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As the firm moves to open up The Sandbox Map, co-founder Sebastian Borget said he believes individual creators and brands will ultimately drive what the metaverse of the future will offer. Individual creators and brands will ultimately determine the future of the metaverse as opposed to any centralized entity, according to the co-founders of The Sandbox. On Nov. 3, the team behind the Ethereum-based metaverse announced on X it had made The Sandbox Map accessible to everyone, where “LAND” owners can publish their own experiences without needing to partake in an application process (which was previously required). THE METAVERSE IS NOW OPEN Starting today, LAND owners in The Sandbox can instantly publish experiences on the map! We're accelerating user-generated content to unleash the creative potential of creators like you. Let's build the metaverse together. #UGC #CreatorsDayHK pic.twitter.com/A2E8gNI2it — The Sandbox (@TheSandboxGame) November 3, 2023 “Now [anyon...

A court-ordered liquidation process allows FTX to sell nearly $3.4 billion worth of crypto assets in weekly batches starting from $50 million a week. The crypto wallet s linked to now-defunct crypto exchange FTX and its sister trading firm Alameda Research have sent over $13 million in different altcoins to numerous crypto exchanges early on Nov. 1. According to data from on-chain analysis firm Spotonchain, the FTX wallet first transferred $8.12 million worth of altcoins to Coinbase. The assets include 46.5 million GRT ($4.85 million), 972,073 RNDR ($2.3 million), and 708.1 MKR ($967,000). FTX and Alameda linked crypto deposit on Coinbase. Source: SOC The wallet addresses of FTX and Alameda Research made another $5.49 million transfer after three hours to Binance and Coinbase. The top 3 assets with the highest value in this transaction include 1.14 million DYDX ($2.64 million), 192,888 AXS ($1.05 million), and 5,858 AAVE ($522,000). #FTX and #Alameda Research further deposited...

Tether’s newest reserve attestation shows the highest-ever percentage of cash equivalents, with most reserves consisting of U.S. T-bills and repurchase agreements. The reserves for stablecoin issuer Tether contained approximately 86% cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, according to a new attestation report from accounting firm BDO. This is the highest percentage of cash and cash equivalents that have ever made up Tether’s reserves. Tether today releases its attestation for Q3 /2023.- cash & cash equivalent portion of reserves is all time high at 85.7%, yielding ~$1B - US T-bill (direct and indirect) exposure at $72.6B - reduced secured loans by $330M - investments in energy, bitcoin mining and P2P tech… https://t.co/PXQ1H5gqUX pic.twitter.com/ibKJRPlBAg — Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) October 31, 2023 According to the report, $56.6 billion worth of reserves are in U.S. Treasury bills with a maturity date of less than 90 days. Meanwhile, another $8.8 billion wa...

Despite Bukele’s popularity, some critics argue he isn’t eligible to be re-elected under El Salvador’s constitution. El Salvador president Nayib Bukele has filed paperwork to be re-elected in the country’s upcoming 2024 presidential election in February. Bukele, a Bitcoin advocate, received strong support from the public on Oct. 26 after he was officially nominated by his party to run for re -election . “Five more [years], five more and not one step back,” Bukele said in a speech in front of thousands of El Salvadorans. “We need five years to continue improving our country,” he added. | ÚLTIMA HORA: Al grito de “cinco más, cinco más y ni un paso atrás” Nayib Bukele da su discurso delante de miles de Salvadoreños luego de inscribir su candidatura presidencial para la reelección. “Necesitamos 5 años para seguir mejorando nuestro país.” pic.twitter.com/ApaP8yyQBm — Eduardo Menoni (@eduardomenoni) October 27, 2023 Bukele rose to power in 2019 when his political party, Neuva (New) Ideas,...

The SEC has already dismissed charges against Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chair Chris Larsen, while the retail XRP sale ruling also went against the regulator. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a very slim chance of winning the appeal against Ripple in the ongoing lawsuit, according to lawyer Bill Morgan, who has been closely following the lawsuit. Morgan in a post on X (formerly Twitter) argued that there is no obvious appellable error other than in “Ripple’s favour regarding ODL sales which don’t meet at least two prongs of the Howey test,” while adding there is a very slim chance of about 3% for SEC’s success in getting an appeal against Ripple. I don’t see any obvious appellable error other than in Ripple’s favor in respect of ODL sales which don’t meet at least two prongs of the Howey test. The SEC’s prospects of success on appeal are very slim and I feel generous today so I am giving it 3% chance of success on appeal https://t.co/FR...

