The thing about the future, where robotic super traders battle over micromovements in stock price, is that it’s already here. With access to algorithmic trading bots a click away, we could be seeing the fall of human investors and the triumph of artificial intelligence. Algorithmic trading bots are programmed to buy and sell when they detect preprogrammed conditions and can execute pretty much any trading strategy. They have been used by professional traders for two decades, and these firms have taken them into the crypto markets too. Now, a new crop of accessible crypto trading tools has hit the market, …

Crypto lender Nexo Capital has agreed to pay $45 million in penalties to the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) for allegedly failing to register the offer and sale of its Earn Interest Product (EIP). The news was announced by the SEC and NASAA in two separate statements on Jan. 19. According to a statement from the SEC, Nexo agreed to pay a $22.5 million penalty and cease its unregistered offer and sale of the EIP to U.S. investors. The additional $22.5 million will be paid in fines to settle similar charges …

Moonstone Bank, a rural Washington state bank that received an estimated $11.5 million investment from FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, has announced today that it will be exiting the crypto space and returning to its "original mission" as a community bank. In a statement released by the bank — now known as Farmington State Bank — on Jan. 19, it cited that the change in strategy comes as a result of “recent events in the crypto assets industry and the changing regulatory environment surrounding crypto asset businesses.” As part of the bank’s initiative to "return to its roots," it shared …

Crypto exchange OKX disclosed $7.5 billion in reserves of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT) as part of its monthly proof-of-reserves (PoR) report. Based on data from blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant, OKX claims to have the “largest clean asset reserves among major exchanges.” OKX claims to maintain 1:1 reserves, which would mean means the company’s on-chain assets 100% match the customer‘s balances. The report shows current reserve ratios of 105% for BTC, 105% for ETH and 101% for USDT. The term “clean” is used in proofs of reserves to describe crypto assets that do not include an exchange's platform …

According to local news outlet News1, Busan, South Korea will establish a decentralized digital commodities exchange. Officials said the platform is scheduled to start operations this year and will support local cultural content via digital assets. “Taking advantage of the strengths of Busan, such as the Busan International Film Festival, G-Star; [the exchange] will include tokenization of intellectual property rights in the film and game fields, as well as gold, precious metals, agricultural and livestock products, ships, real estate, etc.” As told by the Busan Digital Asset Exchange Establishment Promotion Committee, the plan involves coordinating domestic financial companies and digital …

Bitcoin (BTC) miner CleanSpark is expanding operations in the state of Georgia, adding to its mining capacity despite the ongoing bear market. Groundbreaking on a new 50-megawatt Bitcoin mining facility in Washington, Georgia, is underway, with expected completion in late spring, CleanSpark disclosed on Jan. 19. The nearly $16 million expansion is expected to increase the company’s hashrate by 2.2 exahashes per second, with total hashrate reaching as high as 8.7 EH/s. The expanded facility will host up to 16,000 miners, including newly added Antminer S19j Pro and Antminer S19 XP models. Expansion alert: $CLSK has broken ground on phase …

MatchBoxDAO — a collective of developers, artists and designers building on-chain gaming infrastructure with StarkNet — has announced the launch of MatchBox Arena, an esports experience specifically designed for developer participation. Dubbing it the “World Cup of the Web3 companies,” the team said the gaming tournament is designed to find out which company has the best technical team. We are finally launching: "Matchbox Arena"✨ With the "Battle of Titans" as the first CTF competition released on the platform, we'll officially release "Matchbox Arena" tomorrow where the players will be able to upload their code.https://t.co/vGbEuyzus0 More info below — MatchboxDAO (@matchbox_dao) …

John Ray, who took over as CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX prior to bankruptcy proceedings, has reportedly set up a task force to consider restarting FTX.com. According to a Jan. 19 report from the Wall Street Journal, Ray said everything was “on the table” when it came to the future of FTX.com, including a potential path forward with rebooting the exchange. FTX Trading, doing business as FTX.com, was one of roughly 130 companies under FTX Group that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022. Ray reportedly was considering reviving the crypto exchange as part of efforts to make users …

According to a Jan. 19 announcement by Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange has tightened its rules for nonfungible tokens, or NFT, listings. Starting Feb. 02, 2023, all NFTs listed on Binance before Oct. 2, 2022, and have an average daily trading volume lower than $1,000 between Nov. 1, 2022, and Jan. 31, 2023, will be delisted. In addition, after Jan. 21, 2023, NFT artists can only mint up to five digital collectibles per day. Binance NFT requires sellers to complete know-your-customer (KYC) verification and have at least two followers before listing on its platform. In addition to the revised rules, Binance …

The Amazon Web Services (AWS)-Avalanche “cooperation,” as it was carefully described last week, should almost immediately make it easy for developers to establish nodes on the Avalanche blockchain, including via “one-click node deployment.” Eventually, too, it might make it simpler for everyday businesses — i.e., non-crypto-related enterprises — and even individuals to establish their own subnets like smaller, private, layer-2 blockchains. But perhaps the outstanding message from the Jan. 11 announcement is that the blockchain revolution isn’t just about cryptocurrencies. It’s also about things as prosaic as storing documents more securely and sensibly so they can be quickly retrieved during …

Decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch Network is the latest cryptocurrency platform to move into the hardware wallet industry amid the rise of self-custody. On Jan. 19, 1inch officially introduced the 1inch Hardware Wallet, a proprietary hardware wallet developed by an independent team working within the 1inch Network. In order to provide maximum security, the 1inch Hardware Wallet is “fully air-gapped,” meaning that it has no direct connection to the internet and does not require any wired connection. “All data is exchanged using QR codes or, optionally, with NFC,” 1inch said, noting that the 1inch Hardware Wallet also doesn’t have any …

Validator infrastructure developer ssv.network has launched a new ecosystem fund to support Ethereum proof-of-stake decentralization — a move that the company said would promote innovation around Ether (ETH) staking technologies. The ecosystem fund, valued at $50 million, will support projects building applications using distributed validator technology, or DVT, the company announced on Jan. 17. The fund is solely dedicated to backing DVT use cases in support of Ethereum’s long-term decentralization efforts. DVT is an open-source protocol that allows a validator’s responsibilities to be distributed across multiple nodes. The protocol was a key component of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s roadmap for …