In a letter addressed to all of their employees, then published transparently on their website, the leaders of Bitpanda announced this sad news by detailing the various reasons that brought this situation.

Since its inception, the Austrian company’s stated goal has been to build a successful and competitive investment platform in Europe and beyond.

As a preamble to its decision, it would like to recall that its service allows for the safe and seamless exchange of crypto currencies. The will to continue this mission and to satisfy customers has finally convinced Bitpanda of the necessity of this decision.

Bitpanda is laying off a third of its workforce to preserve its business

Recently, many well-known companies have had to resort to laying off a portion of their employees. Usually the reasons are quite similar and Bitpanda is no exception.

In this letter, the founders of Bitpanda believe that they “were at a point where adding new employees was not making the company more efficient. On the contrary, coordination overhead was being created, especially with the new market reality. As a result, the speed of hiring was not sustainable in the long run. They recognized that they had made a strategic mistake.

In fact, it became inevitable to make fundamental changes to the way the company operates. From now on, Bitpanda wants to focus on “security and compliance, user experience, education and community” while remaining a self-funded company that does not require outside funding.

In light of FTX’s recent financial support for various companies in the industry, this explanation is reassuring about Bitpanda’s financial stability after this restructuring.

Read more about: Alameda provides aid to crypto companies

Bitpanda reduces its workforce to just 730 employees

Due to the current uncertainty in the financial markets, and while aware of the cyclical nature of this market, Bitpanda wants to guard against an overly long bear market.

Despite the reassuring tone on the long-term sustainability of the company, this letter cannot erase the social drama following the job cuts. Indeed, Bitpanda has gone from more than 1000 employees to only 730 people working for it.

Nevertheless, the company wants to create a supportive environment for the laid-off employees. For example, the Bitpanda Talent Connect Hub should allow former employees to access dedicated workshops or to meet potential future employers.

Finally, the psychological side will be paramount to manage and moral support will also be implemented to support the company’s former employees.

The article Crypto: Bitpanda fires a third of its employees appeared first on Coin Academy.

After Celsius, which has suspended its exchange and withdrawal services for 11 days now, it is now the turn of the CoinFLEX crypto platform to have to implement these very restrictive devices for users, to say the least. Indeed, the latter are no longer able to withdraw any token.

Nevertheless, Mark Lamb, the company’s CEO, explained in an official statement that the “counterparty” in question has nothing to do with the Three Arrows Capital (3AC) fund or any other lending company. As a reminder, this Singapore-based investment fund has reportedly incurred nearly $400 million in liquidations, in addition to having been heavily exposed to the Terra ecosystem. As a result, the 3AC fund is rumored to be on the verge of insolvency.

This is the reason why the staking platform Finblox, which is supported by the 3AC fund, recently decided to restrict some of its activities by limiting withdrawals to 500 dollars per day, while “assessing the current situation of the fund”.

CoinFLEX halts exchanges in FLEX Coin, its native token

In addition to withdrawals, CoinFLEX also interrupts all exchanges in “FLEX Coin” (FLEX) whether in perpetuals and even SPOT. For the record, FLEX is the platform’s native token and allows its holders to reduce their trading fees on CoinFLEX, similar to the BNB crypto currency on the Binance exchange.

CoinFLEX teams state that they expect “to resume withdrawals in a better position as soon as possible” when the situation improves.

“We are confident that this situation can be fully repaired with a restoration of all functionality, namely withdrawals” – “We will communicate fully with you as we learn more.”

said CoinFLEX

More recently, it was Hong Kong-based crypto lending company “Babel Finance” that announced the halt of withdrawals due to “unusual liquidity pressures.”

It is now undeniable that most of the exploding crypto platforms since the beginning of this bullrun, have overexposed themselves to the market and have not been able to step back enough to grasp the current situation in the ecosystem.

Update (06/28/2022): CoinFLEX plans to launch a new token to raise funds

It’s been five days now since the CoinFLEX exchange halted withdrawals and exchanges in Flex Coin due to current crypto currency market conditions, in addition to “continued uncertainty regarding a counterparty.”

This Monday, CoinFLEX announced that it wants to issue a new “yield-bearing” token, in hopes of raising enough funds to restore withdrawals on its platform. The token, which goes by the name “Recovery Value USD” (rvUSD), offers users a 20% annual return.

