Showing posts with label exchanges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exchanges. Show all posts

FTX’s Stunning COMEBACK!? Why and How They're Eyeing a RE-LAUNCH...

"The situation has stabilized, and the dumpster fire is out, announced FTX attorney Andy Dietderich during a hearing at a Delaware bankruptcy court.

According to our source (who has been 100% accurate with his information since we first spoke with them back in December of last year) FTX is in such a better position than anyone thought possible, re-starting the exchange is now on the table. 

"The overwhelming majority of people currently involved with FTX want to see it up and running again" my insider said last night on Telegram, and then elaborated on what a perfect outcome would be for them "This could end up simply being a story of a company with a bad CEO, a problem that was fixed, but still has a happy ending where no business is forced to shut down, all the employees don't lose their jobs, and investors and customers end up with all the money they're supposed to have."

At this point I was a bit stunned... how did this whole situation go from sounding like one of the biggest disasters in the history of business, to something that could actually end with a healthy company, and everyone getting what is owed to them?

Here's how it could happen:

In mid-November when FTX filed for bankruptcy they owed $3.1 billion to its 50 largest creditors and at least $5 billion more to its nine million customers and smaller creditors.

At that time the company was able to find $3.3bn of assets... so, about $5 billion short. Pretty bad. 

I think most people assumed there wouldn't be a dramatic change in those numbers, but those people would be wrong. Since then, Sam was booted out of the CEO position and a new team came in to clean up and go over everything. 

For much of FTX's business there was no traditional record keeping, and it was their job to review emails, notes, chat logs, anything that contained business details, and create the proper accounting to go with them.

They found more than anyone thought possible...

Frankly, after we discovered the new team billing the bankrupt company for over $30 million for a single month of work, I was wondering if they were really doing enough to justify their price tag. Now it's a bit less shocking to see them charge millions if they’re discovering billions in FTX's assets. 

Total funds available to FTX have more than doubled since they took over. In the 5 months they've been there they we're able to locate $800M in cash, along with $600M in “settlements and investments receivable”.

But the biggest surprise: FTX's huge crypto holdings, which then increased in value...

FTX held way more than most people were expecting - $3.3 billion in crypto is currently sitting in FTX controlled wallets.

...and that gained over $1 billion in value as it sits there.

With FTX in very different circumstances than before, new options seem possible...

With the much improved circumstances FTX finds the business in,  they have narrowed it down to two options.

Option 1: Pay back what they can, then close. Use the funds to pay off debts, then shut down FTX for good.  Keep in mind, they're still about $1 billion short, with around $7 billion of the approximately $8 billion owed - people would get most, but not all of what they are owed.

Option 2: Re-open FTX. Conduct marketing research to find out if people would return to trade on FTX, now that Sam was out of the picture.  If this shows it could be successful, and the largest debt holders are willing to wait, they could re-launch the exchange using some of the funds they currently have, and pay some of their debts with what is left.  Then over time the remaining money owed would be paid out of future profits from the business.

Much of it will come down to how the public views the FTX brand, with Sam now removed...

This was a unique situation where even though you could argue that if Sam was even capable of doing what he is accused of, would have required others at FTX to have failed at their job, or been corrupt themselves - it seems like somehow 100% of the blame is directed at Sam, both from the public and law enforcement. 


Sam Bankman-Fried Leaves an NY Court after a second batch of charges against him were added.

Again, I know that's not true, but I have to remind myself that others have even officially pled guilty to felony crimes over this.  FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison both plead guilty to federal fraud charges.

But then they did the opposite of Sam and avoided the spotlight, successfully too - we've heard nothing from or about them since late last year. 

Next time we hear those names it will probably be as they're being used as witnesses against Sam.

In conclusion…

Remember - if they re-open the exchange they would also return user funds by putting those funds back onto the exchange, a powerful trick to get people to log back in.

Between that and my opinion that most people will see Sam's removal as the problems being 'fixed' - I think a successful future is absolutely possible for FTX. 


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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP Breaking Crypto News

Documents Reveal FTX's Legal Bills a SHOCKING $38 MILLION... For Just ONE Month!

