Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency has experienced a significant surge, becoming the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
This came after Ripple Labs achieved a partial victory over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 13.
Following the court ruling, XRP’s market cap skyrocketed by an impressive $21.2 billion, reaching a new yearly high of $46.1 billion.
This surge propelled XRP from the seventh position to surpass Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) and Binance’s BNB token, securing its place as the fourth largest cryptocurrency.
However, as of now, Ripple’s market capitalization has settled at $42.5 billion.
The substantial growth in Ripple’s market capitalization can be attributed to the favorable court ruling. The District Court for the Southern District of New York determined that the sale and offer of XRP on digital asset exchanges did not constitute the sale of investment contracts.
This legal case involved Ripple Labs and the SEC.
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Simultaneously, the price of XRP experienced a sharp increase of up to 98% immediately following the court decision, with prices reaching as high as $0.93 according to TradingView data.
The sudden surge in demand for XRP was so intense that it caused disruptions for Uphold, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange.
Uphold faced technical difficulties and went down temporarily due to an unprecedented spike in trading volume.
Uphold was among the few larger U.S. exchanges that continued to offer XRP sales, as others chose to delist the cryptocurrency.
In response to the court ruling, major U.S. exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, and iTrustCapital have initiated the process of re-listing XRP, allowing users to trade the cryptocurrency on their platforms.
Additionally, Gemini, a crypto exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, has hinted at relisting XRP in the near future.
Overall, Ripple’s XRP has experienced a significant boost in market capitalization and price following the recent court ruling in its favor.
This outcome has not only solidified its position as the fourth largest cryptocurrency but has also prompted a renewed interest from prominent U.S. exchanges to list XRP on their platforms.
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PwC recently published its fifth annual global crypto hedge fund report on July 12, which was based on surveys conducted in the first quarter of 2023 among both crypto-native and traditional hedge funds.
Despite the recent crypto winter and ongoing regulatory uncertainties, the report revealed a predominantly positive outlook among the funds.
According to the report, crypto-native hedge funds are actively working towards rebuilding confidence and ensuring their needs are heard.
An overwhelming majority of these funds (93%) expect the market cap to rise over the course of the year. Interestingly, more than half of them (53%) reported no exposure to FTX or the Terra Luna ecosystem.
The report also highlighted that most of the funds performed better than the price of Bitcoin (BTC), which stood at $30,553 in 2022.
This finding emphasizes the popularity of crypto hedge funds as investment vehicles for those seeking exposure to the crypto-asset market.
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While over half of the funds (54%) operate in the United States, they did not respond differently from others to U.S. regulations. In fact, 42% of these funds stated that they do not expect the regulations to impact them significantly.
The report further revealed that the funds expressed a desire for trading venues to implement certain requirements, including asset segregation (75%), financial audits (62%), and an independent statement of reserve assets (60%).
The report also shed light on the limited impact of tokenization within the sector. Only 15% of the surveyed funds are considering investments in tokenized securities, and merely 4% tokenize units within their own funds.
Regarding traditional hedge funds, the proportion investing in crypto decreased from 37% in 2022 to 29% in 2023.
Among those still investing in crypto, 62% allocate less than 5% of their assets under management to the crypto market, while only 8% hold more than 20% in crypto.
The survey found that 46% of these funds plan to increase their crypto investments this year, a decline from 67% in the previous year. Notably, none of the respondents mentioned a decrease in their capital deployed in crypto.
For traditional funds that do not invest in crypto, “client reaction or reputational risk” has become the primary reason, surpassing “regulatory uncertainty.”
Moreover, 40% of these funds stated that the removal of regulatory barriers would not motivate them to begin investing in crypto.
The survey was conducted in collaboration with CoinShares, an alternative asset manager, with 131 crypto-native funds participating. Data from 59 traditional hedge funds was obtained by the Alternative Investment Management Association.
In a recent incident, a hacker exploited a code vulnerability in the noncustodial decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Arcadia Finance, draining approximately $455,000 from the platform.
PeckShield, a blockchain investigator, identified the cause of the hack as the absence of untrusted input validation in the code.
