The CFTC has proposed an overhaul of risk-management requirements, and one commissioner says it should factor in emerging crypto dangers.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has proposed an overhaul of its rules for risk management, and Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero said the changes should insist firms prepare themselves for crypto volatility and the risks from holding customers’ digital assets.
The CFTC issued a proposal Thursday to invite comments on possible changes to the agency’s risk management program, and Romero said in a statement that “technologies like digital assets, artificial intelligence, and cloud services, also have emerged as areas that can carry significant risk.”
“These technological advancements, with their accompanying risks, necessitate the commission revisiting our regulatory oversight, including our risk management requirements,” Goldsmith Romero said. “Integration of digital assets with banks and brokers, and the risks that could be posed, could continue to evolve.”
She also flagged the ongoing issues regarding the industry’s custody practices, saying “brokers may explore holding customer property in the form of stablecoins or other digital assets that could result in unknown and unique risks.”
The CFTC will take public comments for 60 days on its “advance notice of proposed rulemaking” – the preliminary stage of a rule process that would have to be followed by a formal, proposed rule and then a vote on a final version.
The debt sale was the first of its kind for the French sustainable agriculture business.
Lamar Olive Oil has issued an on-chain bond using Obligate in a first for the sustainable-agriculture industry, the Switzerland-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform said Thursday.
The French company’s bond is the first issuance to be denominated in Membrane Finance’s EUROe, which the company says is the only EU-regulated crypto stablecoin.
The underwriting and structuring process, including credit evaluation and ongoing risk monitoring was conducted by Obligate’s credit rating partner Credora, the company said.
Obligate, which is built on the Polygon blockchain, helps small and medium-sized enterprises by providing a safe and transparent way of issuing, tracking and settling debt, and with the thresholds to issue bonds lowered, companies in developing and emerging markets can gain increased access to funding.
Smart contracts replace the role of the issuer and paying agent in the settlement layer of a traditional bond issuance.
On 25 May 2023 we published a story headed “Alameda-Backed ‘Samcoins’ CEO Alex Grebnev Sued by Coin Telegraph Owner Gregory Fishman. ” Those individuals are engaged in a lawsuit (a claim and counterclaim) in the High Court in London relating to the …
On 25 May 2023 we published a story headed “Alameda-Backed ‘Samcoins’ CEO Alex Grebnev Sued by Coin Telegraph Owner Gregory Fishman.” Those individuals are engaged in a lawsuit (a claim and counterclaim) in the High Court in London relating to the meaning and effect of a 2020 US$750,000 option agreement. Our account of Mr. Fishman’s claims in that lawsuit was incorrect, and we are happy to set the record straight and to confirm that the claims in the litigation do not allege the misconduct by Mr. Grebnev stated in our story. We apologize unequivocally for our error. We have taken down the article and shall not republish it.
The team is opening more cases in other jurisdictions and offering a roughly $800,000 bounty to the general public for information on the exploiter.
Developers of Jimbos Protocol, an Arbitrum-based application, said Wednesday they opened up a case with the New York branch of the Department of Homeland Security to arrest the attacker who exploited the protocol for millions of dollars this past weekend.
“We warned you. We’d prefer giving you the bounty so we can focus on our protocol. Instead, we will deal with law enforcement to find you,” the Jimbos team wrote to the attacker on Twitter, after giving them several days to return 90% of the stolen funds. “The door remains open for the hacker to return the funds until they are arrested, at which point the offer will be rescinded.”
The recent move to work with the Department of Homeland Security comes three days after Jimbos faced a $7.5 million flash loan exploit and about two weeks after the protocol’s official launch date.
In addition to collaborating with law enforcement in the United States, the team is currently opening more cases in other jurisdictions and is offering a 10% bounty worth about $800,000 to the general public for anyone who provides information that leads to catching the exploiter and funds being returned.
“We have a good idea who it is,” said blockchain sleuth Ogle, who is part of the recovery process and has helped with the Euler Finance exploit. “I think they end up speaking, keeping their 10%, and returning the rest — it’s a win for everybody and makes the most sense. Only an idiot would try to keep the rest, but risk prison for years and losing all of the money.”
The initial vesting period for early investors and contributors ends today and will nearly double the circulating supply of the tokens.
