Author: Coindesk

Tether, the crypto firm behind the $140 billion dollar USDT stablecoin, made an “unsolicited” proposal to acquire a majority stake in Latin American agricultural commodities producer firm Agrodeco (AGRO).Submitted on Feb. 14, the $12.41 per share offer was to bring to Tether’s stake in the company from the current 19.4% to 51%, according to a Tuesday press release by Adecoagro.The Adecoagro board met on Feb. 16 to discuss the bid and has engaged financial and legal advisors to determine whether accepting the offer aligns with shareholders’ interests, the company said.Adecoagro’s shares jumped 8% premarket to $10.48 in premarket trading in…

At least two unnamed companies have been taken in by an alleged shapeshifting fraudster selling millions of dollars in fake FTX liquidation claims by apparently using artificial intelligence to help mask his appearance in video calls with buyers, according to an investigation conducted by data firm Inca Digital.A thief (or thieves) is said to have made off with at least $5.6 million by posing as a person looking to sell his high-dollar FTX liquidation claims, which checked out as valid even though they were not ultimately connected to the person allegedly scamming buyers. The potential thief may have used face-swapping…

Asset manager Grayscale Investments, known for its bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), said on Tuesday it has launched the Grayscale Pyth Trust, giving investors exposure to PYTH, the governance token of the Pyth network.Pyth provides price feeds that help decentralized applications function efficiently. The network sources pricing information from institutional traders and market makers and delivers updates that are critical for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Pyth’s services are particularly crucial in the Solana ecosystem, where 95% of decentralized protocols use the network’s data, Grayscale said. “The Pyth network plays one of the most significant roles in the Solana ecosystem,”…

A key player behind the Libra token bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei’s inner circle months before the memecoin’s scandalous launch and crash.In text messages reviewed by CoinDesk, Hayden Davis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures, claimed he could “control” Milei because of payments he had been making to Karina Milei, a powerful figure in Milei’s government, not to mention the president’s sister.”I control that n****,” Davis claimed in text messages from mid-December, adding, “I send $$ to his sister and he signs whatever I say and does what I want.”Karina Milei’s office did not respond to a request…

The desultory price action in crypto continued on Tuesday, helping to drag bitcoin (BTC) closer to its lowest level in several months.In early afternoon trading hours, bitcoin was trading at $93,600, lower by 2% over the past 24 hours and off 10% over the past week.The broader crypto market as defined by the CoinDesk 20 Index was down 4% over the past 24 hours. Hitting that index was a 16% decline in solana (SOL), which is feeling the pain as the memecoin market may finally have reached peak grift and/or outright criminality over the weekend with the rugpull involving Argentine…

Traditional finance firms that have adopted crypto are moving past the experimentation phase and are actively working on real-world solutions, Mastercard’s head of crypto and blockchain, Raj Dhamodharan, told CoinDesk.“Many of us in the industry are moving beyond experimentation; it’s actually real solutions,” he said, noting that Mastercard has already enabled stablecoin payments for financial institutions. Those institutions can choose to settle transactions using stablecoins, reflecting a broader trend in crypto adoption.Last week, the payments giant announced a partnership with crypto compliance firm Notabene, which will integrate Mastercard’s Crypto Credential into its SafeTransact platform to make digital asset transactions more…

Creditors of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX with claims below $50,000 have started receiving their payouts, which include 9% annual interest accrued since November 2022.Multiple users on the FTX subreddit have reported receiving funds on accounts at crypto exchange Kraken with the added interest on top. Creditors are scheduled to receive roughly 119% of their adjudicated claim value, according to the bankruptcy plan.Arkham Intelligence also pointing to FTX’s wallet outflows as evidence of the payments, which it says are expected to total around $1.2 billion.FTX USERS RECEIVING FUNDSUsers with FTX claims of under $50,000 have started to receive funds today…

Blockaid, a cybersecurity firm specializing in blockchain security, said it raised $50 million in a Series B funding round to help expand research, engineering and product development.Ribbit Capital led the round, with backing from GV and existing investors including Variant and Cyberstarts, the company said. The funding comes as demand for blockchain security rises, with major financial institutions and fintech firms expanding their on-chain operations.Blockaid, which started operations in 2023 and raised $27 million in a Series A round, provides real-time threat detection for blockchain transactions. The company integrates directly with wallets and decentralized applications (dapps) to secure users from…

The second-largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, MARA Holdings (MARA), has announced the completion of the acquisition of a wind farm in Texas, adding 114 megawatts of nameplate wind capacity and 240 megawatts of interconnection capacity to its operations.The Florida-based company plans to use the wind farm to power bitcoin mining operations using last-generation ASIC mining hardware “that would have otherwise been written off or sold into the secondary market.”MARA noted that repurposing the machines and leveraging renewable energy will reduce bitcoin mining products costs while using wind power that might have otherwise gone unused.“With this added renewable energy asset,…

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3183.11, down 1.4% (-46.75) since 4 p.m ET on Monday.Two of 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: LTC (+4.9%) and BTC (+0.3%). Laggards: APT (-5.6%) and SOL (-5.1%). The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here