North Dakota’s financial regulator has revoked the money transmitter license for Binance’s United States arm, Binance.US, marking it the seventh state to do so.
On June 17, Lise Kruse, Commissioner of the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions (DFI), announced that BAM Trading Services, operating as Binance.US, failed to comply with state money transmitter laws.
The revocation order cited Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao’s federal conviction in November for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program as reasons for the license revocation.
Kruse noted that Zhao, the “majority beneficial owner and control person” of Binance, was recently convicted on felony charges for violating federal anti-money laundering laws.
“The Commissioner finds the Respondent does not continue to meet the qualifications or satisfy requirements that may apply to an applicant for a new money transmitter license,” the revocation order states.
Binance.US has 30 days to request a reversal of the order, with the deadline being July 17, 2024.
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If no request is made, the order will become effective.
North Dakota is now the seventh state to revoke or deny the renewal of a money transmission license requested by BAM Trading Services.
Similar actions have been taken by Alaska, Florida, Maine, North Carolina, and Oregon in recent months.
Florida was the first state to cease Binance.US’s services in November, following Zhao’s guilty plea. North Carolina and Maine followed suit on January 23 and January 29, respectively.
Furthermore, Binance.US has not received licenses in New York, Texas, Vermont, and Hawaii.
According to the Binance.US website, new user onboarding has also been temporarily paused in Connecticut, Georgia, Ohio, Minnesota, and Washington state.
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LandBridge, a U.S.-based firm specializing in land acquisition for oil and gas production, is now looking to attract crypto miners as part of its future strategy.
This announcement coincides with the launch of its initial public offering (IPO) on Monday.
On June 17, LandBridge revealed that it would offer 14.5 million shares, priced between $19 and $22 each, potentially reaching a valuation of up to $1.6 billion.
The company plans to list on the NYSE under the ticker “LB.”
According to regulatory filings, LandBridge owns approximately 220,000 surface acres in the Delaware subbasin of the Permian Basin, spanning Texas and New Mexico, an area rich in oil and natural gas.
LandBridge sees potential for its land to serve more than just oil and gas producers.
The company believes crypto miners and data centers could also benefit from access to water, roads, fiber optic infrastructure, and power, providing a lucrative opportunity for the firm.
“We have identified and are currently pursuing opportunities to receive surface use payments from cryptocurrency mining, data centers, power storage facilities, and commercial fueling stations,” the company stated.
LandBridge disclosed that it already has one “cryptocurrency facility” operating on its land.
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In 2023, it earned $52.1 million from non-oil and gas-related royalty revenue, which includes income from crypto miners, marking a 56% year-on-year increase.
“We would not own or operate such projects or expect to incur significant capital expenditures in connection therewith,” LandBridge added.
Instead, the company expects to “receive surface use fees and other payments in connection with the utilization of our land,” including fees for water supplied to crypto miners to cool their rigs.
The firm’s land is strategically positioned to attract crypto miners, who are drawn to Texas for its affordable power and favorable regulatory environment.
However, the increasing demand from crypto miners and artificial intelligence data centers is causing concern among Texas lawmakers.
Local media recently reported that the surge in crypto and AI activity is straining Texas’ power grid.
ERCOT boss Pablo Vegas highlighted this issue, and Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick expressed concerns on social media, stating, “They produce very few jobs compared to the incredible demands they place on our grid.”
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Cryptocurrency exchange Uphold has notified its European users that it will end support for six popular stablecoins starting July 1.
This decision aligns with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
The six stablecoins affected are Tether (USDT), Dai (DAI), Frax Protocol (FRAX), Gemini dollar (GUSD), Pax dollar (USDP), and TrueUSD (TUSD). Users holding these stablecoins must convert them to a different cryptocurrency by June 28.
After this date, Uphold will automatically convert any remaining holdings into USD Coin (USDC).
MiCA, passed into law in May 2023 and partially effective since June 2023, aims to fully enforce its extensive EU crypto laws by the end of 2024.
The stablecoin regulations will come into effect in the European Economic Area on June 30, prompting exchanges like Uphold to adjust their market listings to comply.
MiCA imposes stringent regulatory requirements on fiat-backed stablecoins and e-money tokens that exceed a predetermined adoption threshold, evaluated by seven quantitative and qualitative indicators.
This places the European Banking Authority in charge of these tokens instead of the national authorities of EU member states.
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The regulation mandates fiat-backed stablecoins to be backed by a 1:1 ratio of liquid reserve. Issuers must maintain a reserve of assets held by a third party, separate from other assets.
The rule also bans algorithmic stablecoins. These measures aim to boost consumer confidence by ensuring stablecoins can reliably serve as a store of value and a payment method.
