FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Rating agency Moody’s is developing a system to score stablecoins.

It will include an analysis of up to 20 stablecoins and rate them based on the quality of attestations on the reserves backing them. The agency won’t consider it an official credit rating, unnamed sources told Bloomberg.

The project still is in its early stages, Bloomberg also reported.

Attestations provide confirmation of a company’s statements and are done by an outside firm.

Stablecoin Tether was ordered to report them on a quarterly basis after a settlement with the New York Attorney General’s office, which alleged that Bitfinex used Tether’s funds to secretly cover $850 million lost to a payment processor.

The crypto sector was hit hard last year by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem after the algorithmic stablecoin (Terra UST) lost its peg to the U.S. dollar.

© 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.

FTX bankruptcy lawyers are seeking permission to subpoena former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, his family and top lieutenants at the collapsed crypto exchange, according to new court documents.

“Certain insiders are currently cooperating with the debtors to provide important information. But others are not, and thus authorization to issue subpoenas to those with the missing information is critical to the debtors’ and committee’s recovery efforts,” lawyers for the FTX debtors and the official creditors committee wrote in a joint motion. 

The filing names Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, and his brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, saying the trio acted as his advisers. Lawyers are also targeting FTX co-founders Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and Constance Wang, the former chief operating officer of FTX Trading Ltd. and co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ltd. 

Lawyers are seeking information and documents regarding FTX’s assets and business operations and the personal assets of FTX insiders, among other things. New FTX CEO John Ray III has previously said that FTX executives did not maintain proper business records, which has complicated his efforts to recover assets during the bankruptcy process. 

“The insiders are best positioned to assist the movants with information helpful to unwind the complex web of entities and transactions that they created,” lawyers wrote in the court filing. The FTX debtors say they’ve met, or tried to meet, with Bankman-Fried and other FTX insiders on a voluntary basis, but did not receive the information they are seeking. 

Lawyers representing the U.S. government in the bankruptcy process have pushed for the appointment of an independent examiner to investigate finances of all companies involved in the case, to ensure a full accounting. Representatives for FTX and its affiliated companies, as well as joint provisional liquidators for FTX’s trading operation in the Bahamas, have pushed back on a request. In court documents filed on Wednesday they argued that an examiner would duplicate their investigative efforts and cost the companies millions of dollars, which would reduce assets they have on hand to pay back customers and investors. 

Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in a separate case for his alleged wrongdoing at FTX. Ellison and Wang have pleaded guilty to criminal charges and are cooperating with federal authorities, according to government court filings. 

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

© 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.

StoryCo raised $6 million to launch a collaborative blockchain-based storytelling platform.

The seed round was co-led by Collab+Currency and Patron. Other investors include Blockchange Ventures, Sfermion, Flamingo DAO, Packy McCormick and GMoney, according to a company release.

StoryCo’s platform aims to let creators work alongside fans to collaboratively develop media content. Its first story universe is The Disco Ball, which will be led by story architect Kyle Killen and artists Shelby and Sandy.

The Disco Ball is a space-themed story that sees Captain Alma Cooke and a team of astronauts try to save the multiverse with the help of the StoryCo community. The community will participate by discovering artifacts and solving quests as the story unfolds on the platform.

It’s the latest attempt to tap blockchain technology for interactive media content. Others include a community-generated novel written in collaboration with bestselling author Neil Strauss called Bored & Dangerous.

“StoryCo has created a pathway for an entirely new form of storytelling, allowing for a freedom of creative expression that previously didn’t exist,” said Killen, who previously worked as a showrunner in the Paramount Plus TV series Halo. 

Individuals can become part of the community by signing up for a StoryPass NFT, which allows for the collection of digital art as part of the story.

© 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.

Arran Schlosberg, vice president of engineering at the NFT collection organization Proof Collective, said its NFTs are safe after its founder, Kevin Rose, was hacked yesterday. 

Proof’s NFTs, ether and other assets require multiple approval for access, Schlosberg explained in a Jan. 26 Twitter thread. Proof Collective sells NFTs that give the holder access to the community. Each of these NFTs are worth at least 32 ETH ($51,680) and all 1,000 of them have brought Proof 22,255 ETH ($35.9 million), according to the NFT marketplace OpenSea. 

