‘Opt-Out with Bitcoin,’ Says Visa’s Director of Public Policy + More News

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Sead Fadilpašić

Journalist

Sead Fadilpašić

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Sead specializes in writing factual and informative articles to help the public navigate the ever-changing world of crypto. He has extensive experience in the blockchain industry, where he has served...

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June 26, 2023

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Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

Business news

• Andy Yee, senior director of public policy at Visa, tweeted to his followers to “Opt-out with Bitcoin.” This follows a speech made on Thursday by The Federal Reserve Chairman in which he discussed, among other things, permitting inflation to temporarily rise higher than the 2% target. “Jerome Powell’s speech today will be for the history books,” said Yee. “Never in the history of mankind was so much stolen from so many by so few.”
• Global blockchain enterprise Digital Currency Group (DCG), announced it had founded a new crypto-oriented business – Foundry. This company, fully owned by the group, offers institutional expertise, capital, and market intelligence to miners and manufacturers. Announcing the news in a press release, the group said Foundry will provide its clients with the resources to build, maintain, and secure decentralized networks. It will be led by CEO Mike Colyer. DCG will invest an additional USD 100 million into Foundry, it was added.
• Fetch.ai, the company building machine learning tools and infrastructure for the decentralized digital economy, concluded its token sale after 14 seconds. Announcing the news in a press release shared with Cryptonews.com, the company said it sold 1.9 Million FET tokens through Bitfinex Token Sales technology.
• Wasabi Wallet’s CoinJoin algorithm is getting a major overhaul. Announcing the news via Twitter, one of the wallet’s developers that goes under the name Nopara73, said the new protocol design will improve user experience and guarantee better privacy for the CoinJoin transactions.

Exchanges news

• The Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck is mulling the launch of a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace – to allow customers to trade NFTs for cryptoassets such as bitcoin (BTC). NFTs are widely used in the gaming industry, and can also be used in art and collectibles transactions. Per CNet Japan, Coincheck is hoping to launch the new marketplace before the end of the year, although it is yet to finalize its plans.
• Sotaytaichinh.vn team, led by Erik Chu, has won OKEx’s third Elite Trading Team contest, with a 62.08% yield rate, the company confirmed in a press release. The contest, which lasted a month and was wrapped up earlier this week, has had more than 8,000 participants in more than 200 teams, competing for the total prize pool of 150,000 tether (USDT). “The competing teams generated a historic USD 703,658,154 in notional trading volume, which is about seven times the total trading volume of OKEx’s previous Elite Trading Team Contest,” said the exchange.

Blockchain news

• The Chinese tech giant Baidu has registered a number of blockchain patents, per Sina. Baidu is China’s answer to Google and appears keen to link its blockchain products with its already developed cloud operations. The media outlet claims that four newly lodged Baidu patents pertain to a blockchain-powered storage solution, “a blockchain key processing system,” a “blockchain-powered transfer solution” and a smart contract-processing system.
• The South Korean travel platform Yanolja is set to roll out token and blockchain-powered decentralized, digital ID (DID) services, per Tech M and Hanguk Kyungjae. The firm will team up with blockchain specialist Milk and crypto exchange Bithumb for the new business drive, which will allow Yanolja customers to prove their identity using smartphone-based apps or blockchain-powered terminals – and will reward customers with blockchain-based token incentives.

Crime news

• The US Department of Justice (DoJ) filed a civil forfeiture complaint through which it seeks to gain access to 280 cryptocurrency wallets. According to the complaint, the wallets are North Korean in origin and belong to cybercriminals linked with two hacks of crypto exchanges. The DoJ believes these wallets hold more than USD 250 million in stolen and laundered cryptocurrency.
• A Russian national, 27-year-old Pavel Kriuchkov, has been arrested in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and accused of conspiring to commit fraud, Teslarati reported and electric car maker Tesla confirmed. He allegedly tried to recruit a Tesla employee and pay them up to a million dollars to install ransomware on the company’s servers, while an advance payment was supposed to be paid into the staffer’s Bitcoin (BTC) wallet. The employee told Tesla, who tipped off the FBI and worked together with the law enforcement agency to get evidence on record. The FBI unsealed the criminal complaint against Kriuchkov.