Tokens worth over $587 million of Ethereum scaling protocol Optimism are set to be released into the open market on Tuesday as part of a planned unlock plan, leading to prices of OP tokens falling 7%.
When tokens are “unlocked,” their holders are then able to sell or swap that token if they wish to do so.
The more than 386 million optimism tokens are currently held by early contributors and investors, and the move will nearly double OP’s circulating supply – which stands at 335 million tokens on Tuesday morning.
Early investors are likely sitting on significant gains and could choose to take profits, contributing to immense selling pressure. As such, immediately available liquidity on OP token pairs across decentralized and centralized exchanges is under $10 million – and a single sell order of $600,000 could dunk prices 2% further on Binance.
The unlock comes as OP tokens have been on a general downturn since February this year, sliding from $3 to $1.5 even as bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) gained at least 50% in that period.
OP trades at $1.50 as of Tuesday, with a trading volume of $103 million over the past 24 hours.
Volumes surged from just over $1 million at the start of May to $18 million on Tuesday, data from Minswap shows.
Transaction volumes on Cardano-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Minswap spiked over the past few days as traders likely scoured the network for profit opportunities on meme coins.
Volumes surged from just over $1 million at the start of May to $18 million on Tuesday, data from Minswap shows. Minswap is the largest application on Cardano by locked value, holding 37% of over $175 million worth of tokens held on the network.
Volumes and TVL bumped on Minswap. (Minswap)
Such activity could bolster prices of Minswap’s min (MIN) tokens, which accrue value from platform usage and are used as a governance token.
A significant part of the increased volumes came from Cardano-based meme coins snek (SNEK) and bank (BANK). Prices of the two tokens surged as much as 34% in the past 24 hours, data shows, with a cumulative $40 million traded on Minswap alone.
The surge pushed snek to a market capitalization of $80 million on Tuesday morning, making it the eighth-largest meme coin by that metric.
Version 2 of Jimbos protocol was attacked over the weekend for $7.3 million, just days after going live.
Developers behind the Arbitrum-based Jimbos Protocol are gauging the best way for the project to move forward after its version 2 (V2) faced a $7.5 million exploit over the weekend.
Jimbos said it was working with security researchers to reclaim lost funds – the same people who’ve previously helped Euler Finance recover over $200 million – and added that they would contact law enforcement by 4 P.M. UTC on Monday if the attacker failed to return the money.
Jimbos lost 4,090 ether (ETH) late on Saturday, which security analysts blamed on the lack of slippage control in the main contract. This allowed the yet-unidentified attackers to take out a $5.9 million flash loan, manipulate the prices of jimbo (JIMBO), and walk out with treasury funds.
The protocol planned to issue a semi-stable token backed by a basket of crypto tokens, alluring traders to this concept as similar projects have seen brief success.
Flash loans are a popular way for attackers to gain funds to conduct exploits on decentralized finance (DeFi) systems. The loans allow traders to borrow unsecured funds from lenders using smart contracts instead of third parties.
These do not require any collateral because the contract considers the transaction complete only when the borrower repays the lender – meaning a borrower defaulting on a flash loan would cause the smart contract to cancel the transaction, and the money would be returned to the lender.
Meanwhile, JIMBO, its token, traded at nearly 18 cents on Monday, slightly recovering in Asian morning hours as developers floated their protective plans.
Floki prices rallied on Sunday amid a bitcoin-led market push and bets on the token’s “China narrative.”
Floki (FLOKI) spiked over 10% on Sunday and saw its highest trading volumes in over three weeks as traders bet on the tokens amid a China-focused push for its Valhalla metaverse game.
Trading volumes for the tokens, which are fashioned after the Shiba Inu dog breed, jumped to over $60 million, up from last week’s $25 million average. The spike comes as ads for its Floki game featured in some Chinese sporting tournaments. This could have attracted some speculators who hypothesized that the move might attract new traders from China.
In a tweet, Floki developers said they saw an influx of Chinese-based community members on their social media groups.
Floki previously said it was targeting China in its latest push toward attracting more users for its Valhalla game, as previously reported. The game’s content and technical documents will be available in both traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese and are specifically targeted toward the Chinese gaming market, developers added at the time.
