Blockchain

The philanthropic arm of Binance — Binance Charity — is set to fund 30,65 scholarships to students keen on forging out a career in Web3 in 2023. The Binance Charity Scholar Program (BCSP) will provide free Web3 education and training courses which will enable tech-savvy students to upskill without having to leap-frog any unnecessary financial

Crypto will play a “major role” in the United Arab Emirates’ global trade moving forward, says the UAE’s minister of state for foreign trade Thani Al-Zeyoudi. Speaking with Bloomberg on Jan. 20 in Davos Switzerland — where world leaders are currently gathered for the 2023 World Economic Forum — Al-Zeyoudi provided a host of updates

China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — the digital yuan, or eCNY — has received upgrades giving it smart contract functionality alongside a series of newly unveiled use cases. The smart contract function was launched on the Meituan app, a Chinese app offering retail and food delivery services, according to a Jan. 17 report by

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expects the firm’s long-running dispute with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will be finalized within “single-digit months” and remains confident in securing a favorable outcome. Speaking to CNBC on Jan. 18 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Garlinghouse said the verdict could come as soon as June this year

The share price of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has surged by 69% since its all time lows and other crypto-related stocks including business intelligence firm MicroStrategy have recorded similar jumps with green candles all around since the start of 2023. The share price of Coinbase fell as low as $31.95 on Jan. 6, before shooting up

The liquidators of Alameda Research have reportedly incurred at least $11.5 million in losses since taking control of Alameda’s trading accounts. On Jan. 16, a Twitter thread from Arkham Intelligence reported that one wallet under the control of liquidators has seen a string of “significant losses” due to liquidations, some of which were “preventable losses.”

Bank of Thailand has disclosed plans to allow virtual banks to operate in the country for the first time. Financial firms will be able to provide services by 2025, a Bloomberg report shows.  The “Consultation Paper on Virtual Bank Licensing Framework” published by the central bank says that applications will be available later in 2023

Solana Foundation, the non-profit organization of the Solana Network, disclosed on Jan. 14 a security incident involving its email service provider Mailchimp.  According to an email sent to users and seen by Cointelegraph, the Foundation was informed by Mailchimp on Jan. 12 that “an unauthorized actor accessed and exported certain user data from the Solana

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization reached its highest level in over two months on Jan. 13 after breaking above the $900 billion mark on Jan. 12. While the 15.5% year-to-date gain sounds promising, the level is still 50% below the $1.88 trillion crypto market cap seen before the Terra-Luna ecosystem collapsed in April 2022. Crypto

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Huobi’s disgruntled employees According to local media reports, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global has terminated all year-end employee bonuses and benefits, as well as axed its entire core development staff located in mainland China. The laid-off staff will be instead switched to

Miami-Dade County will soon start to remove FTX’s advertising brand from the NBA’s Miami Heat arena, after granting the right from a United States bankruptcy judge in Delaware on Jan. 11, the Associated Press reports.   County officials negotiated in 2021 a $135 million deal with the crypto exchange for renaming rights to the Miami Heat’s

Web3 accelerator Beacon has wrapped up its first cohort with 13 graduating companies and has provided a venue for project founders to demo their blockchain-based startups.  Beacon’s first 12-week cohort, dubbed Cohort 0, kicked off in October with 15 companies across various cryptocurrency subsectors, including decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming and infrastructure. Beacon held a demo

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed suit against self-described digital artist Avraham Eisenberg on Jan. 9, charging him with two counts of market manipulation in connection with an exploit of decentralized finance platform Mango Markets. Eisenberg was arrested on related charges on Dec. 27 and is currently in custody. The CFTC claimed

Mexico’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) development is still in an initial phase, and it is unlikely to be ready for launch by 2024.  According to local media reports, Mexico’s central bank, known as Banxico, is currently working on legal, administrative, and technological requirements for the peso’s digital version. The first of three stages for

Top Stories This Week Sam Bankman-Fried enters not guilty plea for all counts in federal court Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to the collapse of the crypto exchange, including wire fraud and securities fraud. He faces eight criminal counts, which could result in 115 years in prison

Undoubtedly, 2022 was one of the worst years for Bitcoin (BTC) buyers, primarily because the asset’s price dropped by 65%. While there were some explicit reasons for the drop, such as the LUNA-UST crash in May and the FTX implosion in November, the most important reason was the U.S. Federal Reserve policy of tapering and

European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Fabio Panetta has been a vocal supporter of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and cryptocurrency sceptic, and he presented his latest argument for CBDC on Jan. 5. Writing on the official ECB blog, he said that, by developing CBDCs, central banks “will safeguard the trust on which private

Digital assets funds saw inflows totaling $433 million during 2022, the lowest level since 2018, when inflows in the crypto industry reached $233 million, according to the cryptocurrency investment firm Coinshares.  Investors’ appetite for digital assets seems not to have been fully affected by the crypto winter, but otherwise encouraged investments in crypto assets in