Under MiCA, stablecoin issuers in the EU must hold licenses as credit institutions or Electronic Money Institutions.
While some stablecoins face uncertainty, euro-backed stablecoins could benefit from the new regulations.
Besides Uphold, other major crypto exchanges like Binance have also adjusted their stablecoin listing policies to comply with MiCA.
Binance categorized its stablecoins into “regulated” and “unauthorized” but has not yet finalized which qualify as regulated.
In March, OKX delisted Tether in Europe without mentioning MiCA, and Kraken is still deciding whether to continue supporting USDT in the region.
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On June 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert about a rise in impersonation scams often involving the names and titles of government employees.
The alert emphasized that CISA staff will never request money wiring, “cash, cryptocurrency, or use gift cards.”
“If you suspect you are a target of an impersonation scammer claiming to be a CISA employee, do not pay the caller; take note of the phone number calling you; hang up immediately, [and] validate the contact by calling CISA.”
In response to written questions from Cointelegraph, Phil Larratt, Chainalysis’ director of investigations, highlighted that scams “continue to be a major threat to the [crypto] ecosystem at large.”
Larratt noted that scams remain significant drivers of cryptocurrency-based crime, generating at least $4.6 billion in revenue in 2023.
“Impersonation scams, in particular, had the fourth-worst impact on victims in 2023 based on an average payment size of $948, as we found in our Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Crime Report.”
Addressing prevention, Larratt emphasized the importance of public education as a first line of defense against large-scale scamming: “This is critical because once crypto assets are transferred to a third party, there is no longer control of that asset without the private keys of the third party’s funds.”
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Larratt detailed two prominent scam tactics among fake Federal employee impersonation scams: approval phishing and crypto drainers.
“Approval phishing scammers have historically targeted wide swaths of crypto users through the proliferation of fake crypto apps.”
This method has been adopted by romance scammers, also known as pig butchering scammers, resulting in substantial losses.
“[Crypto drainer operators] often promote their fake Web3 sites in Discord communities and on compromised social media accounts […] enticing victims into connecting their crypto wallets to the drainer and then using the approval phishing technique to trick the victims into approving transaction proposals that grant the operator control of the funds inside the wallet.”
Larratt concluded by stressing the importance of implementing protective security measures like “Web3 security extensions” for both Web3 projects and users to combat these scam tactics effectively.
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T-Mobile Deutsche Telekom has announced its plans to start mining Bitcoin, expanding its engagement in the cryptocurrency space.
The telecommunications giant, which has been involved in crypto activities, has operated a Bitcoin node since 2023 and is currently running Bitcoin Lightning Network nodes.
At BTC Prague, Dirk Röder, head of Web3 infrastructure and solutions at Deutsche Telekom, shared:
“Since 2023, we are running a Bitcoin node, and we are running Bitcoin Lightning nodes as well […] I like to let you in on a little secret we will engage in digital monetary photosynthesis soon.”
When asked by former Cointelegraph contributor Joseph Hall to elaborate on “digital monetary photosynthesis,” Röder responded with, “We will.”
Deutsche Telekom has been deeply involved in Web3 activities as a Polygon validator since June 2023, utilizing its infrastructure to secure new revenue streams.
As one of 100 validators, Deutsche Telekom has provided staking and validation services on Polygon for over a year, supporting the platform’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
In February, Deutsche Telekom partnered with Fetch.ai, a decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) platform, to establish enterprise AI initiatives.
Acting as a validator on the Fetch.ai blockchain, Deutsche Telekom supports the AI-driven autonomous agents developed by Fetch.ai.
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These agents offer services across various sectors, including healthcare, automotive, supply chain management, and digital identities.
They manage resources, conduct transactions, and analyze traffic flows to enhance operational efficiency.
The move to start mining Bitcoin marks a significant expansion of Deutsche Telekom’s blockchain and cryptocurrency activities.
By leveraging its existing technological infrastructure and expertise, the company aims to explore new opportunities and revenue models within the digital economy.
This step highlights Deutsche Telekom’s commitment to advancing its involvement in emerging technologies and its proactive approach to integrating blockchain solutions into its operations.
Overall, Deutsche Telekom’s entry into Bitcoin mining reflects its broader strategy to innovate and adapt to the evolving digital landscape, positioning itself at the forefront of the intersection between telecommunications and blockchain technology.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has endorsed the new Token for Image Tokenizer (TiTok) compression method, highlighting its potential for blockchain applications.
Distinct from the social media platform TikTok, the TiTok compression method substantially reduces image sizes, making blockchain storage more feasible.
Buterin emphasized TiTok’s blockchain potential on the decentralized social media platform Farcaster, stating, “320 bits is basically a hash. Small enough to go on chain for every user.”