FTX Sam Bankman-Fried

According to court records that have just been made available to us, there has been nothing less than a  massive army of professionals working non-stop to clean up the mess at FTX. 

They've been tasked with examining every bit of FTX's business, due to the lack of record keeping during the reign of it's former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. 

Of course, hiring a large amount people qualified to review complex financial data doesn't come cheap -but no one seems to have expected it would be this expensive either, as these firms have now billed FTX $38 million PLUS expenses...and that's just for January!

Breaking Down The Bill...

The bankruptcy administrators have retained the services of some of the biggest names in law and finance. Let's take a look at who's involved, and what they're each bringing to the table.  

Leading the pack is the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which was hired as counsel. Along with them, the administrators have also retained Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Landis Rath & Cobb as special counsel for the proceedings. Meanwhile, consultancy firm AlixPartners was brought in to conduct forensic analysis on DeFi products and tokens that were in FTX's possession.

On the financial front, Alvarez & Marsal and Perella Weinberg Partners were tasked with sorting through FTX's accounting records and determining which assets it could sell. According to court filings, Sullivan & Cromwell billed $16.8 million for January, while Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan billed $1.4 million, and Landis Rath & Cobb billed $663,995. Collectively, the three firms have over 180 lawyers assigned to the case and over 50 non-lawyer staff, such as paralegals.

What's more, court filings show that Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers and staff billed a total of 14,569 hours for January. The largest project that Sullivan & Cromwell worked on was discovery, followed by asset disposition and asset analysis and recovery.

Interestingly, the U.S. Department of Justice initially objected to FTX hiring Sullivan & Cromwell, citing potential conflicts of interest. Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX's founder, also objected to the bankruptcy administrators hiring the firm, claiming that the law firm's staff had pressured him into filing for bankruptcy in November. However, in late January, a Delaware bankruptcy court judge approved the firm to continue representing FTX.

In early February, Sullivan & Cromwell submitted a bill for $7.5 million for the first 19 days of bankruptcy work after FTX filed in November. The majority of billed time for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan was spent on Asset Analysis and Recovery as well as Avoidance Action – legalese for attempts to undo certain transactions that the debtor engaged in before bankruptcy. As for Landis Rath & Cobb, a significant amount of time was billed for hearings, litigation, and asset disposition.

But that's not all. AlixPartners billed $2.1 million for 2,454 hours of work. Investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners billed $450,000 (its monthly fee), and court documents show that it spent a significant amount of time on developing a restructuring strategy, as well as correspondence with third parties.

According to its billing breakdown, the bank spent a large amount of time working on the sale of FTX assets LedgerX and FTX Japan. In January, a bankruptcy judge gave the sale the green light to create liquidity to pay back creditors.

Last but not least, Alvarez & Marsal billed $12.3 million, the second-largest charge for the month, behind Sullivan & Cromwell. Some of the largest items it billed for were Avoidance Actions, at 3,370 hours, financial analysis, at 1,168 hours, and accounting at 1,106 hours.

In November, shortly after FTX declared bankruptcy, interim CEO John J. Ray III said that the exchange had a "complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information." Ray, who also oversaw the liquidation of Enron and Nortel Networks when they collapsed, called the FTX situation "unprecedented".

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk 
Breaking Crypto News

CoinBase Posts $1.1 Billion Second Quarter 2022 Loss - Coinbase COO Explains What This Means For the Company...

 Coinbase posted a $1.1 billion second-quarter loss and lower-than-expected revenue as the largest US cryptocurrency exchange was battered by tumbling digital-asset prices. Shares slid on the news after the close. In this video Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi speaks to Bloomberg.

Video courtesy of Bloomberg

Binance TAKES BACK $5 Million+ in Stolen Crypto from North Korean Hacker Group 'Lazarus'...

Crypto hacker - Ronin network hack funds returned

Binance says they were able to recover about $5.8 million worth of the stolen crypto that made its way onto its platform, originally taken from the Ronin Network/Axie Infinity bridge security breach that occurred at the end of last month, the original story is here.

