Crypto Currency

Investors pointed to Musk’s portrayal of "a fictitious financial expert" during a Saturday Night Live appearance, referring to Dogecoin as “a hustle,” as a reference point in the lawsuit. Elon Musk and his lawyers reportedly requested a United States judge to dismiss the $258 billion lawsuit filed by investors who alleged that he operated a pyramid scheme to promote the cryptocurrency Dogecoin ( DOGE ). According to an April 1 Reuters report , Elon Musk's lawyers referred to the lawsuit filed by Dogecoin investors, a “fanciful work of fiction,” in Manhattan's federal court on March 31. It was reported that Musk's lawyers referred to his Dogecoin statements as “innocuous and often silly tweets," in an effort to convince the judge to "throw out" the multi-billion dollar lawsuit. Musk's lawyers explained that his Dogecoin-related statements – including “Dogecoin Rulz” and “no highs, no lows, only Doge” – were “too vague” to warrant a fraud cla...

An attendee shared an image of a Terra banner with the slogan "a decentralized economy needs decentralized money," prominently displayed during Major League Baseball's opening day at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. As baseball enthusiasts flocked to Nationals Park in Washington D.C for the Major League Baseball (MLB) opening day, the noticeable presence of Terra ( LUNA ) – the crypto ecosystem that collapsed in May 2022 – didn’t go unnoticed by attendees. A Twitter user who attended The Washington Nationals’ home opener against the Atlanta Braves on March 30, shared an image of Terra being prominently displayed on a banner with the slogan “a decentralized economy needs decentralized money.” “Sounds like a solid company. Will check out” the user commented on the prominent placement of Terra at the stadium. Sounds like a solid company. Will check out. pic.twitter.com/o3i9q2SnGA — The D.C. Universe (@dcuniverse) March 30, 2023 Another Twitter user tweeted that th...

Bermuda's Edward Burt reportedly met with U.S. lawmakers and government officials this week in Washington, D.C. to discuss common standards for digital assets. The dramatic collapse of crypto exchange FTX last November is not moving Bermuda away from receiving crypto companies, according to the head of the British island territory’s government during an interview with Bloomberg News.  “The future of finance is digital,” said the premier and finance minister Edward David Burt, who believes there are still considerable benefits to be gained from digital assets and blockchain technology. Bermuda is a self-governing territory with a parliamentary government and was one of the first places to implement a regulatory framework for digital assets. The territory is just 915 miles away from The Bahamas, where the now-bankrupted FTX once operated. Burt reportedly faced intense political pressure before FTX's failure, as the exchange chose The Bahamas instead of Bermuda for its headq...

The rise of artificial intelligence, though in its early stages, has found use cases in crypto through countless projects. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in crypto, though still in its infant stages, is showing prospects for growth. According to a report from Fortune Business Insights, the blockchain AI market is projected to grow from $220.5 million in 2020 to $973.6 million in 2027 at a compound annual growth rate of 23.6%. Countless projects are trying to put AI at the forefront of their use cases. Despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other prominent tech moguls penning an open letter  calling on AI companies to suspend large-scale AI development temporarily, the crypto industry is ripe with AI projects. Here are some examples of crypto AI projects that have recently emerged in the community: Blocktrace Blocktrace is a service provider that specializes in blockchain forensics and analysis bolstered by the use of AI technology. Its AI Chatbot is designed to simplify th...

The Avalanche Foundation has launched a new mentoring initiative for digital artists, and Ticketmaster has introduced a new feature allowing artists to reward NFT holders. In a March 30 blog post , The Avalanche Foundation announced the launch of Avaissance, an initiative designed to support digital artists and boost the growth of the Avalanche nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem. Avaissance has two main components, an Artist in Resident program (AIR) for over 50 artists and the Mona Lisa Initiative (MLI) to curate digital art and expand the collections of art-focused decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Avaissance begins! The Avalanche Foundation is launching the Avaissance initiative to grow the #AVAX NFT ecosystem and support its budding artists. The program aims to usher in a rebirth of creative activity on Avalanche. So, what’s the plan?⬇️ pic.twitter.com/mNhDoQqDhD — Art on Avalanche (@ArtOnAvax) March 29, 2023 AIR will provide artists “of any skill level” wi...