CoinFLEX hopes to raise $47 million (i.e. the entire issuance of rvUSD) before July 1 (the end of the token issuance), after which users will finally have the opportunity to withdraw their crypto currencies. If all goes according to plan, CoinFLEX withdrawal services will be reactivated starting June 30, 2022. Be aware that Recovery Value USD (rvUSD) is reserved for “sophisticated non-US investors.”

In other words, only non-U.S. residents with an annual income of more than $200,000, as well as a total net worth of at least $1 million, are able to invest on this new token.

According to CoinFLEX’s release, we also learn that the pause in withdrawals occurred after an anonymous user’s account went negative during the recent market volatility. This customer is reportedly “a person of high integrity with significant means with substantial holdings in several private companies.”

“As an exchange, we never want to put users in such a position and regret resorting to these measures in order to work towards a resolution.” – CoinFLEX said

The article Crypto: CoinFLEX suspends withdrawals due to market conditions appeared first on Coin Academy.

The announcement had a resounding effect. FTX is reportedly in talks to become a shareholder in BlockFi. As a reminder, BlockFi was recently facing liquidity problems, like many other CeFI companies. The solution found by the company to save itself from this difficult situation was to obtain a $250 million aid from the FTX exchange.

Read more about: FTX comes to BlockFi’s rescue with an initial $250M loan

In fact, this gigantic financial aid from the company owned by one of the most influential figures in the crypto sphere, SBF, seems to be part of a more global strategy of owning more and more power in various companies in the sector.

In fact, at the time of FTX’s bailout, BlockFi CEO Zack Prince had hinted that a future cooperation between them was a possibility.

FTX’s purchase of BlockFi’s shares would allow SBF to increase its influence in the crypto-currency market

This announcement is not surprising, but it highlights the colossal resources held by SBF and the companies it owns. Indeed, the bear market that is currently taking hold is giving way to financial difficulties with a massive drop in the market capitalization of crypto currencies.

So far, it is nearly $2,000 billion in value that has been lost since the market top in November 2021. Yet the man who graced the cover of Forbes last year seems impervious to these liquidity problems.

While no equity deal has been struck yet between the two companies, according to close sources on both sides, this potential future acquisition demonstrates the sprawling influence that SBF’s empire is beginning to hold.

It is to be expected that the acquisition price of these shares will be well below their real value due to this delicate period. According to Kevin Dede, managing director of H.C. Wainwright, a New York-based investment bank, “there is a risk of a large number of private transactions being placed below market price in the coming weeks and months.”

While these prices vary depending on the financial situation of individual companies, whales like SBF can easily impose their will on industry players.

Precedents in investments made by SBF and its companies

This announcement is all the more surprising given that SBF is not a newcomer.

Indeed, recently, its other company, Alamada Research, offered its help to the Canadian crypto-currency broker, Voyager Digital Ltd, with a $200 million loan. The latter had been hit hard by the defaults of Three Arrow Capital and was experiencing quite severe liquidity problems.

In addition, in early May, SBF announced the acquisition of a 7.6% stake in the financial services company Robinhood.

Regularly singled out for its borderline influence in the crypto-currency sector, SBF, as well as FTX, declined to comment on this potential acquisition. Nevertheless, BlockFi in declining to comment on “market rumors” indicated that negotiations on the terms of the agreement with FTX for the loan obtained earlier in the week were still ongoing.

Obviously, if this acquisition does indeed take place, it should quickly become public knowledge due to the transparency requirement inherent in this kind of financial transaction.

The article Crypto: FTX would like to acquire shares in BlockFi appeared first on Coin Academy.

This announcement should allow Coinbase to expand its influence in a derivatives market representing a volume of 3 billion dollars worldwide. This strategy should allow, according to Coinbase’s release, the development and accessibility of additional products to begin significant growth.

With a focus on offering the market a plurality of solutions, Coinbase hopes to bring the benefits of futures to a broader market. This solution should allow all types of traders to access the crypto currency derivatives markets.

Coinbase launches its first crypto currency derivative product on June 27

The solution is being offered as part of Coinbase’s acquisition of FairX earlier this year. This platform will operate under the close supervision of the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) to ensure that future users will respect the regulatory framework for this activity.