The hacker took advantage of this vulnerability, which allowed them to siphon funds from the Ethereum (darcWETH) and Optimism (darcUSDC) vaults.
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Arcadia Finance has not yet provided a comment on the hack in response to inquiries made by Cointelegraph.
However, the team did mention that PeckShield’s assessment of the root cause was incorrect.
Nevertheless, Arcadia Finance acknowledged the hack and took immediate action by pausing the contracts to prevent further loss of funds.
While investigations are ongoing, it has been discovered that Arcadia’s code contains another vulnerability that could potentially have catastrophic consequences if exploited.
PeckShield revealed that there is a lack of reentrancy protection, which enables instant liquidation to bypass the internal vault health check.
The majority of the stolen funds, approximately 180 Ether (ETH) equivalent to $1,864 at the time, were from Optimism and have been laundered through Tornado Cash.
However, the stolen tokens on the Ethereum network, valued at over $103,000, are still held in the suspected wallet address.
In the second quarter of 2023, the crypto space experienced a series of hacks and exploits, resulting in a cumulative loss of more than $300 million.
CertiK, a blockchain security company, reported a total of 212 security incidents during this period, which led to a loss of $313,566,528 from various Web3 protocols.
Comparing the data with the same period in the previous year, CertiK observed a decline of 58% in crypto hacks. Among the incidents, the BNB Smart Chain had the highest number, with 119 recorded cases amounting to losses of $70,711,385.
To commemorate this significant moment in history and show support for independent journalism in the crypto space, readers have the opportunity to collect this article as an NFT (Non-Fungible Token).
In a significant ruling, a Canadian judge has declared that the popular thumbs-up emoji can serve as an indication of a person’s legal agreement to a contract.
The decision comes in response to the increasing prevalence of emojis as a means of expression in various contexts, including business transactions, within Canadian society.
The case in question revolved around a dispute between a farmer and a grain buyer regarding the sale of large quantities of flax in 2021.
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The buyer had sent the farmer a purchase contract accompanied by a message requesting confirmation. Upon receiving the contract, the farmer replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
Interpreting this as an acceptance of the agreement, the buyer believed that the farmer had agreed to the contract.
However, the farmer contended that the emoji was merely meant to confirm receipt of the contract.
In reaching the ruling, Judge T.J. Keene took into account the established trade relationship between the farmer and the buyer, along with the farmer’s past responses to similar sales agreements, which often included phrases like “looks good,” “ok,” or “yup.”
Judge Keene also referred to the definition of the thumbs-up emoji as found on dictionary.com, which described it as conveying assent, approval, or encouragement in digital communications, particularly in Western cultures.
Legal experts, such as Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, emphasized that despite this ruling, the interpretation of the thumbs-up emoji’s meaning may still vary depending on the specific circumstances of each case.
Goldman highlighted that some young individuals might employ the emoji sarcastically or insincerely, while others might use it solely to acknowledge the receipt of a message.
Furthermore, he noted that in certain Middle Eastern countries, the gesture could be deemed offensive.
Consequently, Goldman underscored the importance of recognizing that the use of the thumbs-up emoji can carry significant legal consequences.
This ruling serves as a reminder that as emojis continue to proliferate as a form of communication, their interpretation within legal contexts remains an evolving and nuanced area.
While the Canadian judgment establishes a precedent for the thumbs-up emoji, it also underscores the necessity of considering individual context and cultural factors when determining the meaning of emojis in legal agreements.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently engaged in a Twitter Spaces session on July 7, where he shared his insights on new developments within the Bitcoin blockchain.
During the conversation with Bitcoin proponents Eric Wall and Udi Wertheimer, Buterin highlighted a few areas where Bitcoin could potentially learn from Ethereum developers.
Buterin commended the introduction of Bitcoin Ordinals, a layer for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), for reviving a “builder culture” on the network.
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He viewed this development as a positive shift away from the stagnant politics in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
According to Buterin, the advent of ordinals has rekindled a sense of action and productivity among Bitcoin enthusiasts.
The Ethereum co-founder suggested that Bitcoin could expand its functionality without compromising scalability.
