Three individuals who bought cryptocurrency through Coinbase filed a proposed class action March 11 in the Southern District Court of New York alleging that Coinbase is operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The lawsuit lists 79 tokens that it claims are securities Coinbase is selling in violation of state and federal law, and the buyers were not warned of the risks involved in their purchases. The plaintiffs, Christopher Underwood, Louis Oberlander and Henry Rodriguez, represented by Connecticut law firm Silver Golub & Teitell, filed the amended complaint naming Coinbase Global, Coinbase and CEO Brian Armstrong as defendants. The 255-page document …

Yuga Labs, creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club, or BAYC, teased a new collaboration with blockchain game publisher Animoca Brands on Twitter on Thursday. The catch is that no details about the project have been revealed yet, and users who signed up for it via a know-your-customer, or KYC, verification process have expressed their concerns on social media. BAYC simply tweeted out a link to a website where interested fans can apply in hopes of being approved to participate in whatever "is brewing." In order to apply, users must connect to an Ethereum wallet, provide a photo of their license, …

A council formed by traditional finance conglomerates American Express, Discover, Visa and Mastercard welcomes a decentralized finance (DeFi) banking firm to its participating organizations that help improve payment data security worldwide. Scallop, a regulated DeFi banking app recently announced its entry to the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), a global community with a goal to improve payment data security worldwide. According to the DeFi firm, it will be working with the PCI SSC by assisting in the ongoing development and adoption of the PCI Security Standards. Lance Johnson, PCI SSC Executive Director says that Scallop is doing its part …

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with other recent events, have revealed the need for a fully digital economy, giving rise to Metaverse ecosystems, Web3 platforms and the adoption of digital currencies. For example, the Ukrainian government recently reached out to the crypto community on Twitter asking for donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT). Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have also gained mainstream adoption as artists and creators across the globe have discovered new forms of monetization with these models. While innovative, these use cases also demonstrate the notion that blockchain-based concepts that emerged early on often take years to …

With the recent attack on OpenSea highlighting blockchain vulnerabilities, Charles Guillemet, the CTO of Ledger warns users about “blind signing” which he defines as “consenting a transaction to be signed blindly, without understanding what it means.” In an interview with Cointelegraph, Guillemet broke down the problems and highlighted issues with blind signing. The Ledger CTO notes that consenting to transactions requires signing a message to be sent to the blockchain. A user is the only one capable of signing transactions with the private key, while others can verify if it's correct. "The issue is that this message is not intelligible …

Reports emerged on Mar. 3 of an exploit discovered on the TreasureDAO Marketplace NFT trading platform that allows a user to buy items at zero cost no matter the listing price or floor price of the collection. Security specialist for Metamask and MyCrypo harry.eth tweeted on Mar. 3 around 1 am UTC, confirming that there is a flaw in the code on Marketplace which allows a user to purchase nonfungible tokens (NFTs) for 0 MAGIC. At least 28 Smol Brains and Smol Brains Land NFTs appear to have been taken using this exploit so far at the time of writing. …

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement director has reportedly said cryptocurrency companies will not receive amnesty for reporting themselves for possible violations of securities laws. According to a Monday report from Reuters, the SEC director of the agency’s division of enforcement, Gurbir Grewal, said the agency may view crypto companies’ conduct “more favorably” if they reach out first for self-reporting securities law violations. However, he added that though firms may face smaller penalties, they will not be completely off the hook. "Our message to [crypto companies] is not, 'Register your product and we'll just ignore the billions you have …

Crypto is going mainstream, and the world’s younger generation, in particular, is taking note. Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com recently predicted that crypto users worldwide could reach 1 billion by the end of 2022. Further findings show that Millennials — those between the ages of 26 and 41 — are turning to digital asset investment to build wealth. For example, a study conducted in 2021 by personal loan company Stilt found that, according to its user data, more than 94% of people who own crypto were between 18 and 40. Keeping children safe While the increased interest in cryptocurrency is notable, some …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has the opportunity to democratize access to financial markets that have typically only been open to the rich and powerful. But, DeFi will only survive and continue to grow if we take steps to ensure things are safe, private and fair for both retail and institutional investors. When faced with predatory market behaviors such as miner extractable value (MEV) and front-running attacks it opens up old wounds to a “Flash Boys” era of traditional finance. DeFi can and should do better by not allowing the failures of the past to come creeping back into the future. Fortunately, …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter. In the aftermath of concerning political situations this week, the markets reacted strongly to the downside, but some assets attempted a recovery to end the week positively. 1Password collaborates with Phantom Wallet on API service Digital security platform 1Password announced a joint partnership with Phantom Wallet this week to grant asset holders the ability to consolidate their lists of public key addresses, seed phrases and other corresponding security details into a single “Save in 1Password” system. Operating primarily in the traditional financial sector at this time, 1Password has over 100,000 …

Crypto and nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem analytics firm BitsCrunch has secured $3.6 million in a funding round led by Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, and others. BitsCrunch uses AI-based analytical tools to determine the fair price of NFTs, identify wash trading warnings, and determine whether an NFT is a copy or forgery of the genuine asset. The company is based in Germany and India. The firm believes that investors in the continually growing space need better access to data that will protect them from fakes and getting fooled by ingenuine trading volume. We are excited to announce that we …

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has announced a strategic investment in private digital securities marketplace and crypto asset liquidity platform tZero. ICE, which owns and operates 12 global exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), made the announcement on Feb. 22, however, there was no mention of the terms or details of the investment other than ICE becoming a “significant minority shareholder” in tZero. It did state that as part of the investment, ICE’s Chief Strategy Officer David Goone will join tZero as its new CEO serving on the board of directors. tZero operates a blockchain-based alternative trading system (ATS) …