This week, the crypto industry has witnessed some mixed developments. While the regulatory agencies are taking stringent measures against the top crypto exchanges, the hackers are also attempting to harm these entities. Nonetheless, irrespective of such a prevailing situation, the crypto platforms are progressing with new licenses, partnerships, and so on.
Lazarus Group of North Korea Makes Another Attack to Steal Crypto of $100M Worth
The Lazarus Group of North Korea has allegedly swindled above $100M in crypto. The notorious state-backed cybercriminal group has severally been accused of huge crypto heists in the past. The current incident adds one more instance to the list of prominent cyber-attacks carried out by the organization. The latest attack was aimed at an Estonian entity. The London-based Elliptic (a blockchain analytics platform) researched this issue. As per the analytics firm, more than 5,500 wallets got influenced by the attack.
Additionally, the North Korean hacker organization has been associated with the utilization of money-laundering services like Sinbad Mixer for obfuscating the funds collected via illegal operations. Elliptic is of the view that Lazarus Group is involved in the recent BTC theft of Atomic Wallet. Following that, some analogous attacks targeted Horizon Bridge and resulted in a theft of $100M last year.
Polygon Collaborates with Flipkart and Hang to Launch an Exclusive Loyalty Project
The well-known software solution-offering platform Polygon has recently initiated a partnership with a top Indian loyalty entity Flipkart and Hang (an easy-to-use platform for the development of membership projects. The project’s focus would be on including several latest clients in the Web3 world. On its official Twitter channel, Polygon disclosed that the project would likely provide elevated brand loyalty via gamification.
The company thinks that the project would revolutionize brand loyalty endeavours by involving the community and the fundamental NFT technology. By integrating Web3 and NFT technologies into the projects related to brand loyalty, the firm attempts to enhance brand marketing. In addition to this, the project would likely enhance the consumer experience.
Celsius Reviews Bankruptcy Strategy in Line with the Latest Agreement
The famous bankrupt crypto lending firm Celsius has filed a reviewed bankruptcy strategy. This news comes after a successful asset bid made by the Fahrenheit consortium. The respective consortium consisted of diverse purchasers taking into account Arrington Capital (a venture capital company) and US Bitcoin Corp (a mining platform).
The consortium emerged as the effective bidder last month. On the other hand, a lawyer named David Adler from McCarter & English opposed the proposed treatment on Twitter. He noted that this infringes several customer lending laws. He represents the borrowers who are displeased with the failure of Celsius in returning their collateral.
Binance Leaves Netherlands Due to Its Failure to Getting a VASP License
Binance, the top crypto exchange, has declared to quit the Netherlands. This difficult decision has been taken by the platform amid a troublesome situation being faced by it. The US SEC has sued it due to its failure in getting a VASP license from the regional regulators. That license validates the firm’s compliance with the AML guidelines.
While expressing regret for the unfortunate decision, Binance announced that no deposits, trades, or purchases will be allowed by it. The clients will only be permitted to extract their assets. This event is witnessed after the submission of a lawsuit against Binance by the SEC that claims that the company has allegedly offered unregistered securities.
BIS Joins Project Rosalind of the Bank of England to Link Private Sector and Central Banks for CBDC Retail Payments
A prototype API layer has been developed by Project Rosalind which is a mutual initiative carried out by the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub Long Center. The respective API layer focuses on facilitating the systems for retail CBDCs. The purpose of the respective initiative is to link the infrastructure provided by the private sector as well as the central banks.
With this mutual combination, the project endeavours to use an extensive as well as universal API layer to enable unparalleled CBDC payments. The project remained successful in detecting up to 30 use cases dealing with retail CBDCs. The respective use cases take into account a broad range of domains to facilitate businesses and individuals.
SEC and Binance Strike a Contract on Provisional Crypto Asset Control Actions
A provisional contract has recently been reached by Binance the US SEC and Binance.US. In line with that agreement, just Binance.US will be able to reach the client funds. The proposed accords take into account stringent regulations that restrict Binance from reaching the wallets or hardware wallets’ private keys and the Amazon Web Services tools offered by Binance.US.
Apart from that, the crypto exchange also needs to reveal comprehensive information dealing with its business costs in the upcoming weeks. The proposed accord comes as a response to SEC’s motion in which the regulator says that Binance.US’ complete assets should be halted. The motion was severely opposed by the legal team of Binance.US.
