blockchain news

To enhance confidence and accountability in the charitable space, philanthropic blockchain ecosystem Philcoin has inked a deal with Indacoin, a British fiat-to-crypto conversion gateway.

Jerry Lopez, Philcoin’s CEO and founder, noted that the partnership would be a stepping stone toward changing how giving happens by providing credit and debit cardholders with the chance to instantly purchase its native token, PHL, in at least 180 countries.

Lopez stated:

“We have a user base of over 250,000 people across the world through our app and we expect this number to soar with our new partnership. Imagine how much potential that holds when millions of people can use Philcoin, and its donate-and-earn products, to empower themselves while empowering others.”

The agreement also prompted a seamless integration within Philcoin’s decentralized application called PHILApp, which presents a host of products and features with a donate-and-earn element meant to teach users how to give. 

Through its blockchain-based ecosystem, Philcoin seeks to instil confidence in the charity sector by boosting accountability and giving the world’s population living in disadvantaged areas have adequate internet access. 

The philanthropic blockchain movement ascertained that digital giving and global impact prompted reciprocal abundance. 

Per the report: 

“Philcoin aims to create the largest global movement of philanthropists. Indacoin’s reach and exposure will help spread the word about Philcoin which, in turn, will help to inspire millions of people to give back.”

Earlier this year, Philcoin established a staking mechanism that would enable users to donate part of their earnings to a charity of their choice within PHILApp. 

The staking mechanism was expected to help Philcoin create a global philanthropic movement by changing how giving happens, Blockchain.News reported. 

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The crash of bankruptcy triggered by crypto exchange FTX escalates to the rest of the crypto industry. A Huobi-related subsidiary is the latest victim.

 

Citing “Failure to withdraw cryptocurrency assets from crypto exchange FTX”, Hong Kong-listed company New Huo Technology Limited (HKEX: 1611) announced inside information Monday that around $18.1 million worth of cryptocurrencies owned by its subsidiary Hbit Limited, are deposited in crypto exchange FTX, according to the latest announcement published on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Stock.

 

Among 18.1 million capital, around $13.2 million is “client’s asset based on the client’s trading request and approximately USD4.9 million is asset of Hbit Limited”. The listed company warned that the crypto assets “may not be able to be withdrawn from FTX” due to the filing of bankruptcy protection declared by FTX on Nov 11, which is suffering from a liquidity crunch.

 

The board of the company emphasised will continue to provide compliant, professional and safe virtual assets financial service to clients:

 

“The Board is of the view that the Incident currently does not affect the normal business operations of the Group. As Hbit Limited is legally and operationally separated from other business entities of the Group, other assets and business lines of the Group will not be affected.”

 

The Board acknowledged its financial performance could be affected if “the incident is not solved.”

 

Meanwhile, another Hong Kong-based crypto exchange, AAX, is also suffering from the recent turmoil. AAX said Sunday that the exchange continues the suspension of withdrawals for seven to ten days due to “a scheduled system upgrade” to protect users from the malicious attacks

 

Ben Caselin, AAX Vice President, tweeted in the early morning Monday, acknowledging this is “bad timing for a scheduled maintenance at @AAXExcahnge,” adding that the exchange “aimed to address serious vulnerabilities, to be prolonged for more than 24 hours. Out of extra precaution this will take longer,” urging the public to allow AAX to open up gradually.

 

However, AAX emphasized that the exchange has no financial exposure to FTX or its affiliates, and its digital assets remain intact, with a significant amount stored in cold wallets, according to the statement.

 

FTX filed bankruptcy protection last Friday after its exchange experienced a critical liquidity crunch, as its native token, FTT experienced a massive price plunge. FTX failed to get rescue from its major competitor Binance through acquisition, citing “the issues are beyond our control or ability to help.”

 

Reportedly FTX was accused of unauthorizedly using its client’s capital to foster its sister trading Alameda Research. In addition, FTX also suffered from a hacking incident last Friday. Over $600 million was breached from its crypto wallets. Founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has stepped down.

 

 

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In response to the recent crash in the crypto market, the Financial Deputy Secretary of Hong Kong has published a blog suggesting a regulatory regime would effectively avoid crypto exchange crash scenario amid the so-called “crypto winter”.

Emphasizing transparency, the blog mentioned the use of regulations and how they can help monitor the development of the virtual assets industry in Hong Kong. The article reads, “While actively embracing innovation, there must be a regulatory package that adapts and keeps pace with the times to properly manage risks and create prerequisites for the orderly and vigorous development of the market.”

Though the Financial Secretary’s Office in the blog did not mention the recent collapse of the FTX exchange but seemed only to be highlighting valuable points and advice. Expressing how important it is to maintain safety and adequately manage risks, the Financial Secretary’s Office noted: 

“We must make not only full use of the potential brought by innovative technologies, but also be careful to guard against fluctuations and potential risks that they may cause, and avoid these risks and impacts from being transmitted to the real economy.”

