'Recycle to Earn' was the motto presented by Eric Vogel earlier this month while pitching his startup at the European Blockchain Convention, decades after he started recycling plastics and cans from his grandmother's house to earn extra money for a Game Boy. Vogel's love for video games and increasing interest in the impact of recycling in the world are behind his inspiration for Circularr, a London-based company seeking to connect recyclers, manufacturers, and brands throughout a decentralized recycling ecosystem. Proper recycling is a growing challenge.According to the Plastic Waste Makers Index, recycling across the world is not expanding fast enough …

Citizens Trust Bank, a financial institution regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has partnered with Circle Internet Financial to hold some of its reserves in USD Coin (USDC) — a move the companies said would promote financial inclusion and digital literacy in the greater Atlanta area. On Feb. 24, Circle announced the Atlanta-based Citizens Trust Bank would hold $65 million in USDC reserves as part of a broader collaboration between the two companies. The bank’s USDC reserves will provide small businesses with access to capital and be used for other financial inclusion initiatives. Citizens Trust’s president and chief …

Sergey Vasylchuk, the chief executive officer of staking provider Everstake, said the company is continuing to move forward despite the continuing military conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Exactly one year ago today — Feb. 24, 2022 — Russian military forces invaded many areas of Ukraine in what has become one of the biggest conflicts in modern Europe since World War II. In the last twelve months, more than 8,000 civilians have died, many Ukrainian cities have been shelled with at least one almost leveled, and the country continues to be at risk of missile attack and ground invasions. Vasylchuk said …

Binance Australia Derivatives sent an abrupt message to a select group of users on Feb. 23, saying it would be immediately closing their accounts due to a false classification of some users as “wholesale clients.” This incident caused a flurry of responses from users on social media, and the next day, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced it would be conducting a “targeted review” of Binance's local derivatives operations. According to a statement from a spokesperson of the regulator on Feb. 24, the review of Binance Australia Derivatives will include the company’s “classification of retail clients and wholesale …

Australian residents have been identified as one the primary targets of a sophisticated network of cryptocurrency call-center scammers — which are suspected to be run by Israel-based crime bosses. Evidence uncovered after a full-scale raid of four Serbian call centers and 11 residences by Serbian, German, Bulgarian and Cypriot authorities found that Australians were among the top countries being targeted. The raids saw fifteen people arrested and $1.46 million in cryptocurrencies seized, among others. Dramatic police raids in Belgrade, Bulgaria and Cyprus, following investigations in Germany, have uncovered evidence Australia is in the top tier of countries being targeted: https://t.co/zWv7I3N5Kg …

The Ethereum community appears to have taken a bullish view of Coinbase’s newly announced layer-2 network, Base, which has been described as a “massive confidence vote” and a “watershed moment” for the blockchain network. Secured on Ethereum and powered by layer-2 network Optimism, Base aims to eventually become a network for building decentralized applications (DApps) on the blockchain. The layer-2 network is currently in its testnet phase, according to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. 0/ Hello world. Meet Base, an Ethereum L2 that offers a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build decentralized apps. Our goal with Base is …

Jack Dorsey’s payment company Block Inc. reported $1.83 billion of Bitcoin (BTC) revenue from its Cash App business unit in the fourth quarter, representing a 7% fall from the same time last year. In its Q4 and full-year results announced on Feb. 23, Block cited the fall in Bitcoin revenue to the decline in BTC price in the year — which fell approximately 65% throughout 2022. This fall in revenue led to a 25% year-on-year drop in Bitcoin gross profit for Cash App, which fell to $35 million in the quarter. Cash App is a mobile phone payment processing app …

On Feb. 22, cryptocurrency exchange MEXC Global released its proof-of-reserves (PoR) snapshot after 45 days of testing. In a document seen by Cointelegraph, MEXC claimed its reserve ratios for Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH) were 120.70%, 240.18%, 116.50%, and 110.53%, respectively via the Merke Tree method. As of the date of snapshot on Feb. 10, MEXC held 232.4 million USDT, 33.0 million USDC, 1,869.0 BTC, and 12,472.0 ETH in custodied user assets. Meanwhile, the total assets held within MEXC wallets for the four coins were 280.6 USDT, 79.4 million USDC, 2177.5 BTC, and 13,785.6 ETH, …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Platypus disclosed details of a recent $9.1 million exploit, alongside efforts to recover the funds, and a compensation plan for victims. In a Medium post on Feb. 23, the company revealed that a logic error in the USP solvency check mechanism within the collateral-holding contract was responsible for the three separate attacks carried out by the same exploiter. Stableswap's operations have not been affected, said Platypus. Since the attack, we've been working with security experts & stakeholders to recover lost funds, trace the hacker, and explore potential solutions to retrieve trapped funds. Here's an update on …

Bankrupt crypto firm FTX’s subsidiary in Japan has reported thousands moved from the exchange since resuming withdrawals on Feb. 21. In a Feb. 22 announcement, FTX Japan said users of the exchange and those at Liquid Global had withdrawn roughly 6.6 billion yen — $50 million at the time of publication — in cryptocurrency and fiat. According to the crypto firm, 7,026 account holders had moved funds from FTX Japan to Liquid and there were 5,697 transactions involving cryptocurrencies and 1,947 instances of users withdrawing fiat. The crypto firm said on Feb. 20 in order to process withdrawals, FTX Japan …

In a dispute that originated Feb. 22, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) Onchain Trade and Camelot terminated an agreement for the former's initial fair offering (IFO), with both firms alleging that the opposing counterparty acted in bad faith. An IFO, whilst still an emerging concept, typically involves promises made by developers consisting of no venture capitalist involvement, no whitelist, no presale, and vast majority of income going to token holders, on top of a traditional initial coin offering. As told by Onchain, developers began negotiations with Camelot for an IFO, for which the latter charged a fee of 2%, and both parties …

In this week’s episode of Market Talks, Cointelegraph welcomes Brenda Gentry, or as she’s known on Twitter, Cryptomom. Gentry has over 15 years of experience in traditional banking. She started researching and investing in cryptocurrencies during the 2020 lockdowns and made substantial returns in 2021 after which she launched Gentry Media Productions. She is currently on a mission to introduce more women and minorities to Web3, decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). We kick things off with a report from the Bank of International Settlements, which found that the median retail investor lost 50% of their Bitcoin (BTC) investment …