2023-11-24 09:10

Minister will decide if Kwon will be extradited to the U.S. or South Korea. A court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, has approved the extradition of Terra founder Do Kwon to either South Korea or the United States, according to an update posted on the judiciary's website. Kwon was arrested in the country in March after being caught in Podgorica's airport with falsified documents. The final decision on the extradition will be made by the Montenegrin Justice Minister, after Kwon serves a four-month prison sentence in Montenegro for document forgery, it said. Following his arrest in Montenegro, Kwon faces multiple counts of fraud charged by U.S. federal prosecutors, in addition to existing civil charges in the U.S. and an ongoing investigation in South Korea related to last year's terraUSD collapse. Earlier this month, the Montenegro High Court upheld the four-month prison sentence of Kwon and his associate Han Chang-Joon for document falsification, rejecting their appeal and deeming the sentence appropriate, with Kwon facing potential extradition to South Korea or the U.S. after serving his sentence in Montenegro, CoinDesk reported. In April, Daniel Shin, co-founder of Terraform Labs, was indicted in South Korea for capital markets law violations, with prosecutors freezing $185 million in assets. For his part, Shin denied involvement in the company's collapse, saying he left two years prior. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/11/24/montenegro-court-approves-extradition-of-do-kwon/

2023-11-24 09:06

The attacker had said negotiations would start when they are "fully rested," and hasn't been heard from since. The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) running the KyberSwap decentralized exchange (DEX) reached out to the attacker who walked off with $50 million on Nov. 22 with a message: We want to negotiate. The attack targeted KyberSwap's liquidity pools (LPs). The DEX, which had a total value locked (TVL) of around $80 million before the attack, now just has $7.78 million. "You have done one of the most sophisticated hacks ser. That was high EV, and everyone missed it," the DAO wrote via a message from a contract deployer wallet, using an initialism for expected value. "On the table is a bounty equivalent to 10% of users' funds taken from them by your hack, for the safe return of all of the users' funds." KyberSwap gave the attacker a deadline of Nov. 25, 06:00 UTC, to return the funds. Hackers teasing their victims via signing transactions with strings of text is an increasingly common trend with decentralized finance exploits. It is also a way for protocol teams to negotiate with their attackers. There has been over $290 million lost in DeFi hacks this month, and around $1.2 billion so far this year, according to DefiLlama. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/24/kyberswap-offers-10-bounty-to-attacker-who-made-off-with-50m/

2023-11-24 08:26

The pullbacks have become less deep over the past three weeks, suggesting the building up of bullish sentiment, one observer said. Bitcoin's three-week consolidation below $38,000 has a bullish undertone of shallow price dips, a positive sign, one observer said. Seasonality is supportive of continued gains in bitcoin's price in December. Bitcoin's (BTC) price rally has stalled since Nov. 9, with $38,000 proving a tough nut to crack. That does not necessarily mean the uptrend is over. In fact, a closer look at how prices have behaved during the consolidation suggests it isn't. While the gains have been capped closer to $38,000, the subsequent pullbacks have been shallow and short-lived, a sign of persistent "buy-the-dip" demand within the price consolidation. The horizontal upper bound of resistance and rising lower bound from shallow dips can be identified as an ascending triangle formation on the price chart. In other words, bitcoin could be building energy for the next leg higher. "Bitcoin bounces around in an ascending channel, hitting its three-week upper resistance of $37.8K on Wednesday evening. An intensifying sell-off thwarts attempts to heat the price, but the pullbacks have become less deep over the past three weeks, suggesting the building up of bullish sentiment," Alex Kuptsikevich, a senior market analyst at FxPro, said in an email. Ascending triangles mostly end with a bullish breakout, extending the preceding uptrend, according to chartered market technician Charles D. Kirkpatrick II and technical analyst Julie R. Dahlquist's book "Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource for Financial Market Technicians 3rd Edition." The book focuses on traditional markets. "Upward breakouts occur 77% of the time, and breakouts happen roughly 61% of the distance (time) from the base to the cradle," Kirkpatrick II and Dahlquist say in the book while warning of the potential for failed breakouts. A fake breakout happens when prices move beyond the resistance, only to fall back into the pattern quickly, trapping buyers on the wrong side of the market. Kuptsikevich sees bitcoin rising above $40,000 on a potential ascending triangle breakout. According to Markus Thielen, head of research and strategy at crypto services provider Matrixport, a breakout could see bitcoin potentially targeting $45,000. Data tracked by pseudonymous market analyst Skew show unwinding of short perpetual futures positions on Bybit and a renewed interest in bullish bets on Binance. Unwinding of shorts or bets on a price drop often puts an upward pressure on prices. Perhaps, the long-held resistance near $38,000 could soon come into play. Seasonal trends favor a continued higher move in cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's average gain in December over the last eight years has been 12%, according to data tracked by Matrixport. "Seasonality appears to be working again. The average return in December of +12% is respectable and could lift Bitcoin to $42,000 — by this metric alone," Thielen said in a note to clients Thursday. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/24/bitcoins-3-week-consolidation-under-38k-has-bullish-undertone/

