CRYPTOWIZARDGEMS

Multichain Records $265 Million Withdrawn Across 9 Chains According to statistics from SlowMist, the outflow of funds from Multichain has reached a staggering $265 million since July 7. The funds have been distributed across various chains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, Fantom, Cronos, and Moonbeam.

DAI Surpasses BUSD, Becoming The Third-largest Stable Currency Stablecoins have recently had a position change when BUSD is no longer a stablecoin that has no place for itself. Instead, DAI is currently one of the stablecoins gradually taking over BUSD’s market share.

Ether Rallies to 8-Month High, Gains Ground Against Bitcoin Ether (ETH), the native token of Ethereum's blockchain, rose to an eight month high on Tuesday, outshining market leader bitcoin (BTC), as U.S. stock futures traded higher while the dollar index dipped. Ether rose nearly 3% to $1,873, the highest since August, according CoinDesk data. Bitcoin rose 1.7% to $28,300. The ether-bitcoin ratio rose over 1% to 0.066.

Over 66,000 new validators joined Ethereum in Q1 2023 In Q1 2023, the Ethereum proof-of-stake network added 66,000 new validators, with the total count growing from 495,270 in early January to 562,236 by the end of March. Validators are critical in Ethereum, especially in network security and decentralization. They validate transactions, ensuring no invalid transactions are added to a block.

Arbitrum Foundation Clarifies 50 Million Token Transfer, Allocates 40 Million As Loan Arbitrum Foundation clarifies on-chain transfers of 50M $ARB tokens. 40M was allocated as a loan, and 10M was converted to fiat for operational costs. Arbitrum has recently gained significant attention from the crypto community. The Arbitrum Foundation has launched AIP-1, which aims to initiate decentralized governance on the platform.

Bitcoin profits are taxable, Denmark's Supreme Court says The Supreme Court of Denmark ruled that profits from the sale of bitcoin constitute a taxable event, upholding a previous ruling by the Danish High Court. The Supreme Court considered two instances of profiting from bitcoin. The first involved an entity that acquired bitcoin from a third party and the second involved miners who earn bitcoin as a reward for securing the network. For people in the first instance, the court ruled that their bitcoin purchase was speculative in nature.

Bitdeer Will Be Listed On Nasdaq With A Valuation Of $1.18 Billion The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that the F-4 registration statement of Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTG) has come into effect. This form is the same as that previously announced by Bitdeer and Blue Safari related to the proposed business combination. Blue Safari will hold an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders on April 11 to approve business mergers and other matters.

OKX Applied For Virtual Asset Licenses To Launch Its Hong Kong Entity OKX, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, announced the formation of a Hong Kong corporation for the purpose of establishing virtual asset services in Hong Kong and the intention to apply for a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license. OKX has spent more than a year preparing to meet expected regulatory requirements in terms. The VASP license is issued under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance 2022, which goes into force on 1 June 2023, while the Type 1 and 7 licenses are issued under the Securities and Futures Ordinance.

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Burger King in Paris now accepts Bitcoin and crypto payments The international fast food giant Burger King has introduced Instpower power bank rental machines that accept cryptocurrency payments at its Paris locations. The machines are connected to crypto payment services Alchemy Pay and Binance Pay. Binance Pay and Alchemy Pay, Instpower, the industry-leading power bank charging service, now accepts cryptocurrency payments in assets such as Bitcoin from its customers at over 14,000 sites across the globe.

Ripple (XRP) Social Mentions Surge as Price Reaches 4-Month High Ripple (XRP) is the best-performing top 10 crypto assets of the last seven days after it gained more than 21% during the period, according to BeInCrypto data. According to Lunar Crash data, the positive price performance is corroborated by its soaring social metrics. The data aggregator noted that when the market and social performance are combined. Per Lunar Crash, XRP’s social volume reached 5,967, while its social engagements were 14.9 million over the last 24 hours. Its weekly performance showed that its social engagement rose 105.9% to 245.57 million, and its mentions grew 26.4% to 80,720. During the period, XRP had up to 3,440 unique social contributors per hour for the token. Many within the XRP community actively pushed the token on social media as they believed that its parent company Ripple would win its case against the U.S. SEC. Ripple recently submitted a new filing for its fair notice defense.

Nasdaq to Offer Crypto Custody Services by Mid 2023 The stock exchange will seek to complete all regulatory requirements and roll out the service by the end of Q2. The leading stock exchange – Nasdaq Inc. – could make another push toward the cryptocurrency sector by launching custody services by the end of the second quarter of this year. Fidelity and Bank of New York Mellon are other financial behemoths that offer such options. Ira Auerbach – Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Digital Assets – said in a recent interview that the global exchange group will aim to obtain all necessary approvals and form the technical infrastructure for the platform in the following months. It has also applied to the New York Department of Financial Services for a limited-purpose trust company charter, which is supposed to monitor the new business. Other well-known names in the financial field who already act as crypto custodians include America’s oldest bank – BNY Mellon – and the brokerage giant – Fidelity Investments.

MetaMask adds EIP-4361 so users can securely log into websites with its crypto wallet MetaMask now supports "Sign In with Ethereum," a feature that enables people to securely use its crypto wallet to authenticate web services. The popular web3 wallet has implemented the EIP-4361 standard, which aims to provide a more standardized way for Ethereum account holders to authenticate themselves on off-chain services. The wallet project partnered with digital identity and data provider Spruce on this integration. With EIP-4361 implementation, users of wallet projects like MetaMask can sign a standard message format to log in to websites. Supported websites will present users with a pop-up to review details, including the website name, session details and security mechanisms — such as a nonce — and verify the correct domain name to protect against unauthorized access from malicious sites. This offers a self-custodial alternative to centralized identity providers such as email or phone numbers.

Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon believed to be arrested in Montenegro, Yonhap says A person suspected to be Do Kwon, founder of the Terra blockchain that collapsed in spectacular fashion last year, has been arrested in Montenegro, Yonhap reported, citing South Korean police. The report followed an unverified tweet attributed to Montenegro's Minister of Interior Filip Adzic that said a person suspected to be Do Kwon had been arrested. Officials contacted in Montenegro by The Block were not immediately able to confirm the information. TerraUSD, the stablecoin created by Terraform Labs and often known by its ticker UST, collapsed in May 2022, wiping out tens of billions of dollars for investors.

Payment restriction in EU anti-money laundering bill irks crypto industry A single article introduced by the European Parliament to the anti-money laundering rule for commercial crypto payments has stirred Europe's digital asset industry. Policymakers hope that they can close a loophole for untraceable transactions by prohibiting payments over a €1,000 ($1,070) threshold from unregulated crypto payment services providers operating in the European Union. The industry, however, worries this addition may stray from the regulatory path already outlined in finalized bills — like the soon-to-be-enforced Markets in Crypto-Assets and the Transfer of Funds Regulation — or hinder innovation in the decentralized finance sector.

Zilliqa To Launch A Fully Compatible Version Of EVM On The Mainnet Layer 1 blockchain Zilliqa stated that it would publish the first EVM fully compliant version on the mainnet on April 25. In December 2022, Zilliqa unveiled the EVM compatibility testnet, enabling smart contracts written in Solidity to be deployed directly on the blockchain and hoping to promote the project to a larger blockchain development community. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a foundational component of Ethereum that powers the blockchain and smart contracts. EVM is the compute engine that allows Ethereum Nodes to maintain copies of transaction data, which the EVM processes to update the distributed ledger. In general, Ethereum nodes naturally support the EVM since the client software implements this functionality. After this testnet implementation, the first full release of EVM compatibility will be brought to the Zilliqa mainnet, which is scheduled to be online on April 25, 2023.

Crypto.com Received Approval From The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulation Authority To Expand Its Crypto Portfolio Crypto.com has been obtained the MVP preparatory license by the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). In order to establish and manage a differentiated, strong, and secure future-proof ecosystem that provides a dynamic global best-in-class VA market with safe cross-border interoperability, the regulatory framework that VARA provides will be essential. This framework will also be vital. According to the official site, Crypto.com announced on March 20 that it has secured the MVP preliminary license from the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulation Authority (VARA). Once licensed, Crypto.com will be able to extend its permitted portfolio of suitably regulated virtual asset operations to include crypto trading services (spot and derivatives), brokerage, margin/leveraged trading, and services centered on institutional investors.

Balaji Bets $1 Million That Bitcoin Will Be Worth $1 Million In 90 Days Balaji, a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency world, recently announced that he is moving $2 million into the stablecoin USDC for a bet. Medlock and another person will join him, and if Bitcoin is worth more than $1 million in 90 days, he wins. The counterparty gets $1 million in USD if it’s worth less. Srinivasan believes that hyperbitcoinization is on the horizon. Srinivasan argues that hyperinflation in BTC vs. USD terms will occur due to the digital nature of our world. He believes that everything will happen very quickly once people realize that the Federal Reserve has lied about how much money there is in the banks. He warns that all dollar holders will be destroyed but says there are sources of forewarning: the long-term depreciation of USD vs. BTC. While some may ignore or mock his prediction, Srinivasan maintains that the digital devaluation of the dollar is imminent and intense.

El Salvador Launches Bitcoin, Lightning Dev Training Office El Salvador’s government has launched another initiative repping its support for Bitcoin adoption and development of the broader network. Plan B was an initiative the Bitcoin Office launched in Lugano, Switzerland last year to facilitate Bitcoin adoption. The city has already made Bitcoin and USDT de facto legal tender, and enabled BTC acceptance with over 150 merchants in the city. The Plan B fellowship will provide the opportunity for El Salvador’s best and brightest computer science students to be trained by the biggest names in bitcoin from around the world,” stated the Office. The lecturers and mentors involved are yet to be announced. The current project will collaborate with the university of Don Bosco in Soyapango, which was recently freed from gang control after Bukele’s brutal crackdown on gang violence that began last year.

Polygon And Avail Split After 3 Years, Co-founder Forms A New Entity Polygon spun out its modular blockchain project Avail into its own company. Anurag Arjun, the co-founder of Avail, departed and purchased the company, and the Avail employees will transition to the new organization. Avail is presently functioning on testnet, with the mainnet set to debut soon. As part of the spin-off, Avail will establish the Avail Foundation, a new non-profit foundation. Polygon is said to have initiated the Avail project in late 2020 and made it public in mid-2021. Avail is a modular blockchain that enables developers to create scalable and flexible apps. Modular blockchains, as opposed to monolithic blockchains, segregate essential operations such as consensus, security, data availability, and execution. Arjun was a co-founder of this initiative earlier. Nevertheless, the purchase of the project by a different entity (owned by Arjun) would formally remove it from Polygon.