This development could significantly impact the digital storage of profile pictures (PFPs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Developed by ByteDance and researchers from the Technical University of Munich, TiTok can compress an image into 32 small data pieces (bits) without compromising quality.
The TiTok research paper explains that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) image compression enables TiTok to compress a 256×256 pixel image into “32 discrete tokens.”
TiTok is a 1-dimensional (1D) image tokenization framework that “breaks grid constraints existing in 2D tokenization methods,” resulting in more flexible and compact images.
“As a result, it leads to a substantial speed-up on the sampling process (e.g., 410 × faster than DiT-XL/2) while obtaining a competitive generation quality,” the paper states.
TiTok utilizes machine learning and advanced AI, using transformer-based models to convert images into tokenized representations.
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The method exploits region redundancy, identifying and utilizing redundant information in different regions of the image to reduce the overall data size.
“Recent advancements in generative models have highlighted the crucial role of image tokenization in the efficient synthesis of high-resolution images,” the research paper notes.
According to the paper, TiTok’s “compact latent representation” can yield “substantially more efficient and effective representations than conventional techniques.”
Despite the similar name, the social media platform TikTok did not receive endorsement from Buterin. His support for TiTok’s blockchain potential adds credibility to this new AI-driven image compression method.
“Unlike the existing 2D VQ models that consider the image latent space as a 2D grid, we provide a more compact formulation to tokenize an image into a 1D latent sequence,” the paper explains.
The new method can “represent an image with 8 to 64 times” fewer tokens than “2D tokenizers,” with hopes that this research will lead to more efficient image representation.
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Institutional investors are poised to purchase blockchain-tokenized shares of high-value commercial real estate once more opportunities arise, according to Kunal Bhasin, digital asset co-lead at KPMG Canada.
At the Toronto Collision Conference, Bhasin told Cointelegraph that tokenization has the potential to shift the ownership landscape of major commercial buildings, which traditionally have been the domain of wealthy real estate and pension fund managers.
Tokenization could allow institutional investors, including family offices, to own portions of significant properties such as Toronto’s Eaton Center and other major buildings.
“Tokenization of commercial real estate can actually enable that,” Bhasin stated, predicting it would become a major institutional use case in the crypto industry.
However, Bhasin highlighted that many “institutional DeFi” participants prefer a more controlled environment.
“Institutions recognize the efficiency that decentralized financial technology brings, but they want to know the participants that they are interacting with,” he said, emphasizing the importance of know-your-client checks in this process.
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The adoption of tokenized real estate is gradual. In April, Bitfinex Securities facilitated a tokenized asset raise for a 4,500-square-foot Hampton by Hilton hotel at El Salvador’s international airport, but it has raised only $342,000, far short of its $6.25 million goal.
Bhasin also anticipates growth in tokenized Treasurys and money market funds.
He cited the success of the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUDIL), which has reached $462.7 million in value since its launch in March, according to 21Shares data.
Despite these advancements, reputational risks remain a concern for asset management firms and banks hesitant to engage more actively in the crypto space due to numerous frauds and scams.
Bhasin noted that while “there is fraud in every industry,” recent progress is encouraging. KPMG uses blockchain analytics from Chainalysis to detect potential illicit activities tied to its clients.
“Soon, not being involved in crypto and digital assets is going to be a career risk,” Bhasin remarked.
“If you are not offering it today, your competitors are — and they are getting that advantage over you.”
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Martin Shkreli, often referred to as “Pharma Bro,” has claimed involvement in the creation of the Solana-based token DJT, which has sparked significant speculation amid rumors that it was being led by Donald Trump’s son.
During an X Spaces session on June 18, Shkreli disclosed he was “helping a friend” with the token’s launch in April.
He mentioned that about 10 people were directly involved in its creation, while 40 to 50 others were aware of it.
Listeners noted that Shkreli cited Barron Trump as one of those aware of the project.
The X Spaces session occurred four hours after Arkham Intelligence announced a $150,000 bounty for identifying the DJT token’s creator.
This followed Shkreli accepting a $100 million bet with prominent crypto trader GCR on the token’s authenticity.
“Fuck it, we ball. $150,000 to the first person to definitively prove the identity of the creator of $DJT,” Arkham posted on X on June 18.
“Find definitive evidence of the creator of $DJT. We will accept private proof for this bounty, but if accepted, that proof will be made public,” read the bounty notice.
High-profile blockchain investigator ZachXBT submitted a response, which reportedly influenced Shkreli’s decision to host the X Spaces.
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Meanwhile, on the internet, people are placing bets on whether the DJT token was launched by Trump or a member of his family.
The decentralized betting platform Polymarket indicates nearly $1.9 million in bets on the token’s legitimacy.
