Covesting(COV)

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has responded to the CFTC charges, as the world’s largest exchange saw depositors withdraw large sums following the news of the charges brought against the company. Users ended up withdrawing around $400 million in 24 hours. Zhao Responds To Charges The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, has reacted to the charges brought against the cryptocurrency exchange by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Zhao called the accusations “unexpected and disappointing” and denied any wrongdoing on his or the exchange’s part. Zhao’s disappointment was further exasperated because the exchange had been cooperating with the exchange over the past couple of years. Zhao went on to add, “The complaint appears to contain an incomplete recitation of facts, and we do not agree with the characterization of many of the issues alleged in the complaint.” The Allegations Against Binance And Zhao The CFTC, on the 27th of March, 2023, hit Binance with a barrage of accusations in a lawsuit, accusing the CEO of indulging in insider trading and evading KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations. The charges also included allegations that Binance had been trading on its own platform, in addition to claims that there were 300 “house accounts” directly or indirectly owned by Zhao. However, the Binance CEO flatly denied the allegations, stating that Binance does not and never will trade for profit or “manipulate” the market under any circumstances. He went on to add that all company revenues were in crypto and needed to be converted into fiat from time to time to cover expenses related to the functioning of the platform. Zhao stated, “Personally, I have two accounts at Binance: one for my Binance Card and one for my crypto holdings. I eat our own dog food and store my crypto on Binance.com. I also need to convert crypto from time-to-time to pay for my personal expenses or for the Card.” The term “eat your own dog food” is an expression used to refer to companies that use their own products or services to ensure the smooth functioning of their internal operations. Additionally, Zhao stated that Binance had implemented a 90-day no-trading rule for all employees. This meant that employees could not, under any circumstances, sell a coin within 90 days of their most recent purchase. What About KYC Allegations? Another set of allegations by the CFTC stated that Binance had been evading KYC controls and regulations. However, Zhao countered by stating that Binance was the first global crypto exchange that implemented strong and mandatory KYC regulations on the platform. He also added that Binance.com blocks all US-based users based on location and IP address. However, the CFTC accuses the exchange of encouraging US-based traders to use VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to bypass any blocks. Depositors Panic As expected, markets have felt a chill thanks to the developments, with around $30 billion leaving the crypto space in the past 12 hours. As a result, the market capitalization has dropped to $1.17 trillion. The platform itself found itself in the doldrums as depositors, panicking due to the charges brought by the CFTC, withdrew around $400 million on Ethereum, according to data sourced by Nansen. According to the Nansen data, “Savvy Traders” have also moved $9 million from Binance over the past 24 hours. The developments show the skittishness of traders in the crypto space in the face of regulatory uncertainty. Furthermore, Paxos, a former issuer of the BUSD stablecoin, burned over $155 million worth of BUSD in four hours, citing investor flight. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The CFTC is suing Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, accusing him of breaching trading rules. Operation Choke point 2.0 continues. Attacks on crypto continue The Biden Administration, the banks, and the financial watch dogs are throwing the kitchen sink at crypto. Every move that is made is calculated to bring the most amount of harm and damage to crypto infrastructure. As the banking system becomes an obsolete wasteland, the powers that be in the U.S. have decided that they will concentrate all the fire power at their disposal in order to try and cripple the crypto industry, and bitcoin in particular. It must be hurting them so much to see the Federal Reserve and other central banks reduced to printing fiat currency at such a furious rate in order to prop up banks that are dead in the water. And as this is happening, investors are flocking to bitcoin in order to get themselves out of the system. The latest coordinated attack on the CEO of the largest crypto exchange by trading volume in the world is designed to spread FUD and make would-be crypto investors think twice about taking their money out of the bank and putting it into crypto. CFTC sues Binance CEO The main thrust of the CFTC filing is that it alleges that CZ has allowed U.S. residents to buy and sell crypto derivatives since 2019, and maintains that any entity offering such services should have registered with the CFTC. The filing reads: “Beginning no later than July 2019 and continuing through the present, Binance, under Zhao’s direction… has solicited and accepted orders, accepted property to margin, and operated a facility for the trading of futures, options, swaps, and leveraged retail commodity transactions involving digital