Last week, the  U.S. Treasury Department identified North Korean hacking group 'Lazarus' as the attackers behind the theft.

Immediately after the theft occurred resources were deployed to follow every step the stolen coins would make...

The thieves attempted to use tornado.cash, a service that aims to make transactions that go through it private by breaking the chain of custody, they explain their service "uses a smart contract that accepts ETH deposits that can be withdrawn by a different address" and suggest the longer users wait to withdraw the funds they hold, the harder it becomes to link the person withdrawing to the original deposit.

This wasn't enough to hide their tracks, "We coordinated with industry leading blockchain analytics firms and immediately froze the funds when exposure to our platform was identified" a spokesperson for Binance said. 

We believe Chainalysis is the analytics firm they're referencing, as we know they've worked closely with Binance on legal compliance and anti-fraud issues for years, they also develop software specifically for the purpose of following tokens through transactions intended to hide their trail.

According to Binance CEO 'CZ' they also discovered 86 fraudulent accounts by following these funds. 

A Small Part Of The Massive Total...

The theft totaled more than $600 million in cryptocurrency, so recovery of just $5.8 million isn't even 1% of the total taken..  

But this was just the first battle in what will be an ongoing war, that we're now learning more about.

A Target On Them Every Second, of Every Day...

Speaking 'unofficially' with a cyber security coordinator from another top exchange (who requested to remain unnamed) the industry is taking an ultra-aggressive approach to dealing with the issue of hacks and ransomware that target or use cryptocurrencies.

"The coins are being watched by software that doesn't lose track of them just because they've been shuffled around and split up countless times before attempting to cash out" he explained "as soon as one of the firms monitoring these flagged coins sees them being transferred to an exchange capable of turning them in to cash - if we're that exchange, our phone is ringing seconds later. Someone capable of immediately freezing those funds will actually be there to answer it 24/7".

This coordination between organizations has one main goal "we want people from that world to see crypto as the worst, most headache-inducing way to do business" specifically regarding this latest theft, he added "I can imagine the celebrating these crooks did when they believed they had stolen $600 million.  Then I imagine these next few months, failing again and again to get their hands on it - unintentionally returning it to their victim.  At some point they'll need to evaluate how much time they've wasted for these $0 paydays."

We ended our conversation with him making a rather bold prediction "No joke - in the near future I see the scammers, hackers, thieves, hostile governments and whoever else may be from that world of illegitimated earnings demanding 'NO CRYPTO!' because we've made doing their business in crypto such an awful, stressful experience".

That's Exactly How it Continues to Play Out...

The thieves 'awful, stressful experience' continues as the US Treasury Department adds three more addresses to its list of blacklisted wallets connected to the Ronin Network hack.

Vowing to continue the "disruptive action against entities facilitating the movement of the stolen virtual currency" and calling on the crypto industry to "lock its digital doors" leaving the thieves with hundreds of millions of dollars... that are impossible to spend. 

Chainalysis recently released a completely free tool that any company or organization can easily integrate into whatever service they provide, allowing them to automatically check wallet addresses they or a user are transacting with are not on the blacklist of wallets involved in various illegal activities.

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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

This Decentralized Crypto Exchange PAYS You 90% Of Your Trading Fees BACK - BiSwap Review...

Biswap decentralized exchange

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA -  Biswap is a decentralized exchange on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).  They offer trading, liquidity mining, yield farming, NFTs, Lotto, Games, a Launch Pad and more.  As you can see it's a project with a lot going on! on BSC. Today we'll look at this and more in our BiSwap Review...

But it's their unique benefit for traders that is driving their popularity…


BNB is the official utility token of BSC - so just like you spend ETH to send any transaction on Ethereum's chain, you spend BNB Binance Smart Chain. You also use Metamask, as you would if it were Ethereum based.


Current that cost is around 10 cents to unlock the coin for trading, and 20 cents to trade it - so about 30 cents in fees for the whole thing. 


Get In The Habit of Using Biswap Instead of PancakeSwap or Another Exchange - Out of the Average 30cent fee Total, You'll Get 27cents Back!