Schlosberg also noted that the hack was limited to a crafted signature accepted by OpenSea’s smart contract. After Proof noticed the attack, Schlosberg and another Proof engineer investigated and attempted to stop the hack. Now, Proof is working with the anti-fraud teams at OpenSea and web3 wallet firm Ledger and “are considering all avenues, including legal,” Schlosberg wrote.

Rose confirmed the hack soon after Twitter users noticed NFTs moving out of his account and into the hacker’s wallet on Jan. 25. He lost around 40 NFTs, which in total were valued at least $1 million. Rose managed to save his more valuable NFTs, including a rare zombie version of a CryptoPunk that can fetch over $1 million on its own, The Block previously reported.

© 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 was treading water at around $23,000, while ether and altcoins traded higher. Equities were mixed, with Silvergate down and Coinbase higher.

Bitcoin was trading at $23,037 by 10:40 a.m. EST, up about 2.7% over the past 24 hours, according to TradingView data.

Ether rose 4.4% to around $1,604 by 10 a.m. EST. Cardano’s ADA was up 6.9%, and Polygon’s MATIC soared over 12% in the last 24 hours.

Aptos continued to benefit from the recent rally, trading up about 20%. APT reached a fresh all-time high of $19.92 earlier in the day.

Dog-themed memecoins bounced back after declining this week. Dogecoin and shiba inu were up 3.1% and 4.4%, respectively. 

According to the advance estimate data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. economy grew by 2.9% between October and December, primarily driven by consumer and federal government spending. 

source: bea.gov

Bitcoin’s price whipsawed following the news before recovering above $23,000.

Crypto stocks

Silvergate fell 2% to around $14 by 10:30 a.m., according to Nasdaq data, alongside Jack Dorsey’s Block, which also fell — shedding 0.6% to trade around $80.

MicroStrategy and Coinbase traded higher. Shares in the crypto exchange were up 2%, Michael Saylor’s MSTR added 0.2%.

Next Wednesday, the U.S. central bank is expected to increase interest rates by 25 basis points, which is likely to impact crypto-related stocks. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool shows a 99.8% likelihood of a 25 basis point increase, bringing the target rate to 4.50-4.75%.

© 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.

Canadian bitcoin miner Hut 8 is taking a contract dispute with its energy provider to court.

The miner filed a statement of claim in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario against Validus Power Corp. and its subsidiary, Bay Power Corp., the third-party energy supplier to Hut 8’s facility in North Bay, Ontario, according to a Thursday press release.

The company said in October that it would try to settle the dispute through mediation.

Hut 8 claimed that Validus “failed to achieve certain key operational milestones” on schedule, while also demanding more money than what was agreed under the power purchase agreement (PPA). On a Nov. 28 update, it said that Validus cut power to the North Bay site and issued a default notice for failed payments, which Hut 8 denied.

Hut 8 has asked the court to enforce certain provisions of the PPA and grant monetary damages.

The rising cost of electricity — which has squeezed margins across the mining sector— has led to numerous disputes, including one between Celsius’ mining arm and hosting provider Core Scientific. Both companies are now in bankruptcy.

Validus Power Corp. did not respond to a request for comment.

© 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 extensive list of creditors hoping to get back a piece of crippled crypto exchange FTX and its family of companies was published late on Wednesday.

The 116-page document filed to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware shows an extensive overview of who FTX owes money to, including industry players, banks, law firms and companies the failed crypto empire had a commercial partnership with.

Companies that offered their services to bankrupt crypto exchange FTX are included on the creditor list, which lists vendors as well as business partners. Digital service providers are joining the line to get back a piece of their funds, including giants like Amazon Web Services, Apple, Meta Platforms, LinkedIn, Twitter, Netflix and Adobe. 

From the crypto industry, names like Coinbase, Binance Capital Management, Chainalysis, Yuga Labs, Doodles, BlockFi and Silvergate Bank made the list. News publications include Wall Street Journal, CoinDesk and Benzinga. 

Creditors also included star athletes, like Tampa Bay Buccaneers Quarterback Tom Brady and David Ortiz, the former designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox. Brady and Ortiz have also been targeted in a separate class action lawsuit over their paid endorsement of the failed crypto company. Other businesses on the creditor list included the Coachella music festival, Carbone’s Miami Beach restaurant and the posh Nobu Hotel.

The Prime Minister of the Bahamas, other governmental offices for the island nation, as well as U.S. state tax, consumer affairs, and attorney general offices were also listed. 

