Top10 News

1. Silvergate’s weekly summary

a. Silvergate may be poorly capitalized link

Silvergate, a prominent crypto-friendly bank, couldn’t file its annual financial report on time and told the SEC that it may be “less than well-capitalized.” “The company is currently in the process of reevaluating its businesses and strategies in light of the business and regulatory challenges it currently faces,” Silvergate said.

b. Coinbase is no longer accepting or initiating payments to or from Silvergate link

“Coinbase Prime has elected to make changes to our USD banking partners,” the firm said in a message to customers. “We are facilitating fiat withdrawals and deposits using Signature Bank, effective immediately.”

c. Circle: We are sensitive to the concerns around Silvergate link

Circle: We are sensitive to the concerns around Silvergate and are in the process of unwinding certain services with them and notifying customers. We’re continuing longstanding plans to expand our breadth of banking partners.

d. MicroStrategy says it doesn’t have any assets custodied with Silvergate link

MicroStrategy: We have a loan ($205 million) from Silvergate not due until Q1 ’25, the loan wouldn’t accelerate b/c of SI insolvency or bankruptcy. The company has no assets custodied with Silvergate Capital and no other way financially linked to the bank.

2. US economic indicators’ weekly summary

a. US Core PCE Price Index Jumps to 4.7% in January link

The United States announced that the annual rate of the core PCE price index in January was 4.7%, expected to be 4.30%, and the previous was 4.40%, which is a faster-than-expected increase and the largest increase in consumer spending since 2021, two factors that put pressure on policymakers to continue raising interest rates.

b. WSJ: The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rose 5.4% link

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rose 5.4%. The core index rose 4.7%. Both readings were up slightly from those for the 12 months through December. The central bank aims for 2% annual inflation. “Inflation is too high,” said from Fed.

3. Oasis’ weekly summary

a. Jump Crypto recovered the 120,000 ETH stolen during the 2022 Wormhole exploit link

The Sender tricked the Oasis contracts into allowing it to move the collateral and debt from the Exploiter’s vaults into the Sender’s own vaults. Oasis said the assistance was requested by the court.

b. MakerDAO publishes response to Oasis incident link

MakerDao’s response: MakerDAO’s smart contracts are not controlled by the Oasis frontend smart contracts. The recent transactions that changed the ownership of Maker Vault 30100 did not involve any of MakerDAO’s official smart contracts or directions.

c. Oasis releases statement regarding the transactions from the Oasis Multisig link

Oasis’s response: What occurred on 21st was only possible due to a previously unknown vulnerability in the design of the admin multisig access, with the sole intention to protect user assets in the event of any potential attack.

4. Justin Sun’s personal staked ETH has exceeded 303,000 link

On Feb 25, an address labeled as belonging to Justin Sun has staked approximately 150,000 ETH (around $240 million) through Lido to exchange for stETH. Lido has reported the largest daily inflow to date and activated its security function, the Staking Rate Limit. On Feb 27, the address (0x611…DF01) labeled Justin Sun has staked 88,000 ETH ($144m) through Lido. Another address (0x62…b3d8) labeled him has staked over 15,000 ETH ($25m) through Lido. His personal staked ETH has exceeded 303,000, which is about 504 million US dollars.

5. Liquid staking agreements experience significant growth link

In the past month, liquid staking agreements have maintained a good growth rate, with Lido +9.4%, Rocket Pool+16.4%, Frax Ether +29%. The liquid staking agreement surpassed the lending field with $13.96b TVL, becoming the second only agreement category after DEX ($19.37 billion).

6. SEC’s weekly summary

a. Gary Gensler: Almost all crypto transactions fall under SEC jurisdiction link

Gary Gensler said in an interview with NYMAG: pretty much every sort of crypto transaction already falls under the SEC’s jurisdiction except spot transactions in bitcoin itself and the actual purchase or sale of goods or services with cryptos, “everything other than bitcoin”.

b. US SEC cancels Republic Realm Metaverse link

The US SEC canceled the Republic Realm Metaverse, a $75 million metaverse real estate fund launched by Republic in March 2021. The fund is primarily focused on buying virtual real estate in NFT games like Sandbox, Axie Infinity, and Decentraland.

c. Former FTX Co-Lead Engineer charged by SEC with defrauding equity investors link

SEC harged Nishad Singh, the former Co-Lead Engineer of FTX, to defraud equity investors in FTX. The complaint alleges that he created software code that allowed the transfer of FTX client funds to Alameda and he withdrew about $6 million from FTX for personal use.

