Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Mining news
- Today, Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty, which is the measure that shows how hard it is to compete for mining rewards, increased by 4.82%, reaching 17.6 T, as more miners turned their machines on, increasing the speed at which a new block on the Bitcoin blockchain is found. The mining difficulty is adjusted every two weeks (that is, every 2016 blocks) to maintain the normal 10-minute block time. For the most part of November it was below 10 minutes. On November 3, the difficulty had its largest drop since 2011 and the second-largest in the history of the network.
Regulation news
- Jay Clayton, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, confirmed today that after serving for more than three and a half years, he will conclude his tenure at the end of this year. (Learn more: Cryptoverse Might Face ‘More Aggressive’ SEC Under Biden)
- An expert has warned that the Russian government may struggle to monitor crypto for tax enforcement purposes. As previously reported, the Russian Ministry of Finance has unveiled plans to crack down on those who fail to declare their crypto earnings – with jail time on the cards for violators. According to media outlet Regnum, Konstantin Ordov, the head of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation (FinU)’s Department of Corporate Finance and Governance, stated, “The fiscal system that has been used in the past will not be able to keep up with the pace of changes in the monetary sphere of the present and future. […] It is very difficult to track transactions in the crypto world.”
- Legal experts in South Korea have warned that lawsuits will likely follow if multiple crypto exchanges close down next year. Per Hanguk Kyungjae, a number of unnamed lawyers have told the media outlet that a new set of regulations that will soon force all crypto exchanges in the nation to use real-name verified bank accounts and separate client funds from their own in banking transactions will force many firms out of business – with customers possibly needing to go to the courts to reclaim their funds. The regulation will come into force in March 2021, although exchanges will have a six-month grace period in which to adjust to the new compliance rules.
CBDCs news
- The central People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has signed a cooperation deal with a domestic third-party payments provider ahead of the launch of the bank’s forthcoming digital yuan – a project that is currently in the advanced testing phase. Per Leiphone, Lakala has sealed a deal with the PBoC, which it described as a “strategic cooperation agreement.” The parties have not revealed what the terms of the deal will involve, but Lakala is the only major mobile payments platform besides the duopoly of WeChat Pay and Alipay to have been listed on the Chinese stock market. Lakala also provides point-of-sale devices and portable swipe-type card readers.
DeFi news
- Decentralized finance protocol Value DeFi said it lost around USD 6m due to “a complex attack” this past weekend. According to them, a hacker performed a flash-loan exploit on the MultiStables vault of Value DeFi protocol. The team promised to create a compensation fund that will be funded by a combination of the dev fund, insurance fund and a portion of the fees that are currently generated by the protocol.
M&A news
- Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. said it has acquired DrawBridge Lending, a specialist of digital asset lending, borrowing, and structured products, and Blue Fire Capital, a proprietary trading firm specializing in market-making and two-sided liquidity for digital assets. No other details about the deals were provided.
Career news
- Alex Solomon, who led the Azure Direct business as part of Microsoft’s Western Europe HQ team, joined Enjin (ENJ) as Executive Director of Enterprise Platforms. Solomon said he will lead the development of a new Enterprise arm. “Ultimately, we aim to offer a full-service stack that enables businesses to create powerful token projects quickly through a template-driven experience,” he added.