The move comes as Australians continue to reduce their usage of cash and bank branches, but has sparked fears that the death of cash is near. ANZ, one of Australia’s “Big Four” banks, will cease facilitating withdrawals and deposits from a number of its Australian branches as it looks to push its customers toward using an ever-dwindling number of ATMs and deposit machines. The decision has received pushback, with critics such as Patricia Sparrow, CEO of the Council on the Ageing,  telling The Australian that the change could disproportionately affect older people who are less capable of going digital. Others have suggested it would make fiat users more susceptible  to technical issues. The move has also renewed fears of a push to eliminate cash and that cash could soon be replaced by central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The end of cash is near. They are trying to go all digital, and then bring in the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to be programable so they ca...

Elizabeth Warren has long been a crypto-critic, and appears to be making it a focus as her re-election bid kicks off. The United States Senator for Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren is making her “anti-crypto” agenda one of the centerpieces of her re-election campaign, despite polls suggesting the majority of Americans think crypto is a key innovation for the future. In a March 30 Tweet, Warren suggested she was fighting to put “government on the side of working families,” and prominently quoted a Politico headline that said: “Elizabeth Warren is building an Anti-crypto Army.” The ‘Pro-crypto Army’ took to Twitter to lambast the Senator. Popular YouTuber Coin Bureau ridiculed the strategy, saying, “Imagine thinking that building an 'anti-crypto army' is going to win you votes?” while crypto advocate Lord TJ suggested that the stance will “push innovation offshore.” While the Senator undoubtedly has access to her own private polling on the issues, recent polls commissioned...

The bank predicts the private equity market to become the most “tokenized” asset class because it is more liquid and can be fractionalized. Investment bank Citi is betting on the blockchain-based tokenization of real-world assets to become the next “killer use case” in crypto, with the firm forecasting the market to reach between $4 trillion to $5 trillion by 2030. That would mark an 80-fold increase from the current value of real-world assets locked on blockchains, Citi explained in its “Money, Tokens and Games” March report. “We forecast $4 trillion to $5 trillion of tokenized digital securities and $1 trillion of distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based trade finance volumes by 2030,” the firm's analysts said. Of the up to $5 trillion tokenized, the bank estimates $1.9 trillion will come in the form of debt, $1.5 trillion from real estate, $0.7 trillion from private equity and venture capital and between $0.5-1 trillion from securities. Blockchain-based tokenization tot...

Binance’s future threatened after superpowers try to crush it, SBF accused of massive bribe over trading in China, former OKX exec charged. Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments. Binance’s secret U.S. users On Mar. 27, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao with alleged willful evasion of federal law and operating an illegal digital assets exchange. In the 74 page complaint, the CFTC claimed that despite the exchange’s public position of banning U.S. users, internal documents suggest that at least 20% to 30% of the exchange’s traffic came from U.S. customers. That equates to almost three million alleged U.S. users by mid-2020. Crypto exchanges are required to register with either the CFTC or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission before soliciting U.S. customers. However, the CFTC allege that Binance ignored such ruling as its executives claimed that the regula...

The new equity in Hong Kong will focus on the regional market and embrace Web3 startups. As Hong Kong is once again opening up to the crypto market, local investors are launching a $100-million fund to finance the digital industry. The new fund, ProDigital Future, will aim at Web3 companies in their early stages, oriented at the regional market.  According to a Bloomberg report from March 30, ProDigital Future has finished its half-year fundraising period with about $30 million in its pockets, though it plans to total this sum up to $100 million by the end of 2023. The fund is led by Ben Ng, a partner at Hong Kong-based equity firm SAIF Partners, and Curt Shi, a long-time tech investor from China. At this point, Sunwah Kingsway Capital Holdings and Golin International Group have already hopped in to support the fund. So far, the fundraising process has been “relatively smooth,” as Mr.Shi told journalists, although the investors are cautious about putting their money into cryp...