assets that are commodities including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and litecoin (LTC) for persons in the United States,” The filing continues: “Since the launch of its platform in 2017, Binance has taken a calculated, phased approach to increase its United States presence despite publicly stating its purported intent to “block” or “restrict” customers located in the United States from accessing its platform,” the filing charges. “All the while, Binance, Zhao, and Lim, the platform’s former Chief Compliance Officer (“CCO”), have each known that Binance’s solicitation of customers located in the United States subjected Binance to registration and regulatory requirements under U.S. law.” Crypto price fall News of the CFTC filing has possibly contributed to the price of bitcoin and crypto falling across the board. Bitcoin (BTC) fell to around $26,500 before recovering to $27,000 at time of going to press. The total crypto market cap fell to $1.09 trillion, but has since recovered to $1.102 trillion. U.S. citizens stuck with a failing currency The law is the law, and should it be found that Binance was contravening U.S. rules then it will no doubt be made to pay a suitable fine. That the CFTC should choose this moment in time to charge the crypto exchange is however interesting. Another interesting question is whether U.S. citizens should be allowed to avail themselves of crypto services, whether offered by Binance or by any other suitably regulated exchange? Surely the only reason can be the protection of U.S. citizens. But preventing those citizens from buying assets that are outside of the U.S. banking system will mean that they will either have to try and circumnavigate the system, or be left to fend for themselves at the mercy of archaic and obsolete banks, with a currency that is worth drastically less with each passing year. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

According to a report by Verichains, over $8 billion worth of digital assets could be at risk following a recently discovered vulnerability in multi-party computing (MPC) protocols. Verichains, a leading blockchain security solutions provider announced that it had discovered critical key recovery attacks in Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS), an MPC-based protocol that enables multi-party signatures on the blockchain without revealing their private keys. As blockchains move toward decentralization and enhanced security, convenience is often overlooked. This gave rise to multi-sig wallets that offer convenience while maintaining the standard of security and decentralization. As such, many top financial institutions and custodial wallet services have implemented MPC protocols to secure digital assets. Multiparty wallets and digital asset custody solutions such as BNY Mellon (the largest global custodian bank), Revolut (Europe’s largest neo bank), ING, Binance, Fireblocks, and Coinbase have all implemented MPC protocols. To ensure the security of funds, these custodial institutions ensure complete decentralization by employing a TSS, a cryptographic protocol that allows a group of parties to generate a signature on a message without revealing their individual secret keys. This way, the funds can be controlled by a distributed set of signers who can cooperate to authorize transactions. Recently, many companies are implementing MPC protocols for threshold Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), the security verification protocol Bitcoin uses, based on GG18, GG20 and CGGMP21 algorithms. Having researched threshold ECDSA since October 2022, Verichains found that nearly all TSS implementations are vulnerable to key recovery attacks. This means that a single malicious party in 1 or 2 signing ceremonies can extract a full private key, which puts the funds of the other signatories at risk. “The attack leaves no trace and appears innocent to the other parties,” the report states. As such, over $8 billion in digital assets in custody are at risk across various wallets, non-custodial key infrastructure, and cross-chain asset management protocols. Notwithstanding, assets stored using the threshold ECDSA that are not on the blockchain could also be vulnerable to hacks. Verichains recommended that companies and organisations that use vulnerable ECDSA prioritize implementing robust security measures” and “seek review from security experts to ensure their platforms' safety and security”. The blockchain security firm further stated it has informed all relevant parties of the vulnerabilities and will await the solutions to be implemented before releasing the final report. "Verichains has a strong commitment to responsible vulnerability disclosure, and we take care and considered steps when disclosing attacks, especially given the wide range of impacted projects and significant user funds at risk,” said Thanh Nguyen, Co-Founder of Verichains and former CPU Security Lead at Intel. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin and Ether continue to struggle as they trade around $48k and $3,800 respectively on Friday. The leading cryptocurrency is now testing a key technical level that has been acting as a floor for Bitcoin over the past two years. The latest drop in the largest crypto asset’s price has taken it to its 55-week […] The post A Possible Crypto Recovery Moving Into New Year, Risk-on Sentiments Send The Stock Market to Another Record High first appeared on BitcoinExchangeGuide.