crypto exchange

Online Retail Giant Rakuten Allows People to Load Payment App With Cryptocurrencies

01/03/2021 by Idelto Editor

The firm Rakuten Inc., often referred to as “the Amazon of Japan,” announced customers can now load up Rakuten Pay accounts with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and bitcoin cash. In order to commemorate the latest crypto service, Rakuten is also offering bonus points to people leveraging “Rakuten Cash” via crypto assets.

Crypto Can Pay for Rakuten Goods and Services, Alongside Mister Donut, Familymart, and McDonald’s

The massive Japanese electronic commerce and online retail company based in Tokyo is now allowing crypto users to leverage the company’s Rakuten Pay service in order to load up on Rakuten Cash. The payment service with crypto asset support provides clients with access to a wide range of Rakuten’s services and products including the firm’s travel services, Kobo e-books, and mobile.

Moreover, users can load their Rakuten app with BCH, BTC, or ETH in order to purchase items at Familymart, McDonald’s, 7-11, and Mister Donut to name a few. Digital currency proponents, particularly from Japan, we’re extremely happy about Rakuten’s new crypto support.

“This news is huge for Japan,” explained one individual on Twitter. “You can now pay at McDonald’s and 711 and perhaps hundreds of thousands of other stores with Crypto.”

Rakuten’s announcement details that crypto users can also top up funds with digital assets via their Rakuten Cash-buying function. However, users need to also leverage Rakuten’s crypto wallet in order to access Rakuten Cash via digital currencies. Moreover, the company is offering a bonus point gift to customers using the Rakuten Cash-buying function with cryptocurrencies.

Rakuten Group Wants to Provide Convenient Crypto Asset Management

The press release also notes that there is a minimum charge amount of 1,000 yen ($10) and a one-time upper limit at around 100,000 yen ($1,000) per month. The loads can be done 24 hours a day and seven days a week via the Rakuten Pay app and the company’s crypto wallet. There is no fee for conversion, but “it is necessary to open a physical trading account using the Rakuten Wallet and install a smartphone app dedicated to trading,” Rakuten says.

The Tokyo-based firm further adds:

[The company] will utilize the synergies of the Rakuten Group to provide convenient and profitable cryptocurrency asset management and new usage methods to improve customer satisfaction.

Rakuten Group has been into crypto solutions and blockchain technology for quite some time, as it launched the Rakuten Blockchain Lab (RBL) in Belfast, UK, back in 2016. Then in 2018, the company acquired the crypto exchange project “Everybody’s Bitcoin Inc.” for 256 million yen (~US$2,305,484). On August 19, 2019, Rakuten continued to move forward and launched its crypto exchange.

“Through the smartphone app, customers can make transactions for crypto asset trading accounts, such as depositing/withdrawing Japanese yen and depositing/withdrawing crypto assets, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” the Japanese company said at the time.

The latest Rakuten crypto support that allows people to pay for goods and services with ETH, BTC, and BCH, is another forward move for Rakuten in the crypto industry since jumping in back in 2014.

What do you think about Rakuten’s latest announcement about crypto support for Rakuten Pay and Rakuten Cash? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Binance Blamed for Purposely Choking Ethereum’s Network

22/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

The recent ramp higher in cryptocurrency prices has assuredly attracted its fair share of cheerleaders and detractors alike, but the reality of this climb has been a concurrent increase in network fees from rising transaction volumes.

Binance is Blamed for Purposely Choking Ethereum’s Network to Drive More Users to Its Own Platform

The resulting volumes have clogged networks like Ethereum, which have seen gas costs climb almost 20x over the last 12 months. For the growing DeFi market, these sky-high costs have elicited significant criticism from the community and mobilized the ecosystem to hunt for more affordable options. Enter Binance, which may dethrone Ethereum as the new DeFi hotspot due to its interoperability and lower transaction costs.

Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which works on a Proof of Authority (POA) model, is centralized (Binance picks the authorities that run each node) relative to Ethereum’s entirely decentralized approach. This has prompted some users to criticize the approach, believing that Binance is abusing its clout and market power to intentionally clog the Ethereum network. However, this sharp critique misses the bigger picture.

A quick look at wallet and gas data highlights that Binance is the largest single gas spender. For instance, the image above tweeted by Nansen AI highlights from February 12th to the 18th, Binance spent the equivalent of nearly 5,000 ETH in gas alone. Although many users are quick to criticize publicized data of Asian exchanges which are known for inflating trading volume, this data can be corroborated by Etherscan data.