Only 17% of total bets were in favor of the idea that DJT was launched by Trump or a family member, with this number dropping to 7% after Shkreli’s X Space session.
The rumor about Trump’s involvement and that it was “spearheaded” by his son Barron originated from a tech blog Pirate Wires’ X post, which cited “conversations” without specifying the sources.
When questioned about the information’s origin, Pirate Wires creator Mike Solana admitted he “didn’t speak with Trump directly” and was “just reporting what I know via sources.”
Currently, DJT is trading at 0.012, a significant drop of over 66% from its peak of 0.036 on Tuesday, as reported by Birdseye.
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The Bitcoin network has recently moved up in the all-time non-fungible token (NFT) sales rankings, surpassing the Ronin blockchain, which previously held the third-highest record for all-time NFT sales.
On June 18, NFT data tracker CryptoSlam revealed that Bitcoin-based NFTs achieved an all-time sales volume of $4,271,928,280.
This surpasses Ronin blockchain’s record of $4,271,675,550, elevating Bitcoin to the top three leading blockchain networks for NFT sales, alongside Solana and Ethereum.
In the past 30 days, Bitcoin-based NFTs recorded a sales volume of $148 million, placing them in the top two for the month, following Ethereum, which had a volume of $157 million.
Solana came in close with around $77 million.
Despite these impressive figures, NFTs experienced a downturn in volume, with the top three chains showing at least a 40% decline in 30-day sales, according to CryptoSlam.
Bitcoin NFTs are still “primitive”
Jeff Zirlin, co-founder of Sky Mavis, the team behind the Ronin network, believes that increased NFT adoption is beneficial.
He told Cointelegraph that while they haven’t focused much on Bitcoin, they remain competitive within blockchain gaming ecosystems.
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Zirlin stated, “We haven’t been paying too much attention to Bitcoin NFTs because they are still primitive and unrelated to gaming. In general, more adoption of NFTs is good and we’re more competitive with ecosystems that focus specifically on gaming.”
Zirlin also noted that gaming is “in a state of evolution” now.
He explained that traditional strategies for gaming companies have begun to show diminishing returns due to rising user acquisition costs.
“Web3 offers an alternate path, one that creates longer-lasting games via incentive alignment with your core audience and ownership-based revenue models,” Zirlin added.
On June 4, CryptoSlam data indicated that Bitcoin-based NFTs hit $4 billion in all-time sales volume. This data combined $3.97 billion in NFT sales and over $80 million in wash sales.
Despite these milestones, the broader NFT market saw a decline in sales volumes.
There was a 54% drop in monthly NFT sales volume in May compared to April, with NFTs achieving over $1 billion in sales in April, while the digital collectibles industry recorded $624 million in May.
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The Fairshake group, a political action committee (PAC) backed by crypto firms like Ripple and Coinbase, has invested over $2 million in opposing the incumbent in the Democratic primary for New York’s 16th Congressional District.
Federal Election Commission data reveals that Fairshake spent more than $2 million on a media campaign against Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman’s reelection.
By June 16, outside interest groups had contributed approximately $9 million opposing Bowman, who is contending against Democrat George Latimer in the June 25 primary.
The Fairshake ad, which does not specifically mention crypto or blockchain, accused Rep. Bowman of spending his career “pushing dangerous conspiracy theories.”
In response to earlier opposition ads from another Super PAC, prominent Democratic lawmakers including Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Bowman’s reelection.
Congressional records show that Rep. Bowman voted against the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century (FIT21) Act, the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act, and a resolution overturning a Securities and Exchange Commission rule on banks handling crypto.
Latimer, who was in the New York State Senate from 2013 to 2018, has rarely commented on digital assets.
Moe Vela, former Director of Administration for then-Vice President Biden, told Cointelegraph that such attacks were an “effective tool” to rally voters but encouraged PACs to focus on legislation rather than individual candidates.
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Fairshake declined to comment but stated: “Our focus continues to be on supporting candidates on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers who will stop playing politics and pass clear and responsible rules of the road.”
Fairshake’s influence on U.S. elections is notable. California Representative Katie Porter lost a primary race for the Senate in March after being targeted by a Super PAC ad that claimed she took campaign contributions from “big pharma, big oil, and big bank executives.”
Rep. Porter later said the crypto industry tried to “bury a conversation” on digital assets with the media buy.
With less than five months until Election Day in the United States, the crypto industry remains politically active. Coinbase, one of Fairshake’s original backers, donated another $25 million to the Super PAC in June, raising its total funds to roughly $160 million.
Crypto mining executives also launched a project to educate voters on Bitcoin and later influence U.S. elections.
Major party presidential candidates include U.S. President Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Libertarian Chase Oliver.
Biden and Trump are scheduled for a televised debate on June 27 ahead of their official nominations.
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