Biswap was launched in 2021 along with their native coin BiSwap token "BSW", this what you'll be paid in.   But this isn't a bad thing, their token has done an amazing job at holding value. At the time of writing this many coins are at about 50% of their all time highs, Bitcoin included. But BSW debuted around 80 cents 9 months ago, and is trading for around 70 cents today. 


Here's why they're getting that growth:

  • Traders get 90% of their trading fees back.

  • Maintains an insurance fund to protect users' funds from potential hacking losses.

  • It takes a community-oriented approach to its operations.

  • Fee structure that is open and transparent.

  • Mechanism for transaction mining.

  • Pools with a high API quality.

  • Audited by Certik.

  • Simple to use, even a newbie could use it.

So this one is getting scored a 'STRONGEST RECOMMENDATION' for those who are trading a lot on Binance Smart Chain. The fees are so low, and so many tokens that are on Ethereum are on BSC (they trade at the same price, the only difference is the fees) it's easy to go crazy and trade aggressively - those fees add up, and you could be getting a TON of money back!


Visit BiSwap via this Invite Link that will give everyone who came from our article a special lifetime ADDITIONAL trading fee discount!


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Article via Guest Author
Robello Vesques / Madchain Submitted By 3rd Party, Views Not Necessarily Those Of GCP

Shopify CEO Joins Coinbase Board Of Directors...

 

Coinbase Announcement

Coinbase posted the announcement on their blog:

"Tobi brings a wide variety of skills and expertise to the Coinbase board. First and foremost, he is a tremendous entrepreneur, building Shopify from the ground up into a global commerce leader. He also deeply believes in the power of crypto and was an early adopter of crypto through Shopify’s integration with Coinbase Commerce. Serving millions of merchants in more than 175 countries, Shopify sits at the nexus of three important areas that crypto seeks to revolutionize: Finance and payments, web applications, and the internet itself.

A builder at heart, Tobi began writing computer code in his early teens. He soon became an active member of the open source community, contributing to projects such as Ruby on Rails, Liquid and ActiveMerchant. Building on his experience developing open source projects, Tobi launched an ecommerce platform in 2004 focused on selling snowboarding equipment. This online store soon grew into what we know today as Shopify. Tobi’s experience as a founder & CEO, scaling his business from a small, niche online marketplace into what has become a critical backbone of global ecommerce will help guide Coinbase as we seek to bring crypto to more people and businesses around the world."

Which brings the obvious question to mind: will Shopify soon support cryptocurrency payments?

In 2021 they set a new annual revenue earnings record of $1.12 billion - giving Tobi the title of "Canada’s wealthiest company founder".

Read the full announcement here.

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GlobalCryptoPress.com / Silicon Valley Newsroom
Breaking Crypto News

Video: Crypto CEOs Testify Before US Congress..


The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on digital assets. Crypto executives testifying at the hearing: Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, Samuel Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, Brian Brooks, CEO of Bitfury Group, Charles Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos Trust Company, Denelle Dixon, CEO of Stellar Development Foundation, and Alesia Jeanne Haas, CEO of Coinbase Inc.

Video courtesy of CNBC

Binance CEO 'CZ' On "The Showdown Over Crypto & Disruptive Technologies" At Bloomberg Economic Forum 2021...

Regulators from all around the world are pursuing the crypto business. China has deemed all cryptocurrency transactions unlawful and has forbidden cryptocurrency mining. The European Union is developing a framework for crypto issuers and service providers to be licensed. 

In the United States, SEC head Gary Gensler seeks authority over a sector he refers to as the "Wild West." All of this regulatory concern comes at a time when digital assets are becoming increasingly popular. Bitcoin has been widely accepted. The launch of the Bitcoin ETF in the United States is a watershed moment.

When Eric Adams, the recently elected mayor of New York, takes office in January, he plans to collect his first three paychecks in Bitcoin. Is a showdown is on the horizon?

Video courtesy of Bloomberg

CoinMarketCap HACKED and 3 Million+ User E-Mails Stolen... Maybe. Why There Actually May Be NO HACK After-all....

