2024-07-29 06:34

Venezuela's dependence of crypto has been fuelled by a a dire economic situation, international sanctions, and nearly 8 million citizens fleeing the country in the past decade. Nicolas Maduro has been reelected Venezuela's President, the election authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists has said. The opposition too has claimed victory in a nation where the dependence on crypto is fueled by multiple crises. Venezuela's election body has announced that Nicolas Maduro has been reelected President of the nation, even though the opposition has claimed victory too, according to reports. The South-American country's dependence of crypto has been fuelled by a dire economic situation, international sanctions, and nearly 8 million citizens fleeing the country in the past decade. It is one of the primary remittance-dependent nations in the continent with over $461 million in remittances in 2023 coming through cryptocurrencies, according to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, even looked to Tether (USDT) as a means to bypass sanctions placed on it by the United States, according to reports earlier this year. However, Venezuela ended its Petro cryptocurrency in Jan. 2024, more than five years after it was first launched. The election authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, said Maduro won 51% of the vote and opposition candidate Edmundo González secured 44% but since these results were based on 80% of voting stations, this marked an irreversible trend, the Associated Press reported. In a speech, Maduro praised the electoral system, alleged the system was the target of a failed “massive hack” by a foreign actor, which he refused to identify, and called Argentina’s President Javier Milei a “sociopath." Milei said on X Venezuelans chose to end Maduro's dictatorship and that Argentina is not going to recognize another fraud. The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they had “serious concerns" about the election results and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida which has the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S. said Maduro’s government had “just carried out the most predictable and ridiculous sham election in modern history.” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris took to X, to acknowledge the vote. "The United States stands with the people of Venezuela who expressed their voice in today’s historic presidential election. The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected. Despite the many challenges, we will continue to work toward a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for the people of Venezuela," Harris said. “Today the dignity and courage of the Venezuelan people triumphed over pressure and manipulation,” said Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on X. Read More: Venezuela Looks to Tether to Bypass Sanctions: Reuters https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/07/29/venezuelas-election-body-says-nicolas-maduro-relected-president-opposition-claims-victory-too-reports/

2024-07-29 04:38

A whale holding COMP tokens is helping push through a governance proposal that would allocate $24 million in COMP to a yield-bearing protocol called goldCOMP. A group called the 'Golden Boys' has pushed through a proposal, after three prior attempts, to direct $24 million in COMP token to a yield-bearing protocol called goldCOMP which would give passive income to COMP token holders. Wintermute and other large stakeholders are concerned that the move constitutes a governance attack on the protocol. COMP, the native token of the lending protocol Compound, is down over 6% as the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that runs the protocol suffers from a possible "governance attack." A governance attack occurs when an attacker acquires significant voting power in a DAO to manipulate the protocol for personal gain, exploiting the permissionless and tradable nature of governance tokens. According to posts on Compound's forums, the governance attack on Compound involved a series of coordinated efforts to manipulate the platform’s decision-making process through significant COMP token delegations led by a whale named Humpy, who sought to allocate $24 million worth of COMP to a yield-bearing protocol he controlled called goldCOMP run by a group known as Golden Boys. This group has made multiple attempts, with their latest attempt finally passing. The group attack began weeks ago, in early May, with Proposal 118, which called for transferring 5% of COMP's treasury to a multi-sig wallet controlled by the Golden Boys, which did not pass because community members highlighted suspicious circumstances around its introduction. The group followed up with a second proposal, Proposal 247, which tried a similar approach. It called for investing 5% of COMP tokens into a goldCOMP vault, which would provide passive income for COMP holders. This proposal failed to reach a quorum and was canceled. Finally, the group tried again with Proposal 289, which has passed. While some have alleged that this is an attempt by Humpy and the Golden Boys to "steal funds", Humpy, hit back by saying that their now-passed GoldCOMP fund uses a "Trust Setup with a constraint set of actions that doesn’t permit stealing/diverting of funds." However, in response to the Golden Boys' geen-lit proposal, the community put forward a motion to put limits on what they can do. Proposal 290, which will open for voting in just over a day, aims to transfer the Timelock Admin, a smart contract that queues governance actions, requiring a two-day delay before execution, giving the community more time to react. While this may impede future governance attacks, it's unclear whether it will stop the Golden Boys from moving the COMP tokens they were after. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/07/29/comp-down-67-after-supposed-governance-attack-on-compound-dao/