The Hollywood icon was relentlessly mocked for appearing in the ad in 2021, which was released just before the crypto markets plummeted. Hollywood star Matt Damon has finally opened up on why he appeared in cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com’s infamous “Fortune Favors the Brave” advertisement, which was once the subject of relentless mockery. Speaking to the Associated Press on March 27 at the premiere of his new film, Damon appeared somewhat abashed as he explained his reason for appearing in the ad. He said it was mainly because his clean water initiative, Water.org, was indire financial circumstances, explaining: ”We had a down year in Water.org, and I did that commercial in an attempt to raise money for Water.org.” Damon founded the clean water project in 2009 alongside engineer and philanthropist Gary White. It aims to increase access to clean water globally by providing small loans that finance the purchase and installation of water taps and toilets. Damon explained that h...

Crypto Council for Innovation advisor Sean Lee said more education is needed for policymakers and financial regulators. There are still industry executives that remain hopeful the United States will develop laws to treat crypto fairly, however, an advisory to the Crypto Council for Innovation warns it will take “a lot of work.” Speaking to Cointelegraph on March 29 at the World of Web3 (WOW) Summit in Hong Kong, Crypto Council for Innovation advisor and co-founder of Odsy Network, Sean Lee, said that fair treatment of the crypto industry is possible in the United States. He commented that financial reform was addressed following the 2008 financial crisis so there is no reason the same cannot be applied to crypto. “It is possible, it will take a lot of work […] and usually implementation comes after a massive crisis, which we have right now.” The comments come in the wake of a massive crypto crackdown by U.S. financial regulators in what some industry commentators have labeled a “...

The authors of the letter explained that advanced AI could cause a profound change in the history of life on Earth, for better or worse. More than 2,600 tech leaders and researchers have signed an open letter urging for a temporary “pause” on further artificial intelligence (AI) development, fearing “profound risks to society and humanity.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and a host of AI CEOs, CTOs and researchers were among the signatories of the letter, which was authored by the United States think tank Future of Life Institute (FOLI) on March 22. The institute called on all AI companies to “immediately pause” training AI systems that are more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months, sharing concerns that “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” among other things: We're calling on AI labs to temporarily pause training powerful models! Join FLI's call alongside Yoshua Bengio, @stevewoz , @harari_yuval ...

The creditor's committee and FTX lawyers have raised several arguments in objecting to Bankman Fried’s request. A hearing date is set for April 12. Sam Bankman Fried ’s new petition to have his legal expenses reimbursed has been met with fierce objection from lawyers representing the crypto exchange and its creditors committee. As per previous reporting by Cointelegraph, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had filed a motion on March 15 seeking to have his court costs covered by directors and officers (D&O) insurance policies, which if approved by the judge would see him placed at the top of the payout queue. Defense costs are covered in most policies (after a deductible) but insurers have provisions for selection of counsel so even if approved the insurer is unlikely to approve the high priced lawyers SBF has (or needs). — Mr. Purple (@MrPurple_DJ) March 16, 2023 In March 29 objection filing , FTX’s lawyers objected to Bankman-Fried’s attempt to prioritize his own legal fees at t...

First-person shooter Shrapnel blows gamers away at GDC, Otherside’s Second Trip vs Fortnite, Callan gets killed by zombies over and over. Shrapnel: The game at GDC everyones talking about As the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco came to a close last week, there was one game that stood out from the rest. Shrapnel, a highly anticipated first-person shooter in the Web3 space, was the talk of the conference thanks to its stunning graphics and immersive gameplay.  Select invitees got a first look at Shrapnel at GDC. (Shrapnel/Twitter) Select visitors were treated to a hands-on experience with the pre-alpha version of the game. Set in the year 2044, Shrapnel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. Players must navigate the sacrifice zone, where they collect NFT gear and a compound named Sigma. They can win by reaching an extraction point where they can escape with their loot. If they die, they lose their loot.  Shrapnel founder Mark Long told Cointelegraph ...