He specifically praised the Ordinals and the BRC-20 token standard for their potential impact. Buterin believes that these advancements serve as a pushback against the “laser-eye” Bitcoin Maxi movement, which he considers to be a positive development.
The conversation mainly focused on scalability concerns.
Eric Wall voiced his concerns about the inadequacy of the Bitcoin Lightning Network in terms of future scalability, particularly when processing medium-sized payments.
In response, Buterin recommended that developers concentrate on implementing various layer-2 solutions and seek ways to enhance the efficiency of the Bitcoin base layer.
He specifically highlighted the value of rollups and ZK-snark-based scaling solutions.
Udi Wertheimer agreed with Buterin’s suggestions and emphasized the potential benefits of introducing zero-knowledge rollups to the Bitcoin network.
He argued that adopting rollups would not only improve scalability but also enable the execution of smart contracts.
Notably, Eric Wall and Udi Wertheimer are leading figures behind the Ordinals project called Taproot Wizards.
Their advocacy for increased functionality in the Bitcoin network has garnered criticism from Bitcoin fundamentalists who argue that smart contracts and NFTs dilute Bitcoin’s primary peer-to-peer cash functionality.
Among the critics is Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, who considers Ordinals to be a waste of block space that could otherwise be used for Bitcoin payments.
Responding to the criticism, Wall explained that Bitcoin could serve as a proof system for zero-knowledge proofs, alleviating concerns about network congestion.
He expressed the perspective that Bitcoiners have always desired to explore DeFi adjacent ventures while relying on the Bitcoin base layer as a judge or arbiter of computation, rather than performing the computation on-chain.
Wall further highlighted that second layers could serve purposes beyond payments.
Unsurprisingly, this discussion has stirred controversy within the Bitcoin community. Udi Wertheimer criticized Samson Mow and Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, for opposing the conversation with Buterin.
In a tweet, Wertheimer referred to them as “laser-eyed clowns” who have allegedly failed to produce a successful product despite leading Blockstream for a decade.
He questioned their reluctance to learn from Ethereum’s experiences.
Independent blockchain investigator ZachXBT’s investigative efforts have played a crucial role in a class-action lawsuit filed in Canada against Boneheads, an alleged NFT rug pull amounting to $3.1 million.
On July 7, ZachXBT tweeted about the lawsuit, reiterating accusations that the Boneheads team vanished quickly and misused the minted funds on Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, luxury items, and other undisclosed purchases, failing to fulfill their promised roadmap.
ZachXBT expressed satisfaction that his research had once again been cited in a legal case.
The class-action lawsuit was initially lodged in mid-June in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The statement of claim, filed on June 19, accuses the Boneheads team of breaching their contract with investors by not delivering on the project’s roadmap, misappropriating funds, engaging in fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, and other offenses.
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The filing emphasizes that none of the promised deliverables, including NFT airdrops, tokens, physical collectibles, marketplace access, forging, avatar applications, voting rights, giveaways, or other commitments, were fulfilled by the Boneheads NFT team.
ZachXBT’s contributions are referenced in the lawsuit, highlighting his investigation into the Boneheads project, which he shared on Twitter on July 14, 2022, along with subsequent posts in the following month.
In his initial Twitter thread, ZachXBT outlined how the project allegedly misused funds intended for supporting the Boneheads roadmap.
He also identified the key individuals involved in the project and documented their questionable actions.
Despite months of social media inactivity, the Boneheads team promptly responded to ZachXBT’s posts on Twitter, denying any scam allegations and attributing the project’s slow progress to a deliberate and creative process.
They also announced the release of a new collection called “21” on the project’s anniversary in August 2022, but no such collection ever materialized.
ZachXBT’s investigative work has now been instrumental in multiple cases targeting bad actors in the NFT space.
In February, the FBI seized 86.5 Ether and $100,000 worth of NFTs from a phishing scammer following an extensive investigation conducted by ZachXBT.
Additionally, in October 2022, France’s national cyber unit credited ZachXBT’s work in aiding their efforts to apprehend and charge a group of suspected phishing scammers who had allegedly stolen $2.5 million worth of NFTs.