This merger has brought together a world-class team with enhanced expertise in product development and market structure. Coinbase is committed to offering “easy-to-understand, fair, accessible, efficient and transparent products.

Specifically, the platform will launch its first exchange-listed crypto currency derivative product on June 27. At launch, only certain retail brokers (EdgeClear, Ironbeam among others) will be able to trade this product.

This product will offer the same benefits as the services already offered by Coinbase to traders. Nevertheless, this Nano Bitcoin Futures (BIT) contract is specifically designed for retail traders. Thus, the size of each contract (1/100th of a Bitcoin) makes it a less expensive solution for customers.

The initial capital brought by the user will be less compared to traditional futures contracts with the aim of attracting non-professional traders to the regulated crypto currency futures markets in the United States.

Read more about: Coinbase sued over TerraUSD (UST)

Coinbase may soon get its own license

Coinbase’s medium-term goal is to be able to offer derivatives to its customers without the need to go through traditional brokers. Nevertheless, to obtain this possibility, the company is in the obligation to obtain the approval of the competent authorities.

In fact, Coinbase insists on this ambition, but wishes to offer its services legally. To do so, it announces that it is waiting for the regulatory approval of its license allowing it to trade directly on its platform the futures contracts (FCM) instead of the brokers previously mentioned. Once it has obtained this authorization, the company will be able to offer its clients futures contracts.

Coinbase continues to expand, especially in the US market. The last few weeks appear to be a long-distance race between the various crypto-currency exchanges to become a market giant. Customers can be happy about this as this competitiveness keeps on offering them new investment opportunities.

The article Bitcoin: Coinbase launches derivative for brokers appeared first on Coin Academy.

Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs, announced this Thursday at a conference in New York, the development of the first “web3” phone that will be named “Saga“, in addition to a brand new ecosystem “Solana Mobile Stack” dedicated to decentralized application developers.

Concretely, “Solana Mobile Stack” (SMS) is an open source software kit that will allow the emergence of a new wave of native Android applications developed on the Solana blockchain. Note that some of the features included in this KIT will work both on Solana’s Saga, but also on other Android phones.

“The current opportunity is to create features and experiences that leverage a more seamless ability to perform web3 transactions on mobile, carry digital assets anywhere, and the ability to connect mobile payment capabilities to web3 payment rails to eliminate the middleman.”

said Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko

The emergence of a new mobile ecosystem for Solana Labs

Among the features offered by SMS, you can find “Mobile Wallet Adapter“, a protocol to connect web3 applications (and web in general) to digital wallets on Android phones.

SMS also offers the “Seed Vault” feature, a digital vault designed to keep users’ private keys and seed phrases safe. In effect, this information will be separated from the wallets in question and the Android operating system. In addition, this software kit includes “Solana Pay“, an application developed to facilitate decentralized payments.

Finally, Solana’s new flagship phone will have its own “Solana dApp Store”, a new “distribution system” for decentralized applications on Android. Be aware that this “SMS” kit is already available for developers on the “GitHub” platform.

With the arrival of all these next generation applications and features, Solana’s Saga phone will give users the opportunity to perform all kinds of activities, such as mint NFTs at any time, play web3 games on Solana or make secure payments and transactions.

Moreover, this new mobile ecosystem of Solana will be supported by big players in this sector, such as Magic Eden, Phantom, Okay Bears or the giant FTX, to name a few. As an added bonus, the Solana Foundation has just launched a $10 million fund to support and “encourage the growth of mobile dApps.”

Solana’s Saga, a web3 phone with remarkable performance

Solana’s Android phone will be designed and manufactured by “OSOM,” a leading Android hardware development company. Some of the company’s employees have worked for industry giants such as Google, Apple and Intel.

“The world needs new hardware to embrace the future that is Web3, and building a forward-looking ecosystem without being burdened by legacy ecosystems of the past is extremely exciting for us.”

OSOM teams said at the conference

As for the technical specifications of Solana’s Saga, the phone features a 6.67″ OLED display, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, as well as a first-generation “Snapdragon” 8+ processor. At the moment, Saga is scheduled to hit the market in early 2023 at a price of $1000.

For those interested, you can already pre-order this phone on the official website of Solana Mobile. All you have to do is enter your email address and pay 100 USDC. This amount will of course be deducted when you buy your first Saga phone from Solana.