Tesla held onto its sizeable Bitcoin bags in the third quarter and upped its spending on artificial intelligence and research and development. Electric vehicle maker Tesla  made no changes to its sizeable Bitcoin (BTC) holdings — the fifth quarter in a row — though it has directed more funds to double its computing capacity amid artificial intelligence efforts. Tesla’s Q3 2023 results released on Oct. 18 show as of Sept. 30, it held $184 million worth of digital assets — a portion of the $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin it first bought in March 2021. The latest quarterly results mean it hasn’t bought or sold any Bitcoin since its sell-off of around 75% of its holdings in Q2 2022 when it fetched $936 million for more than 30,000 BTC. Excerpt of Tesla’s Q3 2023 balance sheet with its digital asset holdings highlighted. Source: Tesla On the other hand, Tesla reported it had “more than doubled the size” of its computing power for its AI projects, citing a growing training data set and switch...

Hong Kong has allowed retail crypto trading since June. Just 47% of retail crypto investors in Hong Kong are aware of the Virtual Asset Trading Platform Regulatory Regime, a legislation which went into effect this June to protect the interest of retail investors in digital assets in the region. That's according to an October 11 report by the The Investor and Financial Education Council (IFEC) of Hong Kong. In its survey, the IFEC noted that nearly 25% of Hong Kong adults ages 18 to 29 have invested in crypto within the past year, three times the demographic average and a significant increase over 2019, where just 3% of respondents in the said demographic reported investing in crypto .  Despite the improvement in adoption, most Hong Kong-ers said that their top investment preferences were stocks (96%), mutual funds and trusts (24%), followed by bonds (18%). Around three-quarters of overall respondents said the primary goal of investing in crypto was for "short-term pr...

Investment firms Invesco and Galaxy Digital allegedly filed for a spot Ethereum ETF with the U.S. SEC on Sept. 29. Asset managers keep pursuing digital asset products, as Invesco and Galaxy Digital allegedly filed for a spot Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Sept. 29.  Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart disclosed the filing on X (formerly Twitter), even though the application hasn’t been uploaded to the SEC’s public database at the time of writing. Invesco Galaxy just filed for a spot Ether ETF, I think this is the 3rd of 4th one of these, have to check tho.. pic.twitter.com/SIJVu8VzFk — Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) September 29, 2023 A spokesperson for Invesco declined to confirm the application, stating that products still being registered cannot be commented on. Cointelegraph reached out to Galaxy, but did not immediately receive a response. With the Sept. 29 filing, Invesco and Galaxy join a growing line of investment managers seeking regulatory approval for...

Orbital, ZTX, Stroom Network, unshETH and Fxhash highlight the latest funding deals from the world of crypto and blockchain. The sharp increase in global interest rates may have limited investors’ appetite for crypto ventures, but new projects are still flourishing and attracting capital to speed up growth. Data from the Cointelegraph Research Venture Capital Database shows June closed out with a 29.73% decrease in venture capital investments, with just $779.32 million secured in 62 deals, compared to June 2022. However, the overall trend for the year shows a rise in venture capital deals. Cointelegraph’s VC roundup highlights the latest projects striving in this complex and competitive environment. Orbital raises $6.4M to expand enterprise blockchain services Enterprise crypto platform Orbital raised $6.4 million (5 million euros) in a funding round led by venture firm Golden Record Ventures. Additional investors included New Form Capital, GSRV and Luminous Futures. The funding will...

Kusama responded to Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong's update with the statement, "If it isn't a shadowcat, it's a copycat." Shytoshi Kusama, the lead developer of Shiba Inu, has given a response to Coinbase's Onchain Summer campaign . He suggested that Coinbase's campaign seemed to have similarities with the ideas originally presented by the Shiba Inu community. Kusama responded to Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong's update with the statement, "If it isn't a shadowcat, it's a copycat." On August 3, Armstrong showcased in a tweet the use of the Base bridge, launched the previous day, while highlighting Coinbase's upcoming Onchain Summer initiative. Coinbase is preparing to launch its Ethereum Layer 2 solution, known as Base, on the mainnet. Armstrong recently confirmed that Base is aimed at bringing the next billion users into the blockchain ecosystem. It aims to achieve this goal by offering tools for the development of various W...