Individual retail FTX users were not included in the list. While the document does not break down the amounts owed to creditors, it was previously revealed that FTX owes more than $3 billion to its top 50 creditors, many of whom are institutional investors. 

The U.S. Trustee overseeing the FTX bankruptcy was interested in appointing an examiner to add transparency to the case. Investigate the collapse of FTX could cost nearly $100 million, FTX debtors argued in a document filed on Wednesday, arguing it would “provide no benefit” to creditors.

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

© 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.

Ethos Wallet, based on the yet-to-launch Sui blockchain, raised a $4.2 million seed round led by Boldstart Ventures and Gumi Cryptos Capital. 

The round for the wallet also featured participation from Tribe Capital, Matrix Port and AllianceDAO. Notably, Mysten Labs, the creator of Sui, also poured capital into the startup.

Mysten is led by founder and CEO Evan Cheng, who was head of research at Meta’s crypto wallet Novi Financial. Sui is a new Layer 1 chain that utilizes a version of the Move program language initially intended for Meta’s ill-fated blockchain project Diem. 

In July, Ethos, a consumer-focused crypto wallet, became the first application to go live on the Sui developer network. Developer networks, or Devnets, let developers build and experiment with projects without the higher stakes of using live cryptocurrencies. 

“Even compared to Move as used by other blockchains, Sui Move is significantly easier to read and reason about,” explained Sui founder and CEO Nadia Eldeib in a written interview with The Block. “This is important because it means it is easier for developers to build creatively and iteratively, and do more while writing less code.”

A digital gateway 

In particular, Eldeib said that this particularly lends itself to developing consumer wallets such as Ethos. In addition to acting as a crypto wallet where users can store and trade crypto on Sui, the Ethos team built Sui 1892, an interactive gaming NFT that’s playable on the app.

Eldeib said that the game is fully on-chain, with Ethos players safely pre-approving transactions to make it fast and easy to play. 

The consumer focus on aspects such as gaming is part of a larger plan to make the wallet a “home base for your digital life”. 

“We imagine a future where people are waking up and checking their Ethos wallet because it is where the most vibrant and interesting parts of their digital lives exist (rather than waking up and checking social media on your phone today),” continued Eldeib. 

The company plans to use the funding to continue the development of its wallet, developer infrastructure, and apps to further expand its capabilities. 

The funding follows previous fundraises for crypto wallet applications. Earlier this month, Aptos-based multisig wallet Msafe raised $5 million in funding led by Jump Crypto. Last week, startup accelerator Y Combinator led a $4.3 million round into multichain wallet Cypher.

© 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 U.S. economy grew by 2.9% during the fourth quarter, narrowly topping estimates of 2.8%.

Growth in the final three months of last year was primarily driven by consumer and federal government spending, according to the advance estimate. The data shows a reduction in the growth rate from the third quarter when the economy expanded 3.2%. 

source: bea.gov

Bitcoin’s price whipsawed following the news. The leading cryptocurrency by market cap dropped below $23,000 shortly after 8:30 a.m. EST, from around $23,100, according to data via TradingView. 

“This data is of massive importance as it is the first piece of salient hard data from the U.S. since the 6th of January Non-Farm Payrolls,” said David Stritch, currency analyst at Caxton. 

GDP is the first in a litany of economic indicators coming over the next week ahead of the next Federal Reserve rate decision, with PCE inflation indicators up next tomorrow. 

Next Wednesday, central bank is expected to increase interest rates by 25 basis points. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool shows a 99.8% likelihood of a 25 basis point increase, bringing the target rate to 4.50-4.75%.

© 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.

Conflux token will integrate with Little Red Book, the Chinese version of Instagram, to let users display their NFTs on the platform. The Conflux Network’s official Twitter page tweeted the news today.

The conflux token was trading at $0.042 by 7:37 a.m. EST, up about 38% over the past 24 hours, according to TradingView data.

CFXUSD chart by TradingView

Little Red Book has around 200 million monthly active users, according to Conflux Network and Qiangua’s 2022 XiaoHongshu Active User Portrait Trend Report. 

Conflux is becoming the “major bridge” for connecting “prominent internet industry players” in China, who have initiated efforts to embrace web3, said Ming Wu, CTO of Conflux.

Last year, Instagram announced it would host a marketplace for NFTs, starting with support for Polygon. MATIC surged around 13% following the 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.