The good news is that everyone who pre-orders this phone will be eligible for the “Saga Pass”, an NFT that “will accompany the first wave of Saga devices”.

So, did this new phone presented by Solana Labs convince you? This unexpected initiative from the crypto ecosystem giant will probably motivate other web3 companies to take the plunge in the months and years to come.

The article Crypto: Solana Labs launches its new Web3 phone, the Solana Saga appeared first on Coin Academy.

This press release comes a few days after the official signing of the documents between the two parties. Indeed, the transaction between the two companies took place on June 21, 2022. This acquisition could allow eBay to settle permanently in the web3 universe.

Ebay is one of the world’s leading sellers thanks to its service that connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world. This new step in its strategy could allow it to democratize the NFT to all its users.

eBay acquires KnownOrigin with the objective of creating a consumer NFT marketplace

From the first lines of the press release, eBay wants to insist on the complementary nature of this merger. According to the company, the deal combines eBay’s reach and reputation with KnownOrigin’s cutting-edge technology to empower a new wave of NFT creators, sellers and buyers.

This transaction is not a surprise given the company’s strategy in recent months. Indeed, as of May 2021, eBay has allowed the buying and selling of NFT on its platform. Thus, eBay wants to reimagine its ambition by focusing it mainly on web3 technologies.

In this sense, significant improvements in performance and customer experience in the tools for discovering, buying and selling items have been implemented.

In fact, Jamie Lanonne, CEO of eBay, explains “eBay is the first stop for people around the world who are looking for the perfect, hard-to-find or unique addition to their collection, and with this acquisition, we will continue to be a leading site as our community adds more and more digital collectibles.

Read more about: Ronaldo joins Binance with exclusive partnership

Sale allows KnownOrigin to expand its influence in the NFT market

The eBay boss is full of praise for KnownOrigin. According to him the company “has built an impressive group of artists and collectors, making it a perfect addition to our community of sellers and buyers. We look forward to welcoming these innovators to the eBay community.

Finally, this recent agreement does not appear to precipitate the departure of the KnownOrigin teams. Indeed, David Moore, co-founder of the platform, says, “As interest in NFTs continues to grow, we feel it’s the perfect time to partner with a company that has the reach and experience of eBay. With over twenty-five years of experience building similar communities of passionate individuals, we are excited about the opportunity to bring a whole new audience into this journey.”

This transaction is a significant announcement for the NFT market. Nevertheless, while it is a platform gaining increasing interest since its inception in 2018, KnownOrigin does not appear to be a market leader at this time. Perhaps this recent acquisition by eBay could definitely take the marketplace into a new dimension.

The article NFT: eBay acquires a major NFT marketplace: KnownOrigin appeared first on Coin Academy.

100 million stolen from Harmony’s Horizon Bridge

Harmony is a smart contract blockchain called EVM-compatible. For the sake of interoperability with the rest of DeFi, Harmony has deployed its own bridge solution called Horizon.

In practice, Harmony has two bridges. We have the Horizon bridge which allows to link its blockchain to the Ethereum (ETH) and BNB Smart Chain (BNB) blockchains. As well as another bridge to connect Harmony to the Bitcoin (BTC) network.

Read more about : More than $600 million stolen from the Ronin network (Axie Infinity).

Early this morning, the Harmony teams warned the community that their Horizon bridge had been the target of a hack. In total, 592 WBTC have been stolen by the attacker, which is more than 100 million dollars at the current price.

Fortunately, this attack was restricted to the Horizon bridge and apparently did not impact the Bitcoin bridge.

“Note that this does not impact the untrusted BTC bridge; its funds and assets stored in decentralized vaults are safe for now.”

Teams quickly paused the Horizon Bridge in order to limit the damage. They also said they have begun “working with national authorities and forensic specialists” in an effort to identify the perpetrator of the attack.

How do these bridges work?

Before going into the details of the attack, let’s look at how these famous bridges work.

In practice, they work thanks to a set of smart contracts deployed on the various blockchains to be linked.