Since Binance and Coinbase were sued for offering unregistered securities, Dorsey has tweeted posts promoting a focus on Bitcoin development. Long-time Bitcoin (BTC) advocate Jack Dorsey has found himself in a Twitter war with several crypto industry pundits after he responded with “yes” to a question asking if Ether (ETH) was a security . The comment caught the attention of Udi Wertheimer, a Bitcoin Ordinals developer at Taproot Wizards, who inferred Dorsey was a “clown” in a tweet on June 6. In response, Dorsey tweeted “ETH is not a security ? Teach me wizard,” which prompted Wertheimer to share a five-year-old video of the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler stating that ETH was now “sufficiently decentralized” and wasn’t a security . clowns. pic.twitter.com/S8AiJwuMem — Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) June 6, 2023 However, Gabor Gurbacs, strategy advisor to stablecoin issuer Tether and investment management firm VanEck weighed in on Werthei...

Bitcoin has seen around $167.47 million in NFT sales over the past 30 days, while StepN has integrated Apple Pay to remove barriers to entry to the app. Bitcoin, the next biggest NFT network? With nonfungible tokens (NFTs) still causing a stir among the Bitcoin community, the network has rapidly become the second-largest NFT chain, according to data from CryptoSlam. Looking at the 24-hour, seven-day and 30-day metrics, CryptoSlam data indicates Bitcoin has hosted the second -largest amount of NFT sales volume across the market. Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin has seen a whopping $167.47 million worth of NFT sales on secondary markets, though it’s still far behind the $395.95 million posted on Ethereum during that same period. Notably, Bitcoin is now well ahead of its nearest competition, including Solana and Mythos Chain, which have only seen $55.8 million and $35.4 million worth of sales over the past 30 days, respectively. 30-day NFT sales volume by blockchain. Source: CryptoSlam In...

A few hours into the hack, to everyone’s surprise, the attacker surprisingly reached out to the Tornado Cash community with a new proposal, hinting at their intent to give back the governance control. Just a day after an attacker sparked community-wide panic after hijacking the Tornado Cash governance , a new proposal hints at the possible restoration of the state of governance . On May 21, the passing of a malicious proposal allowed an attacker to gain complete control over Tornado Cash’s governance. With total control over the governance of the decentralized crypto mixer, the attacker was in a position to inflict massive losses considering they could withdraw all of the locked votes, drain all of the tokens in the governance contract and brick the router. While the story unfolded, community member Tornadosaurus-Hex or Mr. Tornadosaurus Hex, took proactive steps to minimize the potential damages by publishing a subsequent proposal requesting all members to withdraw all funds loc...

The Canton blockchain network for financial institutions is being launched by Digital Asset and a group of firms, including Microsoft, Goldman and Deloitte. A new blockchain network aimed at financial institutions is in the works from a conglomerate of participants in the finance and tech space, including the likes of Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. According to the announcement on May 9, the Canton Network will be a privacy-enabled interoperable blockchain network aimed at those working with institutional assets. It will allow the synchronization of financial markets that were “previously siloed.” The network will begin testing its capabilities in July, which include extensive privacy controls and the ability to achieve the scale and performance needed by major financial institutions. Participants in the network currently include BNP Paribas, Cboe Global Markets, Digital Asset, Paxos, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and others. Cathy Clay, the executive vice president at Cboe...

Lennix Lai, managing director of Global Institutional at OKX spoke with Cointelegraph about what it means to be transparent in a post-FTX and SVB crypto industry. The global Cryptocurrency Exchange OKX released its fifth edition of its proof- of- reserves (PoR) report, which it began releasing in Nov. 2022 in its effort for more Transparency in the industry.  According to the latest edition, OKX holds $8.9 billion across Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and the Tether stablecoin (USDT). This puts the reserve ratios of BTC, ETH and USDT at 103%, 103% and 102%, respectively. This latest release also comes as the exchange upgraded its PoR system with more transparency by making full liabilities (i.e. the total balance of user deposits) publicly accessible. Cointelegraph spoke with Lennix Lai, the managing director of Global Institutional at OKX, regarding these extra steps towards transparency. Lai said that recent events in industry highlight that, “crypto-native challenges require cry...

