Welcome to Around the Blockchain, Huobi Learn’s daily rundown of the crypto markets.
Coinbase users have complained that they are having difficulties withdrawing funds, trading, and accessing their accounts. The company acknowledged this in a tweet on Thursday, adding that “your funds are safe, and we are actively working on the issue”. Within hours, Coinbase said that they are “seeing recovery” and are continuing to monitor the situation. Exchanges have come under stress during the last few days as a result of market turmoil, and Coinbase reported a steep drop in revenue over the course of the recent crypto downturn, resulting in a 50% fall in its stock price.
On the other hand, online brokerage Robinhood’s share price spiked by 30% after FTX billionaire founder Sam Bankman-Fried announced his purchase of 7.6% of the company in a $650 million deal. Bankman-Fried said that he has “no intention of taking any action toward changing or influencing the control of” Robinhood. Like other crypto exchanges, the brokerage has been suffering from lower transaction revenues and its share prices recent recorded new all-time lows.
The Terra blockchain validators voted to halt the Terra blockchain at block 7603700 for a patch to “prevent governance attacks” after LUNA fell to under 1 cent yesterday. Terraform Labs said that the blockchain has been restarted but a later announcement on Twitter then said that the network was halted again at block 7607789 “to come up with a plan to reconstitute it”. No further details were given, nor was there any indication of when the network would be restarted. LUNA is now at $0.00003 with a circulation of over 400 billion compared to its initial issue of 1 billion.
Emirates airline will use Bitcoin as a payment service, according to chief operating officer Adel Ahmed Al-Redha. This adds to its earlier announcement that it will offer NFT collectibles on its website and also launch in the metaverse. Emirates did not give a clear date for when Bitcoin payment services would be live.
The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, Europol, is offering a reward of up to €5,000 ($5,200) for information leading to the arrest of Onecoin mastermind Ruja Ignatova. The Bulgarian-born German national has been implicated as the driving force behind the Onecoin scam, which is estimated to have cheated victims out of billions of dollars.
Show me the money
After taking a battering to a 16-month low, Bitcoin has somewhat stabilised at about $29,100 although that relief may be short-lived as there is still no clear end to the fallout in the crypto markets as well as the bear market in traditional finance. ETH fell under $1,800 but recovered to about $1,960 but this will be little consolation for investors. Altcoins fared worse, with SOL, CRO, and ADA suffering about 10% losses. USDT recovered its peg and is now stable with USD again after slipping briefly yesterday in the wake of the UST fallout.
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