Furthermore, the administration advised virtual assets firms to maintain separate accounts to distinguish clients’ assets. They also recommended crypto businesses set aside actual operating expenses for at least 12 months, among other requirements.

To conclude, the Financial Secretary’s Office reflected on the economy, saying, “When considering the entire development direction, one of the core aspects is that if finance serves the real economy, technological innovation should also play a role in serving the real economy.”

Notably, this update comes not long after Hong Kong published its latest policy statement related to the outlook of virtual assets development, including the issuance of tokenized green bonds and the preparation of developing the digital Hong Kong Dollar.

Prior to that, Hong Kong made some critical moves that defined its aim to become an international virtual assets centre. The City’s top financial regulator, the Securities and Financial Commission (SFC), was reportedly set to permit the relisting of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) in exchanges that allow retail traders.

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Serum, an open liquidity infrastructure known to be the most widely used liquidity hub in the Solana ecosystem, is now said to be forked after the fact that it may have been compromised due to the FTX hack.

A developer with a pseudonym, Mango Max, said on Twitter a “verified build of the same version has been made and deployed” on Nov 12. In addition, the upgrade authority and fee revenues have been changed and are now managed by a multi-sig controlled by a team of trusted developers. Serum (SRM) and MegaSerum (MSRM) tokens, and also fee discounts, were not altered and are now working as usual.

Given that FTX develops Serum, many Solana developers believe the hack may have affected the protocol. Anatoly Yakovenko, a developer of the Solana blockchain, stated that developers are racing to fork Serum’s code today and resume the protocol without the involvement of FTX. 

However, apparently, developers might have to require another version of Serum because the original can only be updated via a private key which is controlled by someone at FTX and not the Serum DAO. As a result of the FTX hack, that key may have been compromised. Yakovenko added, “Afaik, the devs that depend on serum are forking the program because the upgrade key to the current one is compromised.”  

Yakovenko is not the only developer who contributed to the forking matter. Mango Max said, “The serum program update key was not controlled by the SRM DAO but by a private key connected to FTX. At this moment, no one can confirm who controls this key and hence has the power to update the serum program, possibly deploying malicious code.”

Mango Max mentioned that he and some other developers have now decided to take matters into their hands and push for a “relaunch.” He also concluded that a few community projects, including Solape Finance, Open Serum, Jupiter Exchange, Switchboard, and Mango Markets, have announced that they are working to integrate with the fork.

While the plan to relaunch was happening, several Solana apps which depend on the Serum protocol began limiting their exposure. Jupiter, a widely used DEX aggregator exchange on Solana, informed users that it has turned off the use of Serum’s liquidity due to security concerns. Jupiter concluded by encouraging other integrators to do the same.

Other Solana-based applications, such as Mango Markets, Phantom, and Magic Eden, also announced they would stop depending on Serum for liquidity and have halted its use because of security concerns.

It’s no more news that the hack and bankruptcy of FTX caused so much damage in the industry, affecting other projects. Recently Galois Capital, a crypto hedge fund that deals in over-the-counter trading, disclosed that almost half of its capital is trapped in FTX.

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After condemning the exchange’s behaviour, the team behind FTX Future Fund, a project of the FTX Foundation, has now been dismissed.

The team noted in a post on Effective Altruism Forum,

“We were shocked and immensely saddened to learn of the recent events at FTX. We are now unable to perform our work or process grants, and we have fundamental questions about the legitimacy and integrity of the business operations that were funding the FTX Foundation and the Future Fund. As a result, we resigned.”

Funded primarily by Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX Future Fund was launched in February 2022 to boost humanity’s long-term prospects. The project planned to distribute at least $100 million and up to $1 billion this year. 

According to the team, though they are still unclear about what happened, but they will follow up with the news as it unfolds. The team added condemning the behaviour of the exchange’s leadership:

‘’But to the extent that the leadership of FTX may have engaged in deception or dishonesty, we condemn that behavior in the strongest possible terms. We believe that being a good actor in the world means striving to act with honesty and integrity.’’

At the end of the note, the team stated that there are many committed grants that the Future Fund will be unable to honour as they are no longer working on the project. Speaking of foundation, last month Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), an organization that supports the Terra ecosystem, revealed that its efforts toward compensating Terra holders remain futile due to the ongoing litigation.

“Our goal is to distribute LFG’s remaining assets to those impacted by the depeg, smallest holders first. Unfortunately, due to ongoing and threatened litigation, distribution is not possible at this time. While these matters are outstanding, there can be no timeline established for resolution,” LFG noted in a tweet.

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