The data demonstrate that both in terms of gas spent and transaction volume over the last seven days, wallets attributed to Binance accounted for six out of 10 of the most active wallets in the entire Ethereum ecosystem. While it could be inferred that Binance’s volume is propelling Ether costs upward and doing so intentionally to attract more volume to its smart chain, this argument misses out on the blockchain interoperability that Binance has promoted. Moreover, Binance hasn’t shut off the taps to Ethereum, making the argument of it clogging the network somewhat moot.

Binance Pancakeswap Has Overtaken Uniswap

The costs of switching from Ethereum to Binance are very low, especially for smart contracts and Dapps. By improving the interoperability and reducing switching costs along with rebating developers who bring valuable projects online, Binance has built itself up as a formidable destination for all manner of activities.

Given the volumes of DeFi, any reduction in network fees and costs is likely to attract greater adoption. By filling this void quicker than competitors or more established chains, Binance is now home to PancakeSwap, which has overtaken Uniswap (based on Ethereum) in terms of volume.

Because the barriers of switching from Uniswap to PancakeSwap (which is effectively a copy of Uniswap on BSC), are fairly low, it’s no wonder why DeFi users have made the jump. Moreover, it has caused a sharp incline in Binance Coin’s (BNB) valuation, making transactions also more expensive on its own native chain.

Yet, unlike Ethereum, by building a more cost-effective ecosystem that rewards smart contract developers, Binance is actually incentivizing development and smart contract use, and not necessarily using its market power to clog other competing networks.

FTX Quick to Criticize

Still, that hasn’t been enough to silence critics like FTX, which blame Binance for the default chains where it sends transactions. In a recent tweet critique, cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX was quick to pile onto Binance’s withdrawal process which effectively defaults to promoting its own chains and creates a conflict due to the fees it reaps in return.

As a result, it has cost FTX dearly due to coins being sent to the wrong chains. Accordingly, the service has decided to pass along the extra costs to users in the form of a 5% deposit surcharge for tokens sent to the wrong chain. However, in large this argument speaks more towards user mistakes than Binance’s default settings.

While the Binance universe is undoubtedly growing, and exchange volumes speak credible truth to this reality, the self-promotion of its own tools will continue to spark the same sort of denunciations that marked the decentralized versus centralized exchange debate. Ultimately though, utility speaks the loudest.

What do you think – is Binance purposely choking the Ethereum network to gain more users? Let us know in the comments section below.

Troubled NZ Crypto Exchange Cryptopia Suffers Another Hack in the Midst of Liquidation Process

20/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

Controversy still surrounds a liquidated New Zealand cryptocurrency exchange, which allegedly got hacked again. Adding to the $30 million stolen in 2019, Cryptopia reports that it was the target of another theft incident on February 1, 2021.

Hackers Accessed a Dormant Wallet Which Holds XSN Tokens

According to Stuff.co.nz, the hackers took around NZD 62,000 ($45,000) worth of cryptocurrencies from the troubled exchange. The alert first came from Stakenet, a U.S.-based blockchain firm.

The investigation unveiled that hackers accessed a wallet that has been dormant since the hack in January 2019, where Cryptopia suffered a loss of over $30 million worth in cryptos.

The wallet belongs to Stakenet and is under the control of Cryptopia’s liquidators, Grant Thornton. Per the findings, the dormant wallet was holding around $1.96 million worth of XSN, Stakenet’s native token.

A spokesman from the U.S. blockchain company commented on the matter:

We had no prior warning of any intended movement, so naturally, we immediately contacted [liquidator] Grant Thornton, who is supposed to be in control of these assets and in charge of redistributing them back to their rightful owners.

Moreover, the Stakenet spokesman pointed out that Grant Thornton should clarify how the incident happened, as well as why they failed to prevent it:

If this unauthorized transaction has happened under Grant Thornton’s watch, then they need to explain to the users why they failed to secure… [their] assets like they were supposed to do and how someone was able to access them.

Former Employee Charged for Stealing Over $182,000 From the Exchange

Cryptopia’s liquidators were appointed in May 2019 to start the process of shutting down the crypto exchange. As of press time, they haven’t addressed the recent alleged hack publicly.

