceeded Bitcoin’s block subsidy of 6.25 BTC.

Crypto exchange Bittrex has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. state of Delaware, months after announcing it would wind down operations in the country and weeks after being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bittrex Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on Monday, less than a month after the Securities and Exchange Commissions charged it with running an unregistered exchange. 

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 in a court filing. Two other entities, Bittrex Malta Ltd. and Bittrex Malta Holdings Ltd., also filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. 

Bittrex did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bankruptcy filing comes less than a month after Bittrex was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency. Bittrex had previously said it would leave the U.S., blaming the country’s regulatory environment. 

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, data from The Block show. It collapsed to below 1% in 2021 and hasn’t recovered since.

© 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.

If passed, the mining incentives for each liquidity pool on Canto will be reduced on average by roughly 38%, and data-block rewards known as “security emissions” would decrease by 15%.

Ether’s deflationary narrative continues despite Monday’s price drop. Major crypto assets traded down on Monday.

P2P platform Paxful is up and running and being run by a Delaware lawyer, co-founder Artur Shaback said. 

Paxful posted a note online saying, “After a month away, we’re happy to announce that the Paxful marketplace is back online.”

The platform shuttered in April as the company imploded and Shaback sued co-founder Ray Youssef, who later stepped down from being the chief executive officer. Shaback told The Block he may seek a settlement with Youssef, who has accused his former partner of being greedy.

Youssef didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Youssef had recently told The Block that because of U.S. legal uncertainty, Paxful had decided in November to dissolve the company. It was one of several companies impacted by a regulatory climate in the U.S. that has enforcement actions against exchanges and lawsuits from oversight agencies. 

“Throughout the suspension the Paxful Wallet remained fully operational for our users and the community were also offered a selection of peer-to-peer platforms to continue trading on,” the note said. “Over the last month, our team has worked diligently to get the marketplace back online with the safety and security of users paramount.”

© 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.

FSMA’s concerns meant the exchange could have lost its license or even faced prosecution, even before the Estonian platform which held its funds filed for insolvency

Peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin exchange Paxful has resumed operations after being shut down for over a month, the company said in a blog post.

As risk-taking crypto traders sought to make tremendous profits off of surging prices for the suddenly-hot PEPE, a resulting surge in transaction fees brought a windfall to validators running the Ethereum blockchain.

MakerDAO, the decentralized entity responsible for the DAI stablecoin, has unveiled Spark, a DeFi lending platform aimed at improving decentralized borrowing solutions for its stablecoin.

DAI is the fourth largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of $4.7 billion, trailing only USDT, USDC and BUSD.

Spark is a software fork of the leading lending protocol, Aave’s Version 3, that integrates direct lending capabilities within MakerDAO. Through Spark, users can obtain DAI loans using assets such as ether (ETH), staked ether (stETH), and DAI. Spark functions independently from MakerDAO’s primary mechanism, which solely permits users to generate new DAI as overcollateralized debt.

“Spark Protocol’s first version, Spark Lend, is a lending marketplace specifically designed for supplying and borrowing crypto with a focus on DAI,” MakerDAO stated. Starting Tuesday, the Spark Protocol will be accessible to all decentralized finance (DeFi) users, MakerDAO added.

Borrowers can initially take DAI loans at 1.11% annual rate through Spark. The lending platform incorporates a tailored interest rate model, wherein borrowing rates are established by governance members through on-chain voting, instead of fluctuating according to supply and demand as found in Aave or other lending protocols.

Spark will integrate with MakerDAO’s Peg Stability Module, enabling instant conversion of DAI to USDC at a 1:1 ratio for users seeking stablecoin swaps. The creation of Spark was led by Phoenix Labs, a contributing firm to MakerDAO.

© 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.