Coinmarketcap hack

CoinMarketCap, purchased recently by Binance, admits there's a database of 3,117,548 million email addresses belonging to their users being sold online - but add that no other data was stolen beyond email addresses.

The website "HaveIBeenPwned" was first to reveal the leak, and say the hack happened 10 days before the knowledge became public.

"While the list of data we have reviewed comprises only email addresses (no passwords), we found a correlation with our subscriber database. We have not found any evidence of data breaches from our servers." Coinmarketcap said in a statement.

Which Brings Up A Real Possibility - CoinMarketCap Was Never Hacked...

The other possibility is that hackers used other stolen databases that contain e-mail addresses and passwords, and software that allows them to load that database of emails/passwords into it, and instruct it to try to login to sites to see if people used the same e-mail/password combination elsewhere. Using proxy servers these programs can try thousands of accounts per hour. 

So they could have had this software try all those e-mails/passwords on coinmarketcap, the software would then create a new list of everyone from the first hacked database, who also has a coinmarketcap account.

So Why Was Everyone Calling It A Hack?

The list of users e-mail addresses hit the underground marketplaces, being sold as a databases of CoinMarketCap user e-mails, it initially appeared as CoinMarketCap was the source of the data.

While freshly hacked databases are most valuable, people who buy those databases then create these sub-databases to resell. 

For example, an online store with 50,000 users gets hacked, someone buys that database, then tries the e-mail addresses and passwords on Netflix.  Out of those 50,000 users they could now create a list of "500 valid Netflix accounts" for sale.

This is Why 'Never re-use your password on multiple sites' Is Not Something to be Ignored...

If just 1 site you use gets hacked - you're now hacked on every site you use - what information could someone with access to every site you've signed up for get?

So, if you do re-use passwords on multiple sites, the time to change that is RIGHT NOW.  

If you're thinking 'but there's no way I can remember 20 passwords!' try this trick - put the first 1 or 2 letters of the website at the beginning or end of the password.  So if your password was 'CryptoK1NG' and you made an account on CoinMarketCap it would be 'CoCryptoK1NG', on GlobalCryptoPress it would now be 'GlCryptoK1NG', etc.

Remember, they use software to see if you use the same password somewhere else - they don't actually look at the list themselves. It only takes a tiny change to make you fully secure against this method of account cracking.

Warning To Anyone on This E-Mail List: Scams Are Coming...

If your e-mail address is part of this list - it's time to get paranoid. People buying the e-mails are doing it for one purpose - to scam those on it.

So be on the lookout for suspicious emails, especially ones that would require you to give private keys to a wallet or login info to any crypto exchanges you may use. 

The website mentioned earlier, HaveIBeenPwned allows you to put in your email address and see if you were included in the CMC email list.

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Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

Voyager App Review: $25 Bitcoin FREE For Everyone in The USA - New Crypto Trading App...

voyager app review crypto

Voyager Crypto App Review: Created by a team of finance and technology industry veterans with founders from organizations like E-Trade, Uber, TradeIt, Lightspeed and more, the Voyager app recently launched with limited availability in several US states.

Everyone who signs up here first, then downloads the app, gets $25 Free Bitcoin in their account.

That free bitcoin can be traded for 20+ other coins if you prefer something else.

But availability isn't limited any longer - as they just opened up to residents of 49 US states (all but New York).

What's different about Voyager?

A couple interesting new concepts.

First, the are not an exchange, they act as the middleman.  When you go to purchase a coin, it hunts for the lowest price among several exchanges.  But you won't notice it, because when they execute the buy it all ends up in your Voyager wallet, instantly. It feels no different than buying direct from the source.


Second, no fees!  Voyager is so confident their app will find you a price below the market average, their fee comes from splitting the savings with you!  If Voyager can't find a below-market price deal, they take the loss and still give it to you without fees!

They claim to successfully find customers a lower price on 90% of orders.


20 Coins And Growing...

With built-in profit tracking you can easily follow your progress with the math done for you.

