Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma will no longer control the fintech giant Ant Group as part of recent changes to the company’s corporate structure. Ant Group officially announced that Ma has agreed to give up control of Ant Group as part of the company’s further corporate governance optimization and restructuring. Prior to the change, Ma was the control person in Ant, exercising control over the company through related entities in addition to his 10% stake in Ant. Once the restructuring process is complete, no single shareholder will have control over Ant, the company said in a statement. Major …

Troubled cryptocurrency lender Nexo is facing more pressure from regulators as its offices have been reportedly raided as part of an international investigation. A group of prosecutors, investigators and foreign agents started searches of Nexo’s offices in the Bulgarian capital, the local news agency Standart reported on Jan. 12. The operation was reportedly initiated a few months ago, targeting a large-scale financial criminal scheme allegedly involving money laundering and violations of international sanctions against Russia. Citing sources of the Bulgarian National Television, the report alleges Nexo’s involvement in the scheme. The television also highlighted Nexo’s alleged ties with the government …

'Degen' season smells like pixelated feet Feetpix.wtf’s newly launched nonfungible token (NFT) collection, “Feetpix” has seemingly taken the NFT community by storm with surging trading volumes, prompting some to suggest the return of “degen” season. Feetpix.wtf’s collection soared ahead of the likes of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) on Jan. 11 with the fifth-highest trading volume recorded on NFT marketplace OpenSea. The project — which released 10,000 Feetpix NFTs — has traded over 825 Ether (ETH)($1,157,000) across nearly 18,000 transactions since its release on Jan. 8. Crypto Twitter is still split on what inspired the surge in foot fetish-NFT trading …

FTX’s bankruptcy judge has reportedly slammed the joint letter from four United States senators calling for an independent examiner in the FTX bankruptcy case. As reported by Cointelegraph, the senators sent a letter on Jan. 9 highlighting concerns about the ties between FTX and their legal representative, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. However, in a Jan. 11 hearing, Judge John Dorsey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware called the letter “inappropriate ex parte communication” which he would not take into account in his decision. “I will make my decisions on the matters based only upon admissible evidence …

Crypto exchange Uphold has denied owing around $784 million to the liquidation trust of bankrupt crypto investment platform Cred. At a court hearing on Jan. 11, Uphold filed a motion to dismiss all counts in the suit served against the firm by Cred in June 2022. Cred was a crypto lending service that filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2020. In June 2022, Cred’s liquidation trust filed an adversary complaint against Uphold and two affiliates. It claimed that Uphold worked with Cred co-founders to promote CredEarn and claimed that it owes the crypto lender $783.9 million. According to the lawsuit, …

The names of up to nine million FTX customers are set to remain confidential for at least three more months following the latest ruling in FTX bankruptcy proceedings. The decision was reportedly made by Judge John Dorsey in the Delaware-based bankruptcy court on Jan. 11 in response to a 168-page filing by FTX on Jan. 8 which requested the court to withhold confidential customer information. Judge Dorsey said that he remains “reluctant at this point” to disclose the confidential information, as it may put creditors “at risk,” despite increased pressure from several media outlets: "We're talking about individuals here who …

Miami-Dade County will soon start to remove FTX's advertising brand from the NBA’s Miami Heat arena, after granting the right from a United States bankruptcy judge in Delaware on Jan. 11, the Associated Press reports. County officials negotiated in 2021 a $135 million deal with the crypto exchange for renaming rights to the Miami Heat's arena as FTX Arena until 2040. A number of entrances, the roof of the arena, the basketball court, the security polo shirts, as well as many of the cards employees use to access the facility are branded with FTX logos. Following FTX’s bankruptcy filing, officials …

Ava Labs, developer of the Avalanche network (AVAX), has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to implement new features intended to make running a node easier, according to a January 11 blog post from Ava Labs. The new features include one-click node deployment through the AWS Marketplace, AWS GovCloud integration for Dapp developers concerned about compliance, and the ability to create Avalanche subnets with just a few clicks. It’s official! @Amazon #ChoseAvalanche to bring scalable blockchain solutions to enterprises and governments #AWS fully supports Avalanche’s infrastructure and dApp ecosystem, including one-click node deployment, offering the best tooling for these high …

A class-action suit was filed against Silvergate Capital, operator of the Silvergate Exchange Network and parent company of Silvergate Bank, in United States District Court of Southern California on Jan. 10. The suit was filed on the behalf of all purchasers of Silvergate securities between November 9, 2021, and January 5, 2023, and claims violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Silvergate CEO Alan Lane and chief financial officer Antonio Martino were also listed as defendant in the suit. The plaintiff claimed in the suit that Silvergate’s platform failed to detect occurrences of money laundering “in amounts exceeding $425 …

Northern Data AG, a German company that specializes in Bitcoin mining and cloud computing, released its December 2022 results for its mining division. According to Northern Data AG, in the fiscal year 2022, it mined a total of 2,798 BTC, a significant increase of 315% compared to the previous year. This led to BTC mining revenues of EUR 77.7 million in the fiscal year 2022. The average sale price of the 3,005 BTC mined and sold in 2022 was EUR 23,849, contributing to a cash revenue of EUR 71.7 million. The data released by Northern Data also indicated that it …

The People’s Bank of China, or PBoC, has begun including the country’s central bank digital currency, the e-CNY, in reports measuring the amount of currency in circulation. According to a 2022 financial statistics report released on Jan. 10, the PBoC said there was 13.61 billion digital yuan — roughly $2 billion at the time of publication — in circulation as of Dec. 31. The currency in circulation grew at a rate of 15.3% in December 2022, with the broad money supply reported to be 266.43 trillion yuan. The PBoC reported adding the digital yuan to its figures had not caused …

According to a Jan. 11 announcement, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi said that it would delist 33 tokens consisting of tickers ABT, ATP, APN, AST,DIE, DHT, DFA, EDEN, GEAR, HC, INDI, IOI, INV, IRIS, GCOIN, GOF, KMA, MTA, NAS, OPUL, PEARL, PRIMATE, QASH, SMT, SLC, SKU, SOC, STC, TALK, VALUE, WHALE, WILD and YAM. Effective Jan. 16, the aforementioned tokens will cease trading and be delisted permanently. In explaining the decision, Huobi wrote that most of the tokens violated Section 17, Rule 1, and Section 17, Rule 2, of the Huobi Token Management Rules, which states: "Huobi reserves the right, based on …