Thus, here are the steps performed when a user wants to send funds from Ethereum to Harmony:

°The user will deposit funds on the bridge smart contract deployed on Ethereum.
°A validation committee will then verify the existence of the deposit on Ethereum and block the funds on the contract.
°Once the funds are blocked on the contract, the same amount of tokens will be issued. These issued tokens are so-called tokenized tokens, which allow to represent a token that is not native to the Harmony blockchain.

As a result, the smart contracts deployed on both sides of the bridge hold large amounts of tokens. This makes these contracts prime targets for hackers of all stripes.

How the Horizon Bridge hack was carried out

For now, little information has been shared by Harmony’s teams vis-à-vis the Horizon hack. However, since the blockchain is a public ledger, many cyber investigators have been looking into the matter.

Thus, the @RugDocIO teams have conducted the investigation and published their findings in a thread on Twitter.

After investigation, they suspect the track of private key compromise. Indeed, the Horizon Bridge smart contract is controlled by a multi-signature or 5-party multisig wallet.

In practice, a multi-signature wallet is controlled by a defined number of addresses, belonging to different people.

However, to sign a transaction, the Horizon Bridge contract only required the approval of 2 of the 5 addresses that make up the multisig.

So, when looking more closely at the transaction that allowed the Horizon hack, @RugDocIO’s teams noticed that it had been signed by 2 of the 5 wallets of the multisig.

Two theories are then possible:

°It is an inside job, in which 2 of the multisig holders decided to steal the funds (unlikely theory).
°The two addresses used to sign the hack transaction were compromised and their original owners lost control of them (the most likely theory).

Subsequently, Harmony’s teams modified the rules of Horizon’s smart contract so that it requires at least 4 addresses of the multisig to sign a transaction.

The Harmony teams will probably try to contact the attacker in order to negotiate a return of the funds in exchange of a reward. It remains to be seen if the attacker will be inclined to return the funds, or if he will prefer to keep the money at the risk of being found by the law enforcement.

The article DeFi: $100M stolen in Harmony Horizon Bridge hack appeared first on Coin Academy.

While the bear market seems to be taking hold, this large-scale collaboration between Ronaldo and Binance is a breath of fresh air in a moribund atmosphere. Moreover, CZ considers itself even more optimistic about crypto currencies and blockchain when the market fall begins.

Obviously, in the wake of such an announcement, it seems tricky to contradict him. Ronaldo is the most followed person in the world on Instagram, as well as Facebook, with over 500 million people viewing and sharing his content on a daily basis.

A major partnership between Ronaldo and Binance to democratize NFTs

In a short announcement video, viewed more than a million times in a few hours, Cristiano Ronaldo himself takes it upon himself to comment on this recent collaboration. He indicates his wish to disrupt the NFT market while taking the soccer world to another level of sharing thanks to NFT.

This exclusive multi-year partnership will run for three years and will introduce soccer fans to the web3 ecosystem through global NFT campaigns.

Specifically, the five-time gold medalist is expected to offer the rights to his image for the creation of several NFT collections featuring his likeness. These NFT will be sold exclusively on the NFT platform proposed by Binance.

The first collection will allow fans to acquire NFTs with iconic designs created directly in collaboration with Ronaldo. Confident, the Portuguese believes that the result will please his fans.

Now, all fans around the world are wondering about the next collaborations that the platform could announce. Megan Rapinoe, Roger Federer? All bets are off, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see Binance repeat this kind of initiative.

A common desire to share with the community

Quickly after the announcement, CZ praised Ronaldo, saying he “transcended sports to become an icon in multiple industries. He added that “he has amassed one of the most dedicated fan bases in the world through his authenticity, talent and charity work”.

In fact, always with the community sharing offered by NFTs in mind, the Binance boss said “his team is thrilled to give Ronaldo’s fans exclusive opportunities to connect with Ronaldo and own an iconic piece of sports history.

The Manchester United striker says that his relationship with the fans is a very important aspect to him. So, “the idea of bringing unprecedented experiences and access through this NFT platform” is an opportunity close to his heart.

The crypto-currency exchange has been in the news for some time now. While it recently announced the upcoming closure of some of its services to French nationals due to its new PSAN status, this collaboration once again affirms its status as a global blockchain and crypto currency giant.

Read more about: Binance puts a stop to its French derivatives

The article NFT: Ronaldo joins Binance in an exclusive partnership appeared first on Coin Academy.