The brother of a former Coinbase product manager, Nikhil Wahi, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison for wire fraud conspiracy charges, in what is believed to be the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency. As reported by Reuters, Nikhil Wahi pleaded guilty in September to initiating trades based on confidential information obtained from his brother, Ishan Wahi, who was a former Coinbase product manager. Ex-Coinbase manager's brother sentenced to 10 months in insider trading case https://t.co/Kyy6DqSb9D pic.twitter.com/ruQjwr5i4h — Reuters (@Reuters) January 10, 2023 Nikhil Wahi admitted to trading with the use of inside information obtained from Coinbase. According …

While 2022 ended on a grim note with macro headwinds providing little hope of a revival in 2023, the start of a new year has surprised bears with a surge in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and altcoin prices. The period of sparse volatility in the crypto market appears to be ending with a breakout on the upside. The increase has been particularly striking in some altcoins such as Lido (LIDO), Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA). The primary factors promoting the spike in these coins are the upcoming Ethereum Shanghai update (for LIDO) and the negative funding rate in the futures …

Decentralized yield protocol Yearn.finance said in a Jan. 9 tweet that all users can now create sophisticated Permissionless Vault Factories on its platform. The current version of Vault Factory works with stablecoin-swapping platform Curve Finance and its liquidity provider (LP) tokens and features three premade yield strategies. “Our new Permissionless Vault Factory lets anyone deploy an auto-compounding yVault for any Curve pool with an active liquidity gauge. Yes, anyone. Factory-deployed vaults have no management fees and a flat 10% performance fee. Nice!” As told by Yearn.finance, the first, dubbed “Boosted Factory,” uses Yearn’s vote-escrowed CRV balance of 45.1 million to …

The Easy Company, a startup focusing on building a consumer layer for the decentralized web, has raised $14.2 million in a seed round for its “social” crypto wallet, which seeks to help onboard more mainstream audiences into the Web3 ecosystem. As reported by TechCrunch, the seed funding round was supported by a diverse group of investors, including venture capital firms Lobby Capital, Relay Ventures and 6th Man Ventures, as well as Tapestry, Upside and Scribble. Additionally, the round featured angel investors with backgrounds in traditional social media and Web3, including former executives from Instagram, Novi, Airbnb, Twitter, Uber, OpenTable and …

Manta Network has recently completed the largest trusted setup ceremony ever, with over 4,000 people participating, according to a press release provided to Cointelegraph. The setup was done in order to help create MantaPay, an app that intends to allow for private payments between individuals. 8/ 2022 also saw the launch of the world’s largest trusted setup on Polkadot by @MantaNetwork, spanning 177 countries with over 13,000 participants and counting. This technology is essential for building a better, more secure web that keeps sensitive information private. — Polkadot (@Polkadot) December 31, 2022 According to the company, MantaPay will run on …

As the global economy continues to reel from the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is increasing data suggesting that more and more people are now favoring a remote work-based lifestyle. In this regard, a survey sample of working United States citizens shows that Millennial and Generation Z workers prefer joining a remote workforce and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) as opposed to going to an office. As part of the study, more than 1,100 U.S. citizens were asked to provide their preferences regarding remote work and the emergence of DAOs in recent years. Using research pertaining to DAOs published …

According to a post on January 9, e-Money — a stablecoin project in the Cosmos ecosystem — said it would discontinue the issuance of its euro stablecoin EURR effective March 6, 2023. In explaining the decision, e-Money wrote: "The lack of real-world applications for blockchain has led to low demand for non-USD stablecoins. The upcoming European MiCA legislation is expected to hinder the scalability of Euro-backed stablecoins and limit business opportunities in the sector. European MiCA legislation in its current form favors commercial banks as future issuers of Euro stablecoins, hurting innovation in the European Union." Until the deadline, users …

The South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb is under a “special tax investigation” by the country’s National Tax Service (NTS), according to local reports. On Jan. 10 tax agents raided the exchange’s headquarters in the country’s capital city Seoul as a part of a compliance investigation. The investigation was carried out by the 4th Bureau of Investigation of the Seoul Regional Tax Service, which specifically investigates “special tax investigations”, as opposed to standard ones. Previously, Bithumb was under a special tax investigation in 2018 by the NTS, through which it won roughly $64 million in income tax. This story is developing …

Crypto exchange Binance has been a major talking point since the downfall of FTX, both inside and outside of the crypto industry. The company and its founder, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, have been under a microscope in an attempt to keep the behemoth in line. On Jan. 10, a tweet surfaced regarding the cryptocurrency exchange’s employee policy to prevent insider trading. It claimed Binance employees of any ranking are not allowed to participate in personal short-term trading and must hold positions for a minimum of 90 days. Cointelegraph reached out to Binance to confirm its policy and comment on the implications. …

The cryptocurrency industry will see increased consolidation in 2023 as healthier companies acquire more crypto and blockchain companies, according to a senior executive at Ripple. Sendi Young, Ripple’s managing director for Europe, took to Twitter on Jan. 9 to share a set of industry predictions for 2023, expressing confidence about crypto in the near future. According to Young’s forecast, the coming year will bring many acquisitions in the blockchain and crypto industry, which will help such companies and startups fill the gaps in their capabilities. The acquisitions will further strengthen the industry in the aftermath of casualties like the FTX …

Terraform Labs (TFL), the firm behind the defunct algorithmic stablecoin TerraUST (USTC), and its co-founder Do Kwon is back in the limelight again for allegedly running a smear campaign and issuing threats against one of their own community members. It all started in the month of May with the genesis airdrop that was planned after the original ecosystem imploded in the wake of its stablecoin depeg. TFL, in a Twitter thread, claimed that Jimmy Le, a community member entrusted with Terra community funds, has refused to return funds gained during the genesis airdrop. The thread noted that the newly minted …

Blockchain security firm SlowMist has highlighted five common phishing techniques crypto scammers used on victims in 2022, including malicious browser bookmarks, phony sales orders and trojan malware spread on messaging app Discord. It comes after the security firm recorded a total of 303 blockchain security incidents in the year, with 31.6% of these incidents caused by phishing, rug pull or other scams, according to a Jan. 9 SlowMist blockchain security report. Malicious browser bookmarks One of the phishing strategies makes use of bookmark managers, a feature in most modern browsers. SlowMist said scammers have been exploiting these to ultimately gain …