2024-07-29 02:55

Surreal doesn't begin to describe the combination of visuals collected from last week's festival-style gathering in homage to the oldest and largest cryptocurrency, punctuated by former U.S. President Donald Trump's pro-crypto speech to an adoring crowd. Attending the Bitcoin Nashville conference last week hosted by BTC Inc. was an exercise in sensory-overload management: Try to stay in the moment, follow the thread, and hopefully don't lose your mind or your wits. A couple of us CoinDesk journalists were lucky enough to attend in person, and rather than write some hackneyed conference-wrap article that nobody would read, we thought we'd spare you the windy prose and just give you a glimpse of our journey. While trying to take it all in, we had to simultaneously plan our strategy for how exactly we were going to cover former President Donald Trump's keynote scheduled for Saturday, the last day of the conference. The security around this particular speech was unrivaled in the history of Bitcoin and crypto conferences; it wasn't totally clear how or if we would be able to take laptops or good camera equipment inside, or if we would have the wireless connectivity to send headlines and file stories. Wednesday The conference didn't start till Thursday, but the side events and parties were already in full swing on Wednesday. We went to the BIT GALA at the Nashville Parthenon, a 127-year-old replica of the ancient Greek temple. The carpet leading to the entrance was orange – the color of bitcoin – and the interior of the classical architecture was swathed in orange light, casting a glow on the 42-foot-tall (12.8-meter) meticulously reconstructed statue of the goddess Athena. Just to be fair to the hosts of this party, the following image was taken before it really got going, but here's what the inside looked like. Later in the evening we had a 97-percent-confirmed sighting of Heather Morgan aka the rapper "Razzlekhan," who pleaded guilty along with her husband in July 2023 to charges connected to the $3.5 billion Bitfinex hack. (On Sunday, Jameson Lopp, a contributor to open-source Bitcoin projects who now serves as CTO of Casa, tweeted that he also crossed paths with her in Nashville, and separately we heard from a source that she was describing herself as a "Web3 advisor.") Thursday We don't shy away from the clichéd people-taking-photos-in-front-of-conference-sign image that's so de riguer at these events: Below is a view of the main Nakamoto Stage, where many of the biggest names spoke. Later in the week, this is the specific room that the U.S. Secret Service would lock down with its own separate security check, in advance of the scheduled appearances on Friday of the independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Trump on Saturday. We headed back to the main conference venue and took a spin through the expo hall. There were all sorts of solutions being offered. Bitcoin artists displayed their works bazaar-style, and as part of a gallery. We just randomly walked past this seminar being taught by Bitcoin Lightning protocol engineer Lisa Neigut, who is also co-founder of the Bitcoin++ developer conference. We had no idea what was going on at the time, and had to scurry away for another appointment, but Neigut explained afterward in a Telegram message that this was an instructional game she invented called "Bitcoin LARP." Here are two completely different ways of pulling off a pink suit: This guy went Dogecoin on the bottom, Bitcoin on the top: We had a one-on-one with RootstockLabs co-founder Adrián Eidelman. The team, working with Fairgate, had just announced that they succeeded in the technological breakthrough of interactively verifying a SNARK proof - a powerful type of cryptography in many blockchain systems – on the main Bitcoin network. We bumped into Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel and spoke with him briefly about the challenges of funding open-source Bitcoin developers. The Tron blockchain held a side party at a movie-studio-turned-venue called Vu Nashville, with a country music singer providing the entertainment against a wraparound electronic screen depicting what looked like a red-hued scene from Blade Runner. Incidentally we were told by the bartender there that the prior night's closing party of the Ordinals-focused Inscribing Nashville side event, held at the same venue, was so packed that they ran through their entire supply of about 4,000 cups. Friday The panel below was probably the most technologically fascinating we witnessed all week at the main conference – on the developer Robin Linus's last-mile efforts to refine his breakthrough BitVM design for practical application, alongside OP_CTV creator Jeremy Rubin, Alpen Labs' Liam Eagen and L2 Iterative research partner Weikeng Chen. On the sidelines of the Open Source Stage, Blockstream Director of Research Andrew Poelstra, who probably understands the inner workings of Bitcoin programming as well as anyone, chatted freely with attendees about technical questions: We bumped into Ordinals and Runes creator Casey Rodarmor and his Hell Money podcast co-host, Inscribing Atlantis CEO Erin Redwing, taking in an exhibit just minutes before their scheduled panel discussion. Ark Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood entered through a side entrance to the Music City Center, the main conference venue. It's very much not-Bitcoin, but this camouflage baseball cap from Polymarket – a prediction market built atop the Polygon blockchain, which has suddenly become the go-to venue for betting on U.S. elections-related scenarios – was the most in-the-moment swag item we spotted at the conference. The architectural visuals of the Music City Center were stunning when viewed from a mezzanine balcony one had to pass by on the way to the invitation-only Galaxy Digital happy hour. Saturday All week long my CoinDesk colleague Danny Nelson and I had been scheming out the best way of covering Trump's speech, sussing out all the angles. We had learned there would be a special-access area reserved for the press, but it was way in the back of the room. Danny calculated that our best chances for covering the event would be to just get in the line with everybody else and try to find the best seat we could in the general seating area. We continually reassessed our options throughout the day. The venue doors didn't open until 8 a.m., but I snagged us a spot in line around 7:20 a.m. Within about 20 minutes after that it was snaking all the way around the block. Once past the inner security checkpoint for the Nakamoto Stage, there was no easily obtainable water or food, and you had the option of leaving, but anyone who left the room would have to get on the end of the line, and that line wasn't moving at all, since the room was already filled to capacity, and they weren't really letting anyone else in. So along with everyone else who had come this far, we were committed to sitting in our seats for the next six hours or so waiting for Trump to come on. Danny managed to get his laptop in, along with a decent camera. There was plenty of programming to take in, including a panel with pro-Bitcoin Republican political candidates. Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel of North Carolina provided what was billed as the "progressive vision for Bitcoin" but got booed heavily when he went out of his way to point out that Trump had tweeted back in 2019 that Bitcoin "seems like a scam." A brief moment of entertainment came when MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, credited with the idea of corporates putting bitcoin on their balance sheets, walked through the general seating area and was quickly surrounded by selfie-takers. Here was the gaggle of video cameras and photographers waiting for Trump to come on, an indication of the mainstream news interest. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss of the crypto exchange Gemini were spotted walking near the roped-off VIP section in the front. There were rumors that Elon Musk might be coming to make a special guest apperance, and people in the crowd handed around social-media posts appearing to track his private jet on its way toward Nashville. (Some confusion ensued when Musk never showed, and it wasn't really ever explained who this special guest was.) Conference officials beamed in an interview with the retired U.S. congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul – known for his mantra, "End the Fed" – from a pop-up news studio set up elsewhere in the Music City Center. When Trump finally came on, he initially stood there without speaking while the entire song "God Bless the U.S.A.," by Lee Greenwood, also known as "Proud to Be an American," played. There was a standing ovation for the duration of the tune. We wrote about Trump's speech here. The camera angle from where we were sitting wasn't great; Trump's teleprompter blocked the view. But it still turned out to be a decent call to sit with the regular people – if not for the camera angle, then to get a true feel for the vibes in the crowd. Which one might describe as boffo. Below is the view from a smartphone camera lens, taken from the seats you got if you didn't get in line until 7:20 a.m. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/07/29/bitcoin-nashville-conference-in-pictures-orange-athena-pink-suits-polymarket-swag-trumps-song/