Current list: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), EOS (EOS), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ontology (ONT), Zcash (ZEC), Tron (TRX), Cardano (ADA), Iota (IOT), Neo (NEO), VeChain (VET), Qtum (QTUM) and ICON (ICX) at the time of writing this review of the voyager app. 

...and that's just the beginning. They plan on continuing to grow their list of offered tokens.

Also note, you can exchange your $25 BTC credit for any of the coins on this list.

Availability...

This is where they're still a bit behind.

If you're on an iPhone, and live anywhere in the USA besides New York - you're ready to go!

If you're on Android, it's coming very soon.  But still sign up for the $25 credit now, that way you'll still get it when the app is released.

If you're in New York, you cannot use it yet regardless of what phone you have.  The process of working with NY regulators to obtain a BitLicense takes a bit longer than the process in other states. They hope to add it soon.

To get the $25 welcome credit:

Follow these instructions in order or you won't get it!

Before installing the app, sign up at TheVoyagerExchange.com

Then download the app.

Then sign in to the app using the same e-mail address as you did on their website.

That's it!  It took me a couple days but you'll get an e-mail soon saying you've been credited. Hope you enjoyed my Voyager crypto app reivew!

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle News Desk






Two Former Government Regulators Hired By Top Crypto Exchanges Have Recently Resigned...

 

Two Former Government Regulators Hired By Top Crypto Exchanges Have Recently Resigned

Last Friday Binance US lost their CEO after just 3 months. Prior to taking the role with Binance, he served as acting comptroller in the Trump administration.

Brian Brooks gave as the reason for his departure disagreements over strategic direction.

And the 2nd former regulator to leave a top crypto firm in recent days...

Brett Redfearn has resigned as Coinbase's head of capital markets after just four months in the job.

Redfearn, a former Securities and Exchange Commission official, was the SEC's director of the trading and markets division prior to joining Coinbase.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Redfearn's departure was triggered by Coinbase's shift in focus away from digital asset securities.

A spokesperson from Coinbase confirms the story and says the Redfearn left to pursue other goals, but on positive terms.

What does it mean?

Not much, in my opinion. Binance US's search for stable leadership has been an ongoing issue... which is clearly still ongoing. 

In the case of Coinbase, it seems Redfearn's expertise wasn't as necessary as initially thought.

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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News

Why The Winklevoss Twins Say Facebook Won't Exist 10 Years From Now....

Winklevoss twins facebook comment

Here in Silicon Valley, by the time Facebook began making headlines, most already knew the name 'Winklevoss'. Facebook was starting to explode, MySpace was clearly dying out, and when the topic came up somebody would often ask 'Do you think Zuckerberg stole Facebook?'.  But as far who he may have stole it from 'Some twins he went to school with, named Winklevoss or something' is about all people knew.

It was the movie "The Social Network" most learned the name, and the story - where unfortunately they were portrayed so unlikeable, the audience rooted for Zuckerberg to win when they sued him claiming they were the rightful owners of Facebook.

There was no 'winner' - Zuckerberg settled out of court, but the Winklevoss twins sure seem to be winning big today.

With the legal battle behind them, they were ready to take their place in Silicon Valley, until startups began refusing their money...

Facebook was still considered a start-up, but the hottest one at the time, and these were the guys who just finished trying to sue them.  While nobody really knew who was right, that was enough for companies to decide to keep their distance.

So, they used that Facebook settlement money to invest in Bitcoin, which at the time was selling for $8 and had a community with an 'everyone is welcome' attitude. Their first venture beyond owning BTC was helping to fund BitInstant, launched at a time when the Silk Road was probably the reason most people were making their first bitcoin purchase. By no fault of their own, they found themselves shut down when the government claimed their site was being used by drug dealers laundering money.

The CEO, Charlie Shrem spent a year in jail, since their role as investors kept them distanced from the liability that comes with running day to day operations, they managed to remain free.

That's where the motivation to launch Gemini came from - and that's why it's the most regulated and government approved exchange out there...

In 2015 they became the first crypto exchange with the same license major banks hold, granted by the New York State Department of Financial Services - which holds enough weight this allowed them to open their doors to accept funds from all 50 states.

