“reHash” — Your Weekly Summary of Everything Important in the Crypto World — issue no. 14
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency News, Wanchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin

“reHash” — Your Weekly Summary of Everything Important in the Crypto World — issue no. 14 Maciej Follow Dec 23, 2020 · 5 min read

Hash issued for December 18th to December 23rd

Merry Christmas! This week reHash is published a day early and next week it will be published a day early as well. It is a bit shorter and I fully expect next one to be a bit shorter as well (since these two weeks of the year tend to be both more and less exciting than usually; while less happens in news department, more happens in presents department, which is generally a good thing). I hope you enjoy reading this week’s edition!

NOTE:

reHash is not intended to be original journalism. It is intended to be a brief summary of significant articles and events from the past week with links to the original sources. Sources will always be linked and credited. If you know any good newsletters or Twitter accounts which provide news we have been missing, please mention them in the comments!

ADOPTION

MicroStrategy has completed its $650 million Bitcoin buy; they currently hold a total of over 70,000 BTC worth $1.6 billion usd; they purchased them for $1.125 billion; Michael Saylor has even urged Elon Musk to have Tesla buy some

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4 Anthony Scaramucci’s Sky Bridge Capital has submitted a formal application to launch a new Bitcoin fund; SkyBridge is $9.3 billion hedge fund; they already invested $25 million into BTC; the Form D filed by SkyBridge did not disclose anticipated asset value of the fund, but the minimum investment is set at $50,000; the fund will welcome investments from outside investors starting on January 4th;

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4 Coinbase is planning an IPO; FTX crypto exchange has already listed the tokens betting on future IPO shares price; it is unclear when the IPO could happen; the FTX contracts imply the capitalization at $58 billion; it is over 2x of the valuation that Messari has proposed after their research

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Wirex has become a Principal Member of Visa Network in Europe; Wirex is a crypto and fiat payments platform; by becoming a Principal Member of Visa Network they will be able to issue new accounts, process transactions and provide processing services

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

REGULATION

Francesco Firano, Bitgrail’s founder has been allegedly involved in the $150 million hack of Bitgrail; Italian authorities have found that Bitgrail’s founder might have been involved in the fraudulent activity related to the 2018 hack; some 230,000 users have lost funds; “It is not yet clear whether he participated actively in the theft or if he simply decided not to increase security measures after discovering it,” said Ivano Gabriell-director of the national centre for cyber crimes; “It is the biggest cyber-financial attack in Italy and one of the biggest in the world,”

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 SEC is suing Ripple for $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering; Ripple has said that it received a notice from the SEC alleging that it violated the security laws by selling unregistered securities to investors-XRP; “Today, the SEC voted to attack crypto. Chairman Jay Clayton — in his final act — is picking winners and trying to limit US innovation in the crypto industry to BTC and ETH.” said Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse and promised that XRP will fight the lawsuit;

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

DEVELOPMENT

Etherum 2.0 beacon chain has 1,272,512 bounded Ethereum with 40159 validators active; another 15547 validators are waiting

SOURCE: 1, 2

GENERAL UPDATES

As per email sent by Ledger a breach back in June, 2020 has resulted in approximately “272,000 detailed information such as postal address, last name, first name and telephone number of our customers” posted on a forum; some users are already being targeted and receive threatening messages and phising attacks

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4 Exmo, a London-based cryptocurrency exchange has been hacked for approximately $10 million; this accounts to about 5% of the assets on the exchange; hackers withdrew the funds in USDT, ETH, BTC, ZEC, XRP, ETC; the withdrawals and deposits are currently closed

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Warp Finance has been exploited for $8 million a week after it went live; it was another case of a flash loan attack; “The exploiter was able to remove $7.7m of stablecoins,”; they managed to retrieve approximately $5.85 million of the stolen funds; which would be approximately 75%

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3 Grayscale has temporarily stopped purchasing BTC and ETH; shares that were purchased in June will be soon tradeable; the purchase of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin are currently unavailable for new investors — the existing investors can still purchase more

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Salvation Army Western Territory is now accepting cryptocurrency donations; it is an international charity and church over 100 years old, “I believe the crypto community cares and could make a big difference in The Salvation Army’s efforts to help those struggling in communities across our country,” said Lt. Colonel Kyle Smith, Salvation Army Western secretary of communication.

SOURCE: 1, 2, 3 Active Bitcoin addresses have risen by 105% this year; the number hit 1.2 million

SOURCE: 1, 2 Mogo, a Canadian company plans to make an investment of $1.5 million in BTC; this will represent approximately 1.5% of their portfolio; they will ‘consider additional investment in 2021 as they monetize their $17 million ivestment portfolio; there’s a caveat these are Canadian $; “We are strong believers in bitcoin as an asset class and believe this investment is consistent with our goal to make bitcoin investing available to all Canadians”

SOURCE: 1, 2

Thank you, as always, for reading and hope to see you next week! We will have news next week too!

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