2024-07-27 21:24

Over $24 million in bitcoin longs were liquidated in the past hour, data shows, amid Trump's speech at Bitcoin 2024. Bitcoin (BTC) price volatility boomed as former U.S. President Donald Trump's speech at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville. Trump unveiled plans to make a "strategic national bitcoin stockpile" if elected, which was in line with the market expectations heading into the speech. In the lead-up to Trump's comments, the digital asset rose above $69,000 on Saturday. The price fell to as low as $66,700 before jumping back over $68,000, data from CoinGecko shows, as traders digested the speech. The broader market index, CoinDesk20, followed the same pattern. Nearly $24 million in longs, or bets on higher prices, were liquidated during the speech, which may have contributed to the price decline. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/07/27/bitcoin-prices-see-wild-trading-as-trump-plans-to-establish-btc-as-us-strategic-asset/

2024-07-27 21:11

The Wyoming senator brought a copy of her legislation to the stage at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville. NASHVILLE — U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis plans to introduce legislation calling for a "strategic bitcoin reserve" that will reduce the national debt of the United States by buying 1 million bitcoin (BTC) over the course of five years. The bitcoin would be held for at least 20 years, she said. "This is the solution. This is the answer. This is our Louisiana purchase moment,” the Wyoming senator said on stage after former President Donald Trump spoke and endorsed the idea of a bitcoin reserve. At current prices, 1 million bitcoin are worth about $68 billion. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/07/27/us-senator-lummis-proposes-the-us-buy-1m-bitcoin-to-reduce-national-debt/

