Welcome to Around the Blockchain, Huobi Learn’s daily rundown of the crypto markets.
Huobi, along with a few other familiar names in crypto, has formed the Crypto Market Integrity Coalition (CMIC), an initiative led by Solidus Labs. The initiative pledges a commitment to safe markets and regulatory collaboration. The CMIC has said it will recruit more digital asset players to take the pledge, roll out advanced training programs, share research and insights, and meet with regulators as part of its future plans. Solidus Labs co-founder and CEO Asaf Meir said the pledge’s initial goal was to “bring unity and action at an industry level” across CeFi, DeFi and all digital assets.
Meter.io’s token bridge Meter Passport (MTRG) has incurred a $4.4 million loss in Binance Coin (BNB) and wETH from a smart contract hack that also lost crypto lending platform Hundred Finance $3.3 million. The attacker sold the BNB on decentralized exchange SushiSwap, causing a 77% crash in the BNB price. The cheap BNB was then snapped up by opportunists using the tokens as collateral on Hundred Finance to take out ETH, FRAX and MM loans, but the BNB price discrepancy meant their loans were worth more than the provided collateral. Shockingly, two of the loans were repaid and the ETH loan was returned in full, leaving an outstanding loss of $3.3 million to the Hundred protocol. Meter has promised to reimburse its community and Hundred Finance, having set aside $4.4 million in MTRG tokens to cover initial losses.
In a letter to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Tony Blinken, US senator Pat Toomey has warned about China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), eCNY’s “potential to subvert US sanctions, facilitate illicit money flows, enhance China’s surveillance capabilities, and provide Beijing with ‘first mover’ advantages”. Toomey said that in light of the “prospective threat to US economic and national security interests”, the Treasury and State Departments should “closely examine” Beijing’s CBDC roll-out during the Winter Olympics. He added that China’s crypto crackdown “presents an opportunity for the US to be the forerunner of crypto innovation, grounded in individual freedom and other American and democratic principles”.
KPMG in Canada has added BTC and ETH to its corporate treasury in what it has termed a “first-of-its-kind investment”. This allocation of crypto assets also includes “carbon offsets to maintain a net-zero carbon transaction to deliver on the firm’s state environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments”. Kareem Sadek, Cryptoassets and Blockchain Services co-leader at KPMG in Canada said the firm will “continue to enhance and build on our capabilities across DeFi, NFTs and the Metaverse”.
In light of continuing power supply issues caused by crypto miners fleeing from China to Kazakhstan, the Kazakh government is considering a three-pronged proposal to charge crypto miners much more for operating in the country. First Vice Minister of Finance Marat Sultangaziyev proposed a price increase from $0.0023 per Kwh to $0.01 (around a 335% rise) specifically for crypto miners, a tax on each individual GPU and each piece of equipment required for crypto mining, and the removal of an exemption from VAT for mining hardware.
Show me the money
According to data from Huobi Global, BTC is currently located near 44,000, with strong pressure above and daily charts showing the price has now exceeded the previous pressure level. ETH is now located near 3,100, with little change in volume and multi-party momentum remaining somewhat dominant. In terms of contracts, Huobi Futures data show a slight increase in the open interest (OI) of BTC futures, as well as stable OI in ETH futures.
New to Huobi? Register for a Huobi account and receive up to $300 as a ‘Welcome Bonus’ to help you start your investment journey! If you’re an existing user, check out Huobi Earn, where you can start earning interest from your idle cryptocurrencies!