7. Binance’s weekly summary

a. Binance minted about $130m TUSD in 7 days link

On February 28th, TUSD became the fifth largest stablecoin with a market cap of $1.12b, up 15% over the past 7 days. Binance said it will work with more stablecoin partners.

b. Forbes reports $1.8B transfer from Binance’s B-PEG collateral wallet; Binance denies misusing funds link

Forbes has released a cover story stating that over 1.8 billion US dollars have been transferred from Binance’s B-PEG stablecoin collateral wallet to addresses labeled as Cumberland, Amber, and Justin Sun. Binance responded to this by publishing a blog post stating that the transfers to the addresses associated with Amber Group, Alameda Research, and Justin Sun mentioned in the Forbes article were all made by institutional or individual users of these organizations, and that Binance has never misused user funds. Binance has always maintained a 1:1 reserve of funds for both centralized exchange assets and B-token collateral.

c. US Senators request information from Binance on AML policies and communications link

Three US Senators have written to Binance founder CZ, requesting documents regarding Binance’s anti-money laundering policies and procedures, information about the relationship between global exchanges and its US subsidiary, and disclosure of any communications suspected of restricting compliance. The senators have asked for a response by March 16th.

8. The Sandbox reports phishing email containing malware hyperlinks due to unauthorized access to employee computer link

SandBox is aware that an unauthorized third party had gained access to the computer of an employee. This enabled the third party to access a number of email addresses to which it then sent an email falsely claiming to be from The Sandbox. The email included hyperlinks to malware that may have the ability to remotely install malware on a user’s computer granting it control over the machine and access to the user’s personal information.

9. OKX discovers false advertising by Celestial after CELT price plummets link

After a recent continuous surge in price, CELT’s price plummeted by 35.8% within 24 hours on February 27. OKX tweeted about the CELT price fluctuations, stating that they discovered false advertising by the Celestial project team, and would strengthen restrictions on the use of the OKX brand and consider delisting CELT. OKX subsequently released a statement on the significant price fluctuations of the CELT project and their disposal plan. They found 5 suspicious accounts profiting from the event and immediately froze them. The project team ultimately agreed to refund 1.3 million USDT, and OKX will also donate 1 million USDT from its own funds as an airdrop to compensate affected users.

10. UK banks impose restrictions on cryptocurrencies link

UK Banks are restricting cryptocurrencies. Nationwide is applying daily limits of £5,000 on debit-card purchases of cryptoassets, while its credit cards can no longer be used to buy crypto. HSBC said it barred customers from making crypto purchases via its credit cards from last month. HSBC is also the settlement bank for all banks in Hong Kong, and its harsh attitude towards cryptocurrencies may have an impact on Hong Kong’s new crypto policy.

Fundraising

• DID solutions provider Lifeform closed its Series A funding round at a $100 million valuation led by GeekCartel link

• Singapore-based decentralized exchange DigiFT announced the completion of a US$10.5 million Pre-A round of financing led by Shanda Group link

• Decentralized non-custodial liquidity staking platform Ether.Fi announces completion of $5.3M funding round, led by North Island Ventures and others link

• Health lifestyle app Gosleep based on Arbitrum announces completion of $2M funding round, led by Foresight Ventures link

• Decentralized mobile network service provider REALLY announces completion of $18M seed funding round, led by Polychain link

• Avalon Corp, ex-electronic arts, Sony game developers, announced the completion of a $13 million funding round led by Bitkraft Ventures link

• Few and Far, a Digital Collectibles web3 platform, announced that it has raised $10.5 million in a funding round led by Pantera Capital link

Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.