2024-07-27 20:15

Thousands of bitcoiners camped out for hours to see crypto's self-declared candidate on Saturday at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville. NASHVILLE — Former U.S. President Donald Trump promised to maintain a "strategic national bitcoin reserve" and "never sell" the government's seized bitcoin in a freewheeling speech that tightened the Republican candidate's grip on the crypto voting and fundraising bloc. Leading up the event, there had been speculation and hope among crypto fans that Trump would announce such a reserve. Speaking in a packed hall Saturday before over 3,000 attendees at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Trump said of bitcoin, "I want it to be mined, minted and made in the U.S." He then laid out a "comprehensive" crypto policy that spanned from stablecoin regulation to the right to self-custody one's bitcoin. The speech capped bitcoin's steady march from the internet's deepest niches into the heart of American politics – whereas once, it was the vilified coin of choice for darknet markets. "If we don't do it, China will do it," he said of embracing digital assets. Crypto is "the steel industry of 100 years ago, you're just in your infancy," he said. "One day it probably will overtake gold. ... There's never been anything like it." 'They will be vicious' He added that Democrats keeping the White House would be a disaster for crypto. "If they win this election, every one of you will be gone. They will be vicious. They will be ruthless. They will do things and you wouldn't believe." If elected, Trump said his day one plans included firing Gary Gensler, the influential chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission who is widely reviled in the crypto industry. The promise drew huge applause from the crowd. "I didn't know he was that unpopular," Trump said. Trump also said he will appoint a "a bitcoin and crypto advisory council" upon taking office. Trump arrived at Nashville's Music City Center after a major campaign fundraising event that targeted deep-pocketed crypto executives and raised tens of millions of dollars, according to sources. Thousands of bitcoiners camped out for hours to see the former president, a new convert to crypto after previously blasting digital assets. He's now the first president to appear at a bitcoin event. In the opening moments, he thanked the event's organizers, and said there were lots of legends in the room. Trump name checked several crypto figures including Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the founders of the Gemini crypto exchange, and MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor. Crypto's political explosion Crypto exploded onto the 2024 election agenda in late May when Trump declared himself the industry's candidate and declared: "If you're in favor of crypto you're gonna vote for Trump because they want to end it." His embrace supercharged a partisan realignment inside the crypto industry's upper echelons. Suddenly, well-connected voters – hedge fund lawyers, startup founders and funders alike – who had previously voted Democratic began murmuring about supporting Trump as a salve to years of perceived bullying from President Joe Biden's regulatory state. They were joined at this three-day conference by throngs of die-hard Trump fans who piled into Nashville wearing "Make Bitcoin Great Again" hats of every color. To many of the 20,000 attendees, supporting Trump seemed a foregone conclusion. It just so happened he also now supported bitcoin. Behind the scenes in Nashville, industry leaders rewarded Trump's pivot with mounds of cash to fuel his campaign; a fundraiser immediately before his speech asked nearly $900,000 a ticket. Other down-ballot candidates in Nashville held fundraisers of their own. Crypto's proponents broadly see the 2024 election as their best chance to reshape hostile U.S. regulations; many consider Trump the candidate best suited to do it. That's in spite of his prior stance during his presidency that bitcoin "was based on thin air." Ever the marketer, after he left the White House Trump released sellout NFT collections depicting himself in varying states of patriotism. Their millions of dollars in revenue gave the businessman a different perspective of the industry he once rejected. Before Biden dropped out of the race his campaign made no effort to court crypto fans or Bitcoiners, at one point calling the Trump NFT buyers "suckers." Coming after years of perceived lawfare from Biden-appointed Gensler (who insists the industry largely is flouting U.S. law), Biden's messaging was for many in crypto a final straw. Vice President Kamala Harris' ascendence may give Democrats a chance to reposition. Some lawmakers are pushing her for change. But the likely Democratic presidential nominee hasn't delivered yet. "She's against crypto, by the way, and she;'s against it very big. You gotta get out and vote," Trump said. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/07/27/if-we-dont-do-it-china-will-trumps-crypto-embrace-tightens-as-he-speaks-at-bitcoin-event-in-nashville/