DeFI News by Thebittimes.Com

A day back it was revealed that a handful of wallets connected to the now-defunct Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX abruptly moved 104 Bitcoins [BTC] out of cold storage. The said move was the first in more than three years. As pointed out in our article yesterday, the transfers were not started by Ernst and Young (EY), QuadrigaCX’s bankruptcy trustee. The Big 4 accounting firm issued a statement on its part a few hours back. It acknowledged that it has “become aware” of the unauthorized movement of Bitcoin. It clarified, “ Ernst & Young Inc. acting in its capacity as court appointed Monitor and subsequently as Trustee in Bankruptcy worked with management and others to recover the bitcoin transferred to these wallets. However, the private k EY s associated with the cold wallets have not been located despite the detailed review.” Re-confirming that EY did not initiate the transfers, the statement noted, “The locked bitcoin r...

Demand for leverage buying remains absent in ETH despite the recent bounce to $1,200 as the U.S. Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates. Ether (ETH) gained 5.6% on Dec. 20 after testing the $1,150 support the previous day. Still, a bearish trend prevails, forming a three-week-long descending channel, a price action attributed to expectations of further U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Ether/USD price index, 12-hour. Source: TradingView Jim Bianco, head of institutional research firm Bianco Research, said on Dec. 20 that the Fed will keep the economy tightening in 2023. Later that day, Japan’s central bank increased interest rates to fight inflation, far later than its counterparties. The unexpected move made analysts more bearish toward risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. Ethereum might have caught some tailwind after the global payment processor Visa proposed a solution to allow automatic funding from Ethereum wallets. Auto-payments for recurring bills aren’t ...

Axelar $60M Ecosystem Funding has been launched to support early projects who can lead Web3. As an infrastructure project providing secure interchain communication, Axelar sees some of the most innovative and compelling projects in Web3. Developers building on Axelar commits to delivering products that can reach mass adoption, without requiring users to switch between blockchains. Furthermore, developers building on Axelar is excited about the permissionless composability afforded in interchain development. They know that it means they can collaborate globally, using open-source code and decentralized networks, circumventing interminable business development cycles, and using each others’ code like LEGOs. Decentralized Infrastructure Developers building on Axelar demand decentralized infrastructure. They’re not willing to have their networks permissioned, potentially held hostage, or hacked through multisigs. They have the vision and the ability to build applications that convey the gu...

Armstrong said that because centralized exchanges and custodians have the most risk of causing consumer harm, regulators must focus there first and foremost. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has pushed for stricter regulations on centralized crypto actors , but says de centralized protocols should be allowed to flourish given that open-source code and smart contracts are alrea“the ultimate form of disclosure.” Armstrong shared his views on cryptocurrency regulation in a Dec. 20 Coinbase blog where he proposed how regulators can help “restore trust” and move the industry forward as the market continues to recover from the damage done by FTX and its shock collapse. But decentralized protocols aren’t part of that equation, the Coinbase CEO emphasized. “Decentralized arrangements do not involve intermediaries [and] open-source code and smart contracts are “the ultimate form of disclosure,” Armstrong explained, adding that on-chain, “transparency is built in by default” in a “cryptographical...

Unlike traditional financial markets, the crypto markets trade 24/7 without any rest, meaning that it is impossible to constantly be awake and ready to catch the latest developments.  The global nature of the crypto industry means that anything can happen at any time, anywhere in the world.  This, amongst many other reasons, mean that the crypto markets can be notoriously difficult to trade.  However, there is a new project, currently in its presale, that is revolutionising the space of crypto trading.  Automate trading strategies with Dash 2 Trade Dash 2 Trade, which has now raised over $10.1m in the presale of its D2T token, is designed to make it easier than ever to trade the crypto markets.  In addition to offering a variety of signals to their users (making it easier to gauge technical Analysis and social sentiment), the Dash 2 Trade platform makes it easy for traders to be able to automate their own trading strategies .  This mea...

Source: Helloimmorgan / Twitter The recently-released non-fungible token (NFT) collection by the controversial figure and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, is being heavily criticized over its poor quality and editing, potential AI generation, and using brand-owned and stock images - among other things.  There are two major accusations leveled against Trump and the team behind the collection: the images used for the collection were taken directly from the internet, created by other people, and are of poor quality; the photoshop is badly done, or an AI image generator was used. For example, there is an image of Trump as a duck hunter (or something akin to it), in an outfit very similar to the Branded "ASPIRE Collection – CATALYST All-Season Breathable Wader".  Besides allegedly using brands' outfits in the collection, there are accusations that Shutterstock images were used as well. Not only that, but the job was so badly done ...

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty target is expected to increase on Dec. 19, 2022, after printing the largest reduction recorded in 2022 on Dec. 5, at block height 766,080. During the last 2,016 blocks, Bitcoin’s hashrate has been around 254.3 exahash per second (EH/s), and block intervals have been faster at 9:41 minutes per block. Bitcoin’s Difficulty Expected to Jump 3% Higher on Dec. 19, Bitcoin Average Mining Costs Are Higher Than the Current Spot Market Value In roughly 24 hours, the Bitcoin network will experience another difficulty transition, and this time around it is estimated to increase. The increase is estimated to be around 3.2% to 3.76% higher than the current 34.24 trillion value. The rise would lift the 34.24 trillion to around 35.53 trillion on or around Dec. 19, 2022. Data shows that while the network’s difficulty is increasing, BTC’s hashrate has been lower than the month prior. Bitcoin’s hashrate did tap a high of 316 EH/s on ...