2023-11-23 15:07

"This shows that MAS is listening, and is willing to consider industry feedback, even if they do not always agree," said Angela Ang, a senior policy adviser for blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs and a former MAS regulator. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has released the second, final tranche of its responses to feedback on a consultation paper of proposed regulations for crypto service providers. The central bank kept the requirement for crypto entities to discourage cryptocurrency speculation by retail customers by not offering financing, margin transactions or any incentives to trade, it said Thursday. The MAS also wants crypto entities to not accept locally issued credit card payments and to determine a customer's risk awareness before allowing access to the services. Singapore has been chasing a regulatory balance for crypto while trying to lure the industry. The announcement is part two of responses to feedback received on its proposed regulations for digital payment token (DPT) service providers in Singapore. The first instalment, from July, required providers to deposit customer assets under a statutory trust before year-end for safekeeping. "MAS has been very consistent about its stance against speculative retail trading, so it is unsurprising that they are largely moving ahead with their proposals," said Angela Ang, a senior policy adviser for blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs and a former MAS regulator. "That said, they've landed on slightly less restrictive measures in areas such as the inclusion of cryptocurrencies in determining customers' net worth. This shows that MAS is listening, and is willing to consider industry feedback, even if they do not always agree." Among the less restrictive measures, MAS has eased the limits on qualifying as an accredited investor, clarifying that some crypto assets can be counted toward the S$2 million ($1.5 million) needed. It also appears to have allowed exchanges to come up with their own criteria for listing tokens as long as they disclose conflicts of interest, publish criteria that govern the listing and establish procedures to resolve customer disputes. Hong Kong's approach is more prescriptive, Ang said, allowing only tokens that satisfy the regulator's criteria. The MAS also has high availability and risk-incidents reporting stipulations. These are in line with current requirements imposed on other systemically important financial institutions, but not payment service providers, making this a special provision for crypto. The rules will take effect in phases from mid-2024 to provide an "adequate transitional period" for their implementation. The rules are aimed at limiting potential consumer harm, MAS said. "While these business conduct and consumer access measures can help meet this objective, they cannot insulate customers from losses associated with the inherently speculative and highly risky nature of cryptocurrency trading," said Ho Hern Shin, deputy managing director for financial supervision. Read More: 'Cryptocurrencies Have Failed the Test of Digital Money,' MAS' Managing Director Says https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/11/23/singapore-central-bank-rules-to-discourage-crypto-speculation-ease-investment-qualifications/

2023-11-23 14:48

Antpool mined the block and the sender's wallet was set up just minutes before the transfer. Someone paid $3.1 million in transaction fees for a bitcoin (BTC) transfer on Thursday. Bitcoin miner Antpool was rewarded for mining the block. It received the standard 6.25 BTC as well as 85.2163 BTC in fees for all transactions included in the block, on-chain data shows. Today's transfer, mined in block 818087, becomes the largest transaction fee paid in bitcoin's 14-year history. The sender's wallet was set up just minutes before the transfer, and the recipient received only 55.78 BTC of the original 139.42 BTC that was sent. In September, F2Pool returned a 19.8 BTC fee that was mistakenly sent by Paxos. AntPool, a mining pool owned by Bitmain, has not published an announcement in relation to the apparent overpaid fee. Recently, bitcoin fees have experienced a significant uptick following increased activity around Bitcoin-based NFT project Ordinals. However, this transaction appears to be an individual error instead of a wider market impact. Antpool did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/23/bitcoin-sender-struck-with-31m-transaction-fee-largest-in-history/

2023-11-23 10:18

The Bank of Korea sees a CBDC as a potential answer to problems with existing government-issued grant systems, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic or childcare vouchers South Korea will start a pilot for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) involving 100,000 citizens in the fourth quarter of next year. The pilot program will be operated jointly by the Bank of Korea (BOK) and financial regulators the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), according to a press release on Thursday. The project will see 100,000 people – roughly 0.2% of the country's population – be able to purchase goods with tokens issued by commercial banks in the form of a CBDC. Use will be restricted to purchasing goods, with other applications, such as remittances, not permitted. The likely locations for the pilot are Jeju, Busan or Incheon, according to reports in July. The BOK sees a CBDC as a potential answer to problems with existing government-issued grant systems, such as childcare vouchers or payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The issues with existing systems include high transaction fees, slow settlement and fraud concerns, the BOK said. The central banks of the majority of developed economies have been exploring the development of CBDCs in recent years as a means of addressing the decline in the use of cash and the increasing preference by consumers to use digital methods of payment. China's development of its digital yuan is the most advanced, but South Korea is among the first runners-up, having completed testing functions such as issuing and distributing a CBDC in a simulated environment in December 2021. Read More: Central Bank Digital Currencies Can Replace Cash, Offer Resilience: IMF Chief CORRECTION (Nov. 23, 15:20 UTC): Corrects that the pilot will commence in Q4 , not Q1 as the article previously said https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/11/23/south-korea-to-pilot-cbdc-with-100000-citizens-in-2024-report/