Former United States Treasury Criminal Investigator Greg Monahan joined major cryptocurrency exchange Binance to oversee the company’s international Anti-Money Laundering (AML) efforts, the exchange announced on Wednesday. Before replacing Karen Leong as the global money laundering reporting officer at Binance, Monahan worked for the U.S. Treasury for almost 20 years as a member of the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit. He was mainly responsible for tax, money laundering and other related financial crime investigations. He also held a brief position at Deloitte as a senior manager, according to his professional profile. Reminding previous efforts of the exchange to support …

Artificial intelligence research lab Fetch.ai has been granted a request to have major cryptocurrency exchange Binance identify individuals behind a $2.6 million hack. According to a Friday Reuters report, the Royal Courts of Justice in London has ordered Binance to identify the hackers and seize the stolen assets. Fetch.ai reportedly claimed that hackers stole $2.6 million worth of cryptocurrency from its Binance account on June 6 and resold the tokens for a significantly reduced price. "We need to dispel the myth that crypto assets are anonymous," said Syedur Rahman, a partner from Fetch.ai's legal team at Rahman Ravelli. "The reality …

Binance has halted Korean won (KRW) trading pairs as part of a raft of changes to its operations in South Korea. In a notice issued on Friday, the crypto exchange giant announced the discontinuation of KRW trading pairs as well as KRW payment options on its service. Other features discontinued include Korean language support on its website and merchant applications for peer-to-peer transactions (P2P) in South Korea. As part of the announcement, Binance also advised P2P traders to remove all trade advertisements denominated in KRW from the platform. Detailing the reason for the decision, Binance said that it was proactively …

These transfers have occurred across the three wallets associated with the Poly Network hacker across the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Polygon networks. Poly Network confirmed receipt of the returned funds via a tweet issued on Tuesday. Details from Etherscan show that $2 million worth of Shiba Inu (SHIB) and $616,000 in Fei USD (FEI) tokens are being returned. So far, we have received a total value of $4,772,297.675 assets returned by the hacker. ETH address: $2,654,946.051 BSC address: $1,107,870.815 Polygon address: $1,009,480.809 pic.twitter.com/bPFAQk4mvS — Poly Network (@PolyNetwork2) August 11, 2021 Data from BscScan also shows the hacker returning …

India’s regulatory uncertainties have not affected the investor’s sentiment toward crypto as the latest data from crypto exchanges suggests a rising influx of users. Binance-owned Indian crypto exchange WazirX reported 2,648% growth to date in user signups from smaller cities across India, also known as tier-II and tier-III cities, which can host up to 100,000 citizens. The Mumbai-based exchange reported: “Tier-II and tier-III cities have driven almost 55% of total user signups on WazirX in 2021.” The data also highlighted a rise in the number of female investors and enthusiasts across the country. Out of all the signups attributed to …

The cryptocurrency market has continued a solid bullish trend in early August, with the total market capitalization nearing $2 trillion. According to data from crypto data aggregator CoinGecko, the total crypto market cap broke the $1.9-trillion mark on Monday, retouching this level for the first time since May 18. Starting July 19, cryptocurrency markets recorded a notable rise, with market value surging nearly $700 billion. The market is still down roughly $700 billion from the all-time high of $2.5 trillion recorded on May 11. In line with the strong recovery trend, major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) …

Hybrid crypto-fiat platform Alchemy Pay announced Monday that the company would be launching virtual crypto-linked cards accepting more than 40 cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC). The new cards can be linked to Google Pay and PayPal digital wallets and make payments across the Mastercard and Visa networks, as well as popular e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay. According to the announcement, Alchemy Pay has already completed the product’s development and launched beta testing in multiple key markets. The firm expects to proceed with a full roll-out of the new product at the end of 2021 or early 2022. The …

After serving as the chief executive officer of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance.US for less than four months, Brian Brooks announced Friday he would be stepping down — a move that was greeted with confusion and suspicion from the crypto community. Citing “differences over strategic direction,” the now-former CEO said he had already resigned his position at Binance’s U.S. arm. Brooks had been leading the crypto exchange since replacing former CEO Catherine Coley on May 1. Greetings #crypto community. Letting you all know that I have resigned as CEO of ⁦⁦⁦@BinanceUS⁩ . Despite differences over strategic direction, I wish my former …

Over the last 10 years, Bitcoin (BTC) has performed exceptionally well as a store of value and for speculative investment purposes. However, a lot of this can be attributed to its decentralized nature, which could have resulted in regulators and governments worldwide making attempts to shut it down long before it ever took off. Governments are evidently perturbed by the potential impact digital assets could have on national economies. However, while legislators are unlikely to find ways to shut down decentralized networks permanently, they can block access to the centralized platforms interacting with digital assets. Recently, top global cryptocurrency exchange …

Stepping up efforts to minimize the inherent risks of trading cryptocurrency, major crypto exchange Binance has announced it would restrict access to derivatives products to Hong Kong users. The official announcement reads: “Users from Hong Kong will have a 90 days’ grace period to close their open positions. During the grace period, no new positions may be opened.” However, Binance’s proactive means to restrict Hong Kong users was not supported by a date of when the restrictions will be imposed. To provide clarity behind Binance’s latest restrictions, CEO Changpeng Zhao said the move is aimed to be a “proactive measure” …

In what seems like an ongoing streak toward market penetration, prominent crypto exchange FTX has launched support for Binance Smart Chain BEP-20 tokens within its wallet services. While no official announcement was made, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed the development by saying: “Ftx.com/wallet now supports BSC for BUSD and BNB! (Withdrawals are live — I *think* deposits are; otherwise they will be very soon.)” Based on the information available, FTX wallets now actively support withdrawals for Binance USD (BUSD) and Binance Coin (BNB), both native to the Binance Chain. The company will soon enable users to make deposits via BSC …

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volumes, continues actively expanding into the crypto payments industry through a new crypto-to-fiat integration. The company announced Tuesday a partnership with crypto-fiat hybrid payment platform Alchemy Pay to enable peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto payments at over 2 million global merchants through its payments application Binance Pay. The new integration will allow users and merchants to pay and accept payments using 40 supported cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) in 18 countries where Alchemy Pay operates. Binance Pay users will be able to pay across merchants of Alchemy Pay’s partners, including e-commerce …