ZachXBT’s ongoing commitment to investigating fraudulent activities within the blockchain and NFT sectors has proven invaluable in uncovering wrongdoing and holding accountable those responsible for defrauding investors and participants in these markets.
The highly anticipated layer 2 blockchain Shibarium is set to launch following a conference in Toronto scheduled for August, according to a blog post by developer Shytoshi Kusama on Thursday.
Layer 2 technology involves a collection of off-chain systems, or separate blockchains, built on top of layer 1 protocols.
These systems help address scalability issues by bundling multiple off-chain transactions into a single layer 1 transaction, reducing data load and fees.
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Kusama stated that during the conference, the completed Worldpaper, all Shib-branded projects, and Treat would be showcased in detail for the first time.
Additionally, the long-awaited L2 Shibarium is expected to be discussed and released.
Moreover, the developer team will introduce DoggyDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) operated and governed by token holders.
DoggyDAO will serve as a funding source for projects built on the Shibarium network.
Shibarium’s testnet, a blockchain used for testing purposes, has witnessed significant activity in recent months, with an estimated 20 million transactions from approximately 16 million wallets as of June.
This high level of activity on the testnet reflects the growing demand for the network.
Developers have previously emphasized Shibarium’s focus on metaverse and gaming applications, particularly as the non-fungible token (NFT) sector is expected to experience substantial growth in the coming years.
The launch of Shibarium could provide a strong foundation for shiba inu (SHIB), a meme coin initially inspired by the Shiba Inu breed of dog that has since sought to establish itself as a serious project with its own blockchain network and decentralized app (dapp) ecosystem.
Meanwhile, movements in Shiba Inu ecosystem tokens have been mixed over the past 24 hours.
According to CoinGecko data, bone (BONE) experienced a surge of up to 4.5%, while leash (LEASH) rose by 2%. However, SHIB tokens declined by 5%, aligning with a broader drop in major tokens.
As the launch of Shibarium draws near, the cryptocurrency community eagerly awaits the realization of its promised capabilities and the potential impact it may have on the market.
Ripple Labs, a prominent digital payments and blockchain technology company, has unveiled an ambitious initiative aimed at revolutionizing the real estate industry through tokenization.
Antony Welfare, Ripple’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) adviser, recently highlighted the increasing global interest in CBDCs and stablecoins, emphasizing that Ripple’s team is actively exploring practical applications for these technologies, with a particular focus on tokenizing real estate assets.
During a fintech conference in Romania, Welfare presented a compelling use case that combines the digital Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD), tokenized real estate, and finance lending protocols.
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This innovative pilot program seeks to empower users to tokenize their real estate assets and utilize them as collateral for loans, leveraging Ripple’s CBDC platform.
Ripple’s foray into real estate asset tokenization, utilizing blockchain and digital currencies, is driven by a desire to address existing challenges in the real estate sector.
By overcoming these obstacles, successful tokenization initiatives can yield significant benefits, including enhanced liquidity, expanded market reach, and streamlined transactions.
Tokenization has captured substantial interest across various industries due to its transformative potential.
This groundbreaking approach involves converting tangible assets such as real estate, artwork, and intellectual property into digital tokens securely stored on the blockchain.
These tokens represent ownership or stakes in the underlying assets, enabling their buying, selling, and trading on decentralized platforms.
Tokenization’s allure lies in its ability to revolutionize traditional asset ownership and investment models.
Leveraging blockchain technology, tokenization offers amplified liquidity, accessibility, efficiency, transparency, and security.
As more industries and investors recognize the advantages and potential of tokenization, it is poised to gain further momentum as a prominent trend in financial and asset management circles.
However, the widespread adoption and implementation of tokenization may encounter regulatory hurdles that necessitate compliance with local laws.
Alongside regulatory considerations, the industry must also address security concerns surrounding tokenized assets as it continues to evolve.
Ripple Labs’ ambitious initiative to transform the real estate industry through tokenization demonstrates the company’s commitment to exploring new frontiers in digital payments and blockchain technology. By leveraging the power of CBDCs and stablecoins,
Ripple aims to drive innovation and foster a more efficient and accessible real estate market for the benefit of individuals and businesses alike.
Stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether have taken action to freeze assets totaling more than $65 million in connection with a suspected exploit of the cross-chain router protocol Multichain.
The decision came after a series of large outflows from the Multichain MPC bridge on July 6 left many questions unanswered.
0xScope, a knowledge graph protocol, has identified three addresses that received at least $63.2 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) from Multichain, and these addresses have now been frozen.
Additionally, the Fantom Foundation reported that more than $2.5 million in Tether (USDT) has been frozen from two addresses listed as “Multichain Suspicious Addresses” on Etherscan.
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On July 6, a total of over $125 million worth of cryptocurrencies was withdrawn from multiple wallets, affecting the ecosystems of Multichain’s Fantom bridge, Dogechain, Moonriver, Kava, and Conflux.
The reason behind this abnormal transfer of assets remains unclear.
Multichain took to Twitter to announce the suspension of its services, without specifying when they will be reinstated.
The company urged users not to utilize the Multichain bridging service, cautioning that all bridge transactions would be stuck on the source chains.
According to Fantom protocol CEO Michael Kong, the fund transfer does not appear to be a typical hack, as the assets sent to the alleged attacker’s wallets have not been moved elsewhere. Investigations into the incident are ongoing.
Multichain is a platform that enables the transfer of tokens between different networks.
However, it has encountered technical and operational difficulties since its leadership vanished a few weeks ago.
Such bridge protocols like Multichain are highly susceptible to attacks by crypto hackers, with numerous incidents reported in 2022.
A recent report from blockchain security firm SlowMist disclosed that since 2012, more than $30 billion in crypto assets has been hacked in hundreds of incidents.
The most common types of hacks include smart contract vulnerabilities, rug pulls, flash loan attacks, scams, and private key leaks.
Out of the total incidents, there were 118 exchange hacks, 217 hacks in the Ethereum ecosystem, 162 hacks in the BNB Smart Chain ecosystem, 119 hacks in the EOS ecosystem, and 85 hacks involving nonfungible tokens.
Over the past decade, crypto exchange hacks alone have resulted in losses exceeding $10 billion.
Bitcoin’s recent price drop to $30,098 has sparked discussions about the future of the cryptocurrency and the direction of its development.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, believes that the rise of projects like Ordinals signals the resurgence of a builder culture in the Bitcoin network.
In a Twitter Space conversation with Bitcoin proponents Eric Wall and Udi Wertheimer, Buterin praised Ordinals and its BRC-20 token standard as a rejection of the stagnant politics within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
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According to Buterin, Ordinals are reintroducing a culture of action and pushing back against the laser-eye movement, which he views as positive progress.
The main focus of the two-hour-long conversation revolved around scalability.
Wall expressed concerns about Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, stating that it struggles to scale for future users and frequently fails when processing medium-sized payments.
Buterin proposed that a solution would be to implement various layer-2 solutions and find ways to enhance the efficiency of the Bitcoin base layer.
He emphasized the importance of rollups and ZK-snark-based scaling solutions.
Wertheimer added that zero-knowledge rollups could potentially enable smart contracts on Bitcoin, creating a new execution environment.
However, proponents of the Ordinals project, such as Wall and Wertheimer, face criticism from traditional Bitcoin advocates.
Some argue that introducing NFTs and smart contracts on Bitcoin dilutes its primary function as a peer-to-peer cash network.
Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, believes that Ordinals waste valuable block space that should be allocated to Bitcoin payments.
Wall responded to these criticisms by suggesting that Bitcoin could serve as a proof system for zero-knowledge proofs, avoiding network congestion.
He expressed the desire to utilize the Bitcoin base layer as a judge or arbiter of computations, rather than running them on-chain.
Wall urged the community to consider second layers as a means of achieving expressive capabilities, not just facilitating payments.
The discussion sparked controversy within the Bitcoin community, with Wertheimer criticizing Samson Mow and Adam Beck, CEO of Blockstream, for dismissing the conversation with Buterin.
The clash of opinions highlights the ongoing debate about the future of Bitcoin’s development and the potential for increased functionality within its network.
As Bitcoin enters this new era of development, it remains to be seen how the community will navigate these conflicting perspectives and shape the future of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.