But the string of troubles appears not to see an end for the crypto exchange. This incident happened just a few months after a former employee allegedly stole over NZD 250,000 ($182,300) worth in cryptos, plus customer data from Cryptopia. However, New Zealand authorities managed to recover the stolen funds and return them to Grant Thornton.

What do you think about this latest incident related to Cryptopia? Let us know in the comments section below.

Study: Top-Tier Cryptocurrency Exchanges Increased Their Market Share by 13% Since October 2020

20/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

A recent study unveiled that top-tier cryptocurrency exchanges increased their market share since October 2020, in the context of lower-risk exchanges. The bitcoin bull market fueled that both retail and professional traders utilized such risk, data shows.

Stricter Regulations Boosted Transparency Levels in Crypto Exchanges

Per information from crypto market data provider cryptocompare.com, top-tier crypto exchange gained 13% market share from October 2020 to January 2021. In fact, it increased from 61% ($347 billion) to 74% ($1.41 trillion).

But the study — which covered over 160 exchanges — clarified the following about the market share’s proportion:

Based on the most recent ranking update, the proportion of Top-Tier exchange volume in Jan 2021 would be 88% to reflect the increase in the number of Top Tier exchanges meeting the minimum threshold – 68 in July 2020 vs 76 in current update.

Cryptocompare highlighted that exchange’s standards “improved” as regulatory requirements toughened to meet anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. Also, they praised that crypto exchanges increased their transparency in terms of data provision.

The research backs up its statement by showing that 44% of the surveyed exchanges “offer the ability to query full historical trade data via a public API endpoint.”

Improvements Seen in Security

In terms of security, the crypto market data provider pointed out “fewer hacks” in the last year:

20% of exchanges state that they hold more than 95% of crypto in cold wallets (vs 15% in July 2020). 1% of exchanges have been hacked in the last year (vs 4% as of July 2020). 18% of exchanges use a third party custody provider to store user assets, up from 12% in July 2020 and 9% in our Q4 2019 Benchmark.

Funds’ security was also another topic discussed within the study. According to Cryptocompare, 9% of crypto exchanges formally offer some form of insurance. Moreover, 37% of the surveyed exchanges hold a legal license to run the business.

What do you think about the study’s findings? Let us know in the comments section below.

US Authorities Take Action to Shut Down Crypto Trading Platform Allegedly Defrauding Thousands of Investors

19/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

The New York attorney general and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have filed charges against a cryptocurrency trading platform that allegedly defrauded thousands of investors out of over a million dollars.

US Regulators Allege Coinseed Operates Illegal Crypto Trading Platform

New York Attorney General Letitia James took legal action Wednesday to shut down the cryptocurrency trading platform owned and operated by Coinseed Inc. The lawsuit, filed in New York County State Supreme Court, alleges that Coinseed runs “an illegally operating cryptocurrency trading platform that defrauded thousands of investors across the nation out of more than $1 million.”

The suit names Coinseed Inc., its founder and CEO Delgerdalai Davaasambuu, and its chief financial officer Sukhbat Lkhagvadorj as defendants.

According to the announcement by the New York attorney general’s office, “Attorney General James sues to shut down” the crypto trading platform and “to recoup defrauded funds for thousands of investors.” Noting that “Coinseed willfully ignored numerous securities and commodities registration laws,” the announcement elaborates:

Attorney General James seeks to stop Coinseed and the two individual defendants from further operating as unregistered commodities broker-dealers through their mobile application, as well as return investments of Coinseed’s worthless cryptocurrency, the CSD token.

The attorney general alleges “Coinseed and the individual defendants were unlawfully trading cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, without being a registered broker-dealer in New York, while simultaneously failing to disclose certain fees associated with the trading of virtual currencies on their investor’s behalf.”

The lawsuit further alleges that “the defendants sought to finance their fraudulent company by raising funds in an unregistered securities offering and luring in investors with false claims about their professional experiences and the role of their management team.” The token sale took place approximately between December 2017 and May 2018. Hundreds of investors participated, including those in the U.S.

On the same day, the SEC announced that it has filed charges against Coinseed Inc. and its CEO for registration violations in connection with the company’s offer and sale of digital asset securities. “The SEC seeks permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, and civil penalties,” the regulator detailed.

What do you think about the charges against Coinseed? Let us know in the comments section below.