The “China narrative” has caught on among some on Crypto Twitter ahead of lax laws for retail trading in Hong Kong, driving up prices of some Asia-focused tokens, such as conflux (CFX) in the past few weeks.
Starting June 1, Hong Kong will allow traders to invest in some tokens, such as bitcoin, ether and solana, on regulated exchanges in the country. Traders are not allowed to hold any stablecoins, but the move has fuelled sentiment that wealthy Chinese speculators could soon plough money into the crypto markets.
“While most major economies are expected to slow down this year, the Chinese economy is projected to grow strongly,” said Floki core developer @100bviking in a Twitter message to CoinDesk. “J.P. Morgan projects a 4% GDP growth for China in 2023; that’s 2.5 times more than what is projected for the global economy and 4 times more than projected US economic growth.”
“This strong growth will spill over into crypto, especially with Hong Kong legalizing crypto in a few days’ time which is a sign of China warming up to crypto. There is a very high probability that China will drive the next crypto bull run,” @100bviking added.
The move is part of an initiative to drive demand for block space, which help add to the value proposition of FTM tokens.
Fantom blockchain will reward projects that utilize its network and contribute toward high usage of gas fees in a bid to drive increased demand for block space, developers said Sunday in a tweet.
Eligible applications will be rewarded 15% of the gas fees they produce, providing developers with marginal extra income.
This is part of a planned move called the “dApp Gas Monetization Program,” which passed a community governance vote earlier this year.
That proposal sought to reduce fantom’s current burn rate in order to redirect more network fees directly to applications building on Fantom. Now that it has passed, the implementation will reduce Fantom’s burn rate from 20% to 5% and redirect the 15% reduction toward gas monetization.
This gas monetization will reward in-demand applications, retain developers and is said to help support Fantom’s network infrastructure.
Gas refers to a type of fee paid by blockchain users in the native token of that blockchain, such as fantom (FTM) in this case. Fees on Fantom are fractions of a few cents per transaction, but add up to a significant amount over time – one that is borne by the users of Fantom-based projects.
Data shows some projects are already benefiting from the monetization program just hours after its Sunday implementation.
Cross-chain bridge Stargate Finance has been 8,300 FTM, worth just over $2,600 at current prices. Decentralized exchange SpookySwap earned 978 FTM, or just over $300.
A technical analysis indicator called Bollinger bandwidth suggests dogecoin’s unusual calm could soon end with a pronounced move in either direction.
Dogecoin (DOGE), the meme cryptocurrency known for its rapid price moves, has been unusually calm this year, underperforming market leaders bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) by a significant margin.
One technical analysis indicator called Bollinger bandwidth suggests it may be the calm before the storm.
The indicator illustrates periods of varying volatility relative to the price gyrations and is calculated by dividing the spread between the Bollinger bands by the 20-day simple moving average (SMA) of the cryptocurrency’s price. Bollinger bands are volatility lines placed two standard deviations above and below the 20-day SMA average of prices.
Periods of rising volatility are marked by a sharp increase in the distance between the two bands and the widening of the bandwidth. Conversely, the two bands contract and the width narrows or declines during a volatility lull.
An usually wide or high bandwidth indicates the ongoing bullish/bearish trend is nearing an end. Meanwhile, an unusually low bandwidth suggests “the market may be about to initiate a pronounced move in either direction, as Fidelity
When the bandwidth is too high, it’s a sign the current bullish/bearish trend may be ending. Meanwhile, an unusually low bandwidth suggests the market may be about to exit a consolidation pattern with a pronounced move in either direction, as Fidelity’s explainer says.
Dogecoin’s daily chart shows the bands have recently tightened, pushing the bandwidth down to 0.06, the lowest since February 2019, according to TradingView.
The Bollinger bands have recently tightening, pushing the bandwidth to lowest in over four years. (TradingView/CoinDesk) (TradingView/CoinDesk)
So, dogecoin could soon see a volatility explosion in line with the bandwidth’s tendency to alternate between expansion and contraction. Note that the impending volatility explosion is agnostic to price direction, meaning the big move can be bearish or bullish.
At press time, dogecoin traded near $0.073. The world’s leading meme cryptocurrency, currently valued at $10.22 billion, has risen just 3% this year. Meanwhile, market leaders bitcoin and ether have gained 68% and 60% respectively, per CoinDesk data.
