Author: Coindesk

Staking should potentially be added to the menu for crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a bipartisan group of U.S. senators argued in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday.Issuers of crypto ETFs had originally planned to include the staking feature in their fund offerings, but the SEC, under its past leadership, had balked at the idea. The agency, run by Chair Gary Gensler until the administration of President Donald Trump arrived last month, had previously pursued enforcement actions against firms such as Kraken, arguing staking amounted to an unregistered securities offering.The senators’ letter — backed by Cynthia…

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence said North Korea’s Lazarus Group was behind Bybit’s $1.46 billion hack. In an earlier post on social media platform X, Arkham offered a bounty of 50,000 ARKM tokens for anyone who could identify the attackers for Friday’s hack. Later, the platform said onchain sleuth ZachXBT submitted “definitive proof” that the attackers were the North Korean hacker group. “His submission included a detailed analysis of test transactions and connected wallets used ahead of the exploit, as well as multiple forensics graphs and timing analyses,” the post said. Read more: Bybit Loses $1.5B in Hack but Can…

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said Thursday that his exchange will not list the Pi Network’s PI token, which was controversially released on Thursday, citing a Chinese police warning from 2023 that alleged the project was a scam targeting elderly people, leaking their personal information and leading to the loss of their pensions. “There are multiple other reports out there questioning the project legitimacy,” Zhou posted on X. “Yes, I still think you are a scam, and no, Bybit will not list scam.” 1. Here is a official police warning of $Pi from Chinese police back in 2023 warning to the…

For far too long, the U.S. has been falling behind the rest of the world on staking policy. Now, in just the first 30 days of the Trump Administration, staking has been mentioned in Congressional hearings, listed as a top priority by the SEC’s newly created crypto task force and is today the focus of a bipartisan letter from lawmakers challenging the previous SEC’s stance on its inclusion in exchange-traded products (ETPs). Many in the digital asset sector celebrated when the first spot ether ETFs were approved in September of last year. It was a giant leap forward for the…

Only a handful of hours ago crypto markets were buoyed as the Securities and Exchange Commission signaled its intent its dismiss a lawsuit against Coinbase (COIN).The welcome regulatory news sparked 5% gains for COIN and the likes of increasingly important crypto trading platform Robinhood (HOOD), and sent bitcoin (BTC) breaking out of its recent tight trading range to within sight of the $100,000 level.The first bomb to break the good vibes came late in the U.S. morning when Bybit was stung by about a $1.5 billion hack — the largest such exploit ever in crypto. That news sent bitcoin and…

The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) is tasked with managing assets seized by law enforcement in the course of criminal investigations, like real estate, cash, jewelry, antiques or vehicles.It is also supposed to be handling cryptocurrencies — for example, the billions of dollars worth of bitcoin (BTC) seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from darknet marketplace Silk Road in 2013.However, the USMS doesn’t seem to know how much crypto it currently has. In fact, the agency is struggling to come up with a rough estimate of even its bitcoin holdings, a source familiar with the matter told CoinDesk.That could…

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has recommended that Bybit should halt withdrawals as a security precaution following Friday’s $1.5 billion hack.”Not an easy situation to deal with. Might suggest to halt all withdrawals for a bit as a standard security precaution. Will provide any assistance if needed. Good luck,” he wrote in an X post. In response to concerns that it would stoke further fear, CZ added: “1.5 billion is fear enough. Better to be safe than sorry now.”Arkham data shows that Bybit still has $20 billion in assets, and the company’s CEO, Ben Zhou, said that the exchange “is…

Cryptocurrency prices dropped on Friday, reversing early gains on reports that crypto exchange Bybit was seeing $1.5 billion worth of crypto outflows in a potential security incident.Bitcoin (BTC) slid to near $97,000 after hovering near $100,000 earlier during the day, while ether (ETH) slipped nearly 4%, dipping below $2,700.The sudden downturn liquidated roughly $100 million worth of leveraged derivatives trading positions, overwhelmingly longs anticipating prices to rise, CoinGlass data shows.Crypto liquidations in an hour (CoinGlass) The move happened after well-followed blockchain sleuth ZachXBT noted a “suspicious” $1.5 billion ETH outflow. Ben Zhou, CEO of Bybit confirmed the hack in an…

State-owned Banco Nacional (BN), the largest commercial bank in Costa Rica and one of the biggest in Central America with over $7 billion in assets, is launching a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund through its investment management arm, BN Fondos, according to local reports.This marks the first time that Costa Ricans will have access to any type of crypto investment product through the country’s banking system.The firm is also launching a S&P 500 ETF alongside the bitcoin vehicle. The minimum investment amount for each fund is $100. Investments will be taken in U.S. dollars instead of Costa Rican colones.“[Costa Rican] regulation…

Major cryptocurrency exchange Bybit said all of its liquidation data is now publicly available through an upgrade to its application programming interface (API).With the upgrade, the API delivers liquidation data updates every 500 milliseconds, twice as fast as the previous version, which provided just one update per second per trading pair, it said.The change ensures that every liquidation event is captured in real time, eliminating blind spots that previously obscured the true scope of market activity“The real spirit of crypto is transparency. By making all liquidation data fully public, we’re empowering traders and analysts with the insights they need,” CEO…