The total cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped 8.1% in the past two days after failing to break the $880 billion resistance on Dec. 14. The rejection did not invalidate the 4-week-long ascending channel, but a weekly close below $825 billion will confirm a shift to the lower band and reduce the support level to $790 billion. The overall investor sentiment toward the market remains bearish, and year-to-date losses amount to 66%. Despite this, Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped a mere 2% on the week, down to the $16,800 level at 17:00 UTC on Dec. 16. A far different scenario emerged for altcoins …

As the FTX collapse highlighted the need for more transparency from centralized crypto exchanges, working with auditors has been the move by top crypto trading platforms to assure users that their assets are fine. However, two of the most prominent auditors have suddenly dropped their crypto auditing services, leaving exchanges hanging at a very crucial time. At the moment, the official website of the French auditing firm Mazars Group shows that its section, called Mazars Veritas, which is dedicated to crypto audits is now offline. The firm worked with several of the most prominent crypto exchanges including Binance, KuCoin and …

The central bank of the Netherlands, De Nederlandsche Bank, has issued a warning to investors in KuCoin, saying the exchange was operating without legal registration. In a Dec. 15 announcement, the central bank said MEK Global Limited, or MGL, which does business in the Netherlands as KuCoin, was not in compliance with the country’s anti-money laundering, or AML, and the equivalent of combatting the financing of terrorism, or CFT, regulations. De Nederlandsche Bank added the crypto firm was “illegally offering services” as well as “illegally offering custodian wallets” for users. “Customers of MGL are not in violation,” said the bank. …

Once just a technical term within the crypto ecosystem, self-custody quickly took the main stage when FTX, a multi-billion crypto empire, went down in flames. The prolonged bear market, combined with bankruptcy announcements from once-prominent crypto exchanges, triggered a spike in crypto ownership awareness. The domino effect of the FTX collapse was a harsh lesson reminding users of a fundamental principle in crypto: Not your keys, not your coins. Since the custody of FTX customers’ assets was on the exchange, users faced issues when they wanted to withdraw the funds they thought belonged to them. Centralized exchange wallets vs. self-custody …

Crypto exchange KuCoin hired the international accounting firm Mazars for a third-party audit of its Proof-of-Reserves (PoR). According to an announcement on Dec. 5, the verification will provide the exchange customers additional transparency and reporting on whether their in-scope assets are collateralized, along with details on main, trade, margin, robot and contract accounts for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), as well as for the stablecoins USDT and USDC. The report should be available on KuCoin's official website within a few weeks. CEO of KuCoin Johnny Lyu said the move is the next step in the exchange efforts to provide transparency …

As the FTX collapse continues to cause turmoil in the crypto industry, various crypto exchanges have delisted FTX Token (FTT) on their platforms. In an announcement, crypto exchange Binance highlighted that they have removed the FTT/BTC, FTT/BNB, FTT/ETH and FTT/USDT trading pairs on their platform citing that the pairs failed to pass their recent reviews. However, the exchange noted that the FTT/BUSD pair is still available on its exchange. At #Binance we conduct regular reviews of listed assets to ensure they meet our standards to protect our users. Based on our recent reviews, we will remove and cease trading of …

In the wake of the FTX liquidity crisis, two major crypto exchanges have announced that they will provide Proof of Reserves, also known as Proof of Funds (PoF) within the next month. In an official tweet, OKX stated “We're hiring Armanino for auditing & will publish an auditable Merkle POF asap.” The company then listed 23 BTC addresses and 13 Ethereum addresses containing some of the exchange’s reserves. For #OKX, transparency, risk management, & consumer protection come first. We're hiring Armanino for auditing & will publish an auditable Merkle POF asap. Here are 23 BTC addresses (~69K BTC) & 13 …

Fantom (FTM) is known for its speed and inexpensive layer-1 blockchain. Like other blockchains (for example, Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX)) that scale better than their counterpart, it has been dubbed an “Ethereum killer.” After raising $40 million in funds, Fantom launched its mainnet in December 2019. Since then, it has grown to become one of the most popular blockchains, sitting in the top 10 blockchains by total value locked (TVL) with $1.3 billion in TVL. Fantom’s high-throughput blockchain is an open-source smart contract platform. It is scalable and EVM-compatible, meaning you can deploy and run your Ethereum decentralized applications …

India is now home to an estimated 115 million cryptocurrency investors despite a historically negative attitude towards the sector from the government, according to new data. The latest gauge on the number of users in India comes from cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, which released the findings of its ‘Into The Cryptoverse India Report’ survey on Aug. 23. The estimated 115 million crypto users represent around 15% of the Indian population aged between 18 and 60. A key highlight was the 33% of survey takers concerned by ambiguous government regulations that could deter potential investors. Security concerns were also evident, with 26% …

Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin will introduce native token swap functionality to its in-house wallet after integrating decentralized finance (DeFi) market maker 1inch’s application programming interface. 1inch’s Pathfinder algorithm will increase the functionality of KuCoin Wallet, the exchange’s recently launched decentralized wallet platform, which features cross-chain trading, DeFi and nonfungible token (NFT) support. The algorithm will aggregate liquidity from over 250 sources from automated market makers (AMM) and proactive market makers (PMM) across the DeFi ecosystem. 1inch plugs into liquidity sources running on nine different blockchain networks, providing a wide range of tradable asset pairs. Related: DeFi market has room for growth …

The ongoing cryptocurrency winter has triggered an overall decline in interest in centralized crypto exchanges (CEX), but some crypto trading platforms have seen a rise in website traffic. A few major global crypto exchanges, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, have experienced a significant increase in web traffic despite the bear market of 2022, according to the website analytics platform SimilarWeb. According to data shared with Cointelegraph, web traffic on the FTX crypto exchange has surged as much as 123% year-over-year (YoY) by June 2022. Trading platforms like WhiteBIT and ByBit have seen even bigger growth in interest, with traffic surging 244% …

Crypto exchange KuCoin found itself at the center of discussion when a sub-community of Crypto Twitter started warning investors about an incoming ban on funds withdrawal. KuCoin CEO, Johnny Lyu, was, however, quick to dismiss the unvetted rumors before they picked up steam. Prominent crypto figures on Twitter, including trader @KongBTC and blockchain investigator @otteroooo, requested their followers to withdraw all of their funds from the KuCoin while claiming that the exchange may soon stop all users from withdrawing funds. WITHDRAW FROM KUCOIN RIGHT NOW Not a drill no time for thread like and retweet to spread the message otter …