Since then Facebook and Crypto grew bigger than anyone could have imagined - and the Winklevoss twins and Zuckerberg can accurately be referred to as 'billionaires' because of it.

But who will the future favor? The Winkelvoss twins believe Facebook won't be around for the next decade...

“The idea of a centralized social network is just not going to exist five or 10 years in the future. There’s a membrane or a chasm between the old world and this new crypto-native universe. And we’re the conduit helping people transcend the offline into the online.” Tyler Winkevoss tells Forbes.

They're also helping to fund the tech to make it possible, becoming seed investors in Protocol Labs, which is focused on creating a decentralized internet that works independent of today's centralized server structure. 

Many in the crypto world will know the company from Filecoin, and later this year one of their workshops happens to be on building a decentralized social network, like Facebook.

The big shift is coming...

Frankly, Facebook seems to become more 'uncool' every day, if it didn't already earn that title when everyone's parents and grandparents joined. Zuckerberg has his own ventures into the crypto world in motion, but Facebook needs a facelift, and I doubt throwing some blockchain based features on top of it is the key to becoming cutting-edge again.

If successful, the Winklevoss twins won't be the next Zuckerbergs, no one will. That's the appeal - and they say playing the role of 'gatekeepers' in a decentralized world was never one of the goals. 

But in one sense, decentralization is like social media 10 years ago - we know it's going to be huge, but don't yet know exactly how it will fit into everyday life.

What dApp will be first to draw in hundreds of millions of users? I have no idea, but I'd bet my wallet it'll happen - and there's something exciting about that. On the other hand, I'm not sure if traditional social media has anything exciting on the horizon. 

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Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

Shots Fired - Robinhood CEO Says Coinbase's Fees Too High, Shares Goal Of Expanding Crypto Offerings...

Robinhood has had a rough month following halting users from buying stock in Gamestop after Reddit pumped it, in a story too long to summarize.

Just know it ends with Robinhood claiming they're innocent, and were forced to stop because of regulations that apply to them having to do with the amount of stocks they hold for customers and maintaining a percentage of funds in the bank for all of them. But there's still no shortage of angry traders who left the platform and still rant about it today.

In a video (above) just posted to Robinhood's YouTube channel, CEO Vlad Tenev seems to have what he believes may be the path back to being respected by the young tech savvy professionals they've always targeted - by becoming the new, less expensive, major crypto exchange? 

Lower Ethereum Trading and Transaction Fees On Uniswap - How To Get Lower Ethereum Gas Fee Prices When Trading....

 Lower ethereum gas uniswap transfer fees


Uniswap fees, and Ethereum fees in general are way too high, the most common complaint is how expensive it is to trade at Uniswap - it's out of control.

Unfortunately Uniswap is so popular it's leading to 24/7 high Ethereum network congestion - which means high gas fees, which is something you can do very little about.

But You Can Make Your Trade SMARTER, More Efficient - and That Lower Your Gas Fees...

This is where 1inch comes in.  It's a DEX (decentralized exchange) aggregator that draws liquidity from various exchanges and is able to split a trade between multiple exchanges. With the smart transaction technology, their aggregator allows users to optimize their trading.

Get lower ethereum gas fees on uniswap
When an aggressor shops multiple deals, the customer gets the best one.

1inch's Pathfinder, an API that includes a detection and routing algorithm, finds the best possible route for a token swap, splitting a swap across multiple exchanges or markets  on the same exchange. As a result, the exchange rate that a user receives is better than what they would have received in a single exchange.

Plus: Limit Orders on Uniswap?!

Basically, yes! 

Currently if you're day trading on Uniswap you can't afford to look away for more than a few minutes.

With 1inch limit orders you can set the price you want to buy or sell a coin at, what date you want that bid to expire, and walk away.

I Often Hear 'Can I trust 1inch? This is the first I've heard of it.'

I've noticed a surprising amount of people I mention 1inch to haven't heard of it yet - but yes it is legit, you'll find lots of the pro traders swearing by it, and their daily volume shows it - currently over $200 million USD per day!

Visit 1inch at http://1inch.exchange

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle Newsdesk