Lending news-Page 4
Crypto lender Matrixport seeks $100M funding despite lending crisis
Matrixport, the cryptocurrency firm founded by Bitmain co-founder Wu Jihan, is in the process of raising $100 million funding despite the ongoing crypto market crisis. Lead investors have already committed $50 million for Matrixport’s new funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 25. The deal has yet to be finalized as Matrixport is still looking for investors for the other half of the round. We're excited and look forward to engaging with participants, on similar terms, in the other half of the #funding round. Appreciate the trust and confidence our investors continue have in Team #Matrixport.@business …
Bitcoin / Nov. 25, 2022
Crypto lender Hodlnaut reportedly faces police investigation in Singapore
Singapore-based crypto lender Hodlnaut is reportedly facing a police probe over alleged offenses of cheating and fraud. According to reports published in local media, the police's commercial affairs department has launched an investigation into the founders of the exchange based on multiple complaints against the platform between August and November 2022. The Singapore police noted that the majority of complaints revolve around false representations and misinformation regarding the company’s exposure to a certain digital token. Police also advised investors impacted by the Hodlnaut crisis to file a complaint online and submit verifiable documents of their transaction histories on the platform. …
Blockchain / Nov. 24, 2022
Celsius had 'insufficient' accounting and operational controls, says examiner
The independent examiner in crypto lender Celsius’ bankruptcy case has alleged that the company failed to set up “sufficient” accounting and operational controls in its handling of customer funds. In an interim report released on Nov. 19, examiner Shoba Pillay made a number of stark observations in her court-appointed investigation into the bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform. One of the main revelations in Pillay’s report was that Celsius’ “Custody” program was launched “without sufficient accounting and operational controls or technical infrastructure,” which allowed shortfalls in Custody wallets to be funded from its other holdings. “[...] no effort was made to segregate …
Blockchain / Nov. 21, 2022
$600M in Bitcoin options expire on Friday, giving bears reason to pin BTC under $16K
No one can blame Bitcoin (BTC) bulls for placing bets at $20,000 and higher for the $600 million weekly options expiry on Nov. 18. After all, this level had provided a solid resistance since Oct. 25 and held for almost two weeks. However, the base scenario changed abruptly on Nov. 8 after a liquidity crisis halted withdrawals on the FTX exchange. The movement surprised traders and over a 48-hour timespan, over $290 million in leverage buyers were liquidated. The market quickly adjusted to the news, ranging from $15,800 to $17,800 for the past seven days. At the moment, investors are …
Bitcoin / Nov. 17, 2022
The FTX contagion: Which companies were affected by the FTX collapse?
While the FTX collapse may have had a severe effect on the broader crypto market, some companies bore the brunt of the impact and were directly hit by the storm that the embattled crypto exchange brought. Here are some of the affected companies that Cointelegraph tracked up to Nov. 17, 2022. Genesis Institutional trading firm Genesis announced on Nov. 11 that it had $175 million in locked funds within the firm's trading account in FTX. However, the company noted that this does not have an impact on its market-making activities. Furthermore, the trading firm clarified that this exposure is not …
Business / Nov. 17, 2022
Orthogonal Credit alleged key weaknesses in Alameda's due diligence early in 2022
Orthogonal Credit, an arm of the digital asset hedge fund Orthogonal Trading, disclosed on Nov. 9 it pushed to close Alameda Research's dedicated borrower pool on Maple Finance in the second quarter of this year, after identifying "key weaknesses" in a due diligence. On Twitter, the company announced it had identified a number of key weaknesses during a due diligence earlier this year — specifically, declining asset quality and unclear capital policy, among other reasons. The assessment led the firm to push Maple Finance to halt Alameda loans in May, after issuing $288 million in loans in a pool dedicated …
Business / Nov. 9, 2022
Southeast Asia and DeFi’s Big Bet on the Unbanked
In one of the more striking early scenes from P.T. Anderson’s 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, there is a gas explosion that destroys the drilling rig set up by oil tycoon Daniel Plainview. Noticing one of his employees observing the situation dejectedly, Plainview rebukes the man, saying: “What are you looking so miserable about? There’s a whole ocean of oil under our feet. No one can get at it except for me!” Access to and possession of that oil would catapult Plainview, like it did many of his real-world counterparts, to the highest stratosphere of wealth. These days, rather …
Asia / Nov. 7, 2022
How to earn passive crypto income with Ethereum?
The cryptocurrency market is incredibly volatile, which can be both good and bad for investors and traders. Volatility creates opportunities for making profits, but it can also lead to losses. Passive income strategies, however, could be handy in offsetting these losses. Passive income strategies offer investors and traders opportunities to earn profits, even during challenging market conditions such as bear markets. For those investing in Ether (ETH), or any crypto in general, earning passive crypto income provides a way to cover market crashes and downturns. READ ALSO How to earn passive crypto income in a bear market? by Arnold Kirimi …
Trading / Oct. 29, 2022
Singapore MAS proposes to ban cryptocurrency credits
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is introducing proposals to better regulate the cryptocurrency industry in the aftermath of the bankruptcy of the Singaporean crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). The central bank of Singapore has issued two consultation papers on proposals for regulating the operations of digital payment token service providers (DPTSP) and stablecoin issuers under the Payment Services Act. Published on Oct. 26, both consultation papers aim to reduce risks to consumers from crypto trading and improve standards of stablecoin-related transactions. The first document includes proposals for digital payment token (DPT) services or services related to major …
Bitcoin / Oct. 26, 2022
After Mango Market exploit, Compound pauses four tokens to protect against price manipulation
Decentralized lending protocol Compound has paused the supply of four tokens as lending collateral on its platform, aiming to protect users against potential attacks involving price manipulation, similar to the recent $117 million exploit from Mango Market's, according to a proposal on Compound's governance forum. With the pause, users will not be able to deposit yearn finance (YFI), 0x (ZRX), basic attention token (BAT) and maker (MKR) tokens as collateral to take loans. The proposal passed on Oct. 25 with 99% of all voters in favor. It stated: "An oracle manipulation-based attack analogous to the one that cost Mango Markets …
Altcoin / Oct. 25, 2022
Moola Market attacker returns most of $9M looted for $500K bounty
An attacker has returned just over 93% of the more than $9 million worth of cryptocurrencies they exploited from the Celo (CELO) blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Moola Market. At around 6PM UTC on Oct. 18 the Moola Market team tweeted it was investigating an incident and had paused all activity, adding it had contacted authorities and offered a bug bounty to the exploiter if funds were returned within 24 hours. Analysis of the exploit by Web3 security company Hacken shows the attacker manipulated the price of the protocols’ low-liquidity native MOO token by initially purchasing around $45,000 worth …
Defi / Oct. 19, 2022
Voyager Digital won’t sue its executives for incompetence, will claim insurance on them
Voyager Digital has preferred not sue its top executives for incompetence, in spite of their role in approving a huge loan to Three Arrows Capital (3AC) without adequate due diligence. That loan was a key element leading to Voyager Digital’s bankruptcy. Court papers filed Oct. 17 show that a Voyager Digital internal special committee has proposed that CEO Stephen Ehrlich and chief commercial officer (formerly chief financial officer) Evan Psaropolous keep their jobs and not be sued. The court filing describes the due diligence process for the 3AC loan: “On February 13, 2022, 3AC provided Voyager with a statement signed …
Business / Oct. 18, 2022