The suit is led by Edwin Garrison and was filed against "FTX influencers," primarily on the YouTube platform. A class - action suit led by Edwin Garrison has been filed against “ FTX influencers ,” mostly on YouTuber, seeking $1 billion because they “promoted FTX crypto fraud without disclosing compensation.” The suit was filed March 15 in the Southern District of Florida Miami Division. Kevin Paffrath, Graham Stephan, Andrei Jikh, Jaspreet Singh, Brian Jung, Jeremy Lefebvre, Tom Nash, Ben Armstrong, Erika Kullberg and Creators Agency LLC were named as respondents. The Moskowitz Law Firm is representing the plaintiffs. The suit is a consolidation of several class action s suits, according to the Law firm. Garrison’s suit was filed on November 15, 2022, “and is the first-filed FTX-related class action filed in the country,” the firm said.   Source: https://thebittimes.com/ftx-influencers-face-1-billion-class-action-lawsuit-over-alleged-crypto-fraud-promotion-tbt...

According to SWIFT, 24% of central banks will introduce a CBDC within the next couple of years. According to a statement on Mar. 9, bank messaging platform Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or SWIFT, disclosed that the financial institution witnessed positive results related to its pilot test of linking different central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). During a 12-week testing period, SWIFT simulated nearly 5,000 transactions between two different Blockchain networks and existing fiat payment systems. Over 18 financial institutions worldwide participated in the study, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Banque de France, Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Monetary Authority of Singapore, HSBC, Deutsche Bundesbank, NatWest, and more. As told by SWIFT: "Overall, the results of the sandbox testing found that Swift’s experimental interlinking solution can meet the needs of central and commercial banks for CBDCs interoperability, ensuring CBDCs can be succes...

Pfizer is now the first big pharma to participate in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Having emerged as a movement in the research community, Decentralized Science (DeSci) initiatives are progressing at a pace even big pharma cannot ignore. In fact, Pfizer is now the first pharmaceutical to vote on decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) proposals of German blockchain-based organization VitaDAO. The collaboration is part of VitaDAO's latest fundraising disclosed in late January from strategic members, including Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital and L1 Digital, among other longevity enthusiasts. The $4.1 million raised will be used to fund longevity research projects and accelerate the spinout of VitaDAO's first biotech startups, with two more in development for 2023. "Pfizer is now bringing some of their own scientists to join with the community of research ers who are part of Vita DAO to help incubate some of this research ," told Cointelegraph A...

Project DAMA is a novel digital asset management access system for transacting tokenized securities. According to a report on Feb. 21, Deutsche Bank Singapore and Memento Blockchain have successfully completed the proof of concept phase of Project DAMA (Digital Assets Management Access), designed to facilitate the management of digital funds investing in tokenized securities. Per its report, asset managers were able to create a digital asset fund with its own soulbound token and launch a direct fiat-to-digital on-ramp for users. Institutional investors could then subscribe to the fund through the direct minting of tokens, via a decentralized exchange aggregator, or through a built-in marketplace. As the first step, Deutsche Bank and Memento Blockchain created a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform on Ethereum (ETH) and a unique, non-transferable Soulbound Token. Using the SBT, platform developers could then verify the identity of the wallet owner and grant them access to investment ...

Reporting cryptocurrency when filing taxes can help investors offset their losses. 2022 was tough for the crypto market. A recent report published by security services platform Immunefi found that the crypto industry lost a total of $3.9 billion in 2022.  Detrimental losses such as these are often concerning for crypto investors, yet there may be a silver lining behind decreasing assets for investors reporting crypto on their taxes. Lisa Greene-Lewis, a certified public accountant at TurboTax, told Cointelegraph that while crypto investors made huge gains in 2021, this changed drastically in 2022. “We have seen a crypto winter occur, and TurboTax wants to help investors cope with their losses,” she said. According to Greene-Lewis, tax-loss harvesting is the most important notion to keep in mind when it comes to saving money when filing taxes. She said: “With crypto, you can offset gains with losses. Any leftover losses can be offset up to $3,000 against ordinary income like wages. Los...