A federal judge in California has dismissed a class action lawsuit against reality TV star Kim Kardashian, boxing champ Floyd Mayweather and the founders of EthereumMax, explaining that the submissions failed to meet the “heightened pleading standards” for fraud claims. The judge has, however, left room for the plaintiffs to refile the proposed class action lawsuit if certain provisions are amended. In the original Jan. 7 court filing submitted by Scott + Scott Attorneys At Law, the plaintiffs argued that Kardashian, Mayweather, and also former NBA superstar Paul Pierce didn’t disclose they were being paid to promote EthereumMax (EMAX). The …

Chainlink has a busy start to December when it comes to development launches. The Chainlink (LINK) staking program opened up for early access on Dec. 6 and will expand access on Dec. 8. According to Chainlink, staking will further secure the project’s node ecosystem and alerting mechanism: “Stakers gain access to staking rewards for securing the network through timely and valid alerts, and in the future, for slashing and loss protection.” Historically, mainnet launches and staking incentives stir up a flurry of blockchain activity and data from on-chain analytics firm Arkham shows a sharp uptick in activity. Chainlink Staking went …

Fabio Panetta, an executive board member of the European Central Bank (ECB), proposed banning crypto assets with a significant environmental impact as part of efforts to address risks. In written remarks for the Insight Summit at the London Business School on Dec. 7, Panetta said harmonizing taxation around crypto between global jurisdictions could address some of the energy and environment costs around mining and validation. He added that tokens “deemed to have an excessive ecological footprint should also be banned,” referring to proof-of-work assets in a citation. Panetta added crypto markets were often at risk due to their “incredibly high …

The FTX crisis kept Bitcoin’s (BTC) price under pressure in November, but data from Bitstamp exchange shows institutional investors may have viewed the dip as a buying opportunity. The exchange told Cointelegraph that compared to October, its revenue from institutions increased by 34% in November. In another positive sign, Goldman Sachs executive Mathew McDermott told Reuters that the bank was doing some due diligence on crypto companies since they were “priced more sensibly” after the FTX crash. ARK Invest said in the latest edition of its monthly “The Bitcoin Monthly" newsletter, that the FTX implosion “could be the most damaging …

Binance US has announced that it has expanded its “zero fee price model” to Ether (ETH) effective immediately. According to the announcement, users are now able to freely trade four Ether spot market pairs: ETH/USD, ETH/USDT, ETH/USDC and ETH/BUSD. Just in time for the holidays, the best #crypto platform for low fees just got even better.#BinanceUS is pleased to offer zero-fees when you buy #Ethereum or trade ETH/USD, ETH/USDT, ETH/BUSD & ETH/USDC, for all users with no trading volume requirements. — Binance.US (@BinanceUS) December 7, 2022 Effective immediately, the US exchange has also eliminated gas fees on all Ethereum transactions …

Bitcoin (BTC) price crashed to $15,500 on Nov. 21, driving the price to its lowest level in two years. The 2-day-long correction totaled an 8% downtrend and wiped out $230 million worth of leverage long (buy) futures contracts. The price move gave the false impression to bears that a sub-$15,500 expiry on the Dec. 9 options expiry was feasible, but those bets are unlikely to pay off as the deadline approaches. Year-to-date, Bitcoin price is 65% down for 2022, but the leading cryptocurrency remains a top 30 global tradable asset class ahead of tech giants like Meta Platforms (META), Samsung …

Crypto asset provider Zodia Custody has launched a new service to help protect its clients from exchange insolvency. According to the company, its new service, Interchange, will provide an alternative to the pre-funding and margin models of exchanges. The service is set to allow users to keep their assets with Zodia Custody while mirroring holdings in exchanges, thereby protecting clients’ digital assets in the event that an exchange becomes insolvent. Based in London, Zodia Custody is backed by financial institutions Standard Chartered and Northern Trust. Introducing our new service: Zodia Interchange in collaboration with @zodiamarkets. You can now actively trade …

According to a Twitter post dated Dec. 7, stablecoin protocol Helio, which issues the HAY stablecoin pegged against the U.S. dollar, said that the firm had bought back $3 million worth of bad debt in HAY thus far in the open market. The day prior, blockchain infrastructure platform Ankr stated it would allocate $15 million to buy back the bad debt resulting from its recent exploit and the resultant over-circulation of HAY. A series of seemingly unrelated incidents occurred on Dec. 2 when a hacker manipulated vulnerabilities in Ankr's smart contract code and compromised private keys after a technical upgrade. …

According to a new document published on Dec. 7, South-African auditor Mazars confirmed that cryptocurrency exchange Binance possessed control over 575,742.42 of customers' Bitcoins (BTC) worth $9.7 billion at the time of publication. Through the process, Mazars stated that "Binance was 101% collateralized." The scope of the inquiry included customers' spot, options, margin, futures, funding, loan, and earn accounts for Bitcoin and wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). Aside from the Bitcoin network, BTC wrapped on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Binance Smart Chain were also included in the inquiry. As part of its proof-of-reserves pledge, Binance requested an agreed-upon-procedures (AUP), or an audit …

The FTX bankruptcy has sent the crypto space into a downward spiral, and the crypto space is still buzzing to get all the details that led to this situation. Numerous reports have popped up, and the bankruptcy hearings bring new information daily. Considering the extent of FTX’s involvement in the global crypto space now is the time to take a hard look at what happened and draw some valuable lessons. One thing is very clear from the start - what brought the exchange giant down was overallocation in low-liquidity tokens, mainly its own FTT cryptocurrency. While FTX specifically could get …

As many countries, entities and even individuals face international sanctions, the crypto industry seeks to find its place among increasing regulations. Digital currencies have often been mentioned as an avenue for those subject to sanctions to divert them, such as in the recent case of Russia. In such instances, exchanges and other industry players need to understand where they stand compliance-wise. Research out of Harvard even suggested that central banks can use Bitcoin (BTC) to fight off sanctions. Speaking to Cointelegraph's managing editor Alex Cohen at the Israel Crypto Conference, Chainalysis head of sanctions Andrew Fierman said sanctions are nuanced …

The Russian central bank continues to maintain an extremely negative stance on cryptocurrencies, proposing to ban local miners from selling coins to local people. The Bank of Russia has supported the idea of legalizing cryptocurrency mining in Russia as part of a draft bill introduced in mid-November 2022. However, the Russian central bank wants to allow miners to sell their crypto only on foreign exchanges and to non-residents of Russia, the local news agency Interfax reported on Dec. 7. “We believe that cryptocurrency obtained as a result of mining can be sold exclusively using foreign infrastructure and only to non-residents,” …