Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Kraken to Share Partial User Data with IRS in November

After receiving a court order in June, Kraken will share selected user information with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the following month.　　“Kraken expects to share this information covered by the court order in early November 2023,” the exchange wrote in an email sent to affected U.S. users on Thursday. Kraken did not immediately respond to a request for comment.　　According to the June court order, Kraken is required to provide personal information and transaction history for any customer who traded more than $20,000 in any year from 2016 to 2020. This includes names, birthdates, taxpayer identification numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and five years of transaction history.　　The IRS was seeking broader information, including users IP addresses, employment details, sources of income, net assets, and banking information. However, Kraken stated in the email that it had successfully persuaded the court to “significantly reduce” the number of affected customers and the amount of customer data that needs to be provided.　　The June court order revealed that the number of affected users seems to have decreased to 42,017 individuals, down from the initially sought information of 59,331 Kraken users by the IRS.　　

2023-10-30Deep Dive

South Korea's Crypto Investors Make Up 10% of the Population and Favor Altcoins

According to a report by DeSpread Research, South Koreans are active cryptocurrency traders, with local exchanges ranking high in global trading volume, and a strong preference for altcoins and local tokens.　　The report states that, based on an investigation by the South Korean Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), the number of cryptocurrency investors in South Korea has reached approximately 6 million this year, accounting for 10% of the population. “Most of these investors primarily trade on centralized exchanges (CEX), which makes CEX highly influential in the South Korean cryptocurrency market.”　　Since March, global CEX trading volumes have declined due to Bitcoins sideways trading. However, local South Korean exchanges, including the largest one, Upbit, have bucked the trend. As of July, their trading volume growth even exceeded that of Binance. One of the contributing factors was the surge in XRPs price and volume following Ripples legal victory.　　Additionally, South Korean traders have a strong interest in altcoins and are less inclined toward mainstream coins. “Most individual investors on Upbit show a strong interest in altcoins with high profit potential and tend to accept the associated high risk. This is considered one of the reasons why the ratio of altcoin trading is high in the South

2023-10-30Deep Dive

$3 Billion Worth Of Bitcoin Options To Expire On October 27th

$3 Billion Worth Of Bitcoin Options are about to expire. Put Call Ratio at 0.88, max pain point $29k. BTC reached $36k, increased volatility. Selling activity from a large whale may impact market trend. 880k ETH options also expiring.　　According to Greeks.live, the Bitcoin options market is experiencing significant activity as 87,000 BTC options are about to expire. The Put Call Ratio stands at 0.88, indicating a slightly higher number of put options compared to call options.　　The max pain point is set at $29,000, which suggests that the market may gravitate towards this price. The notional value of these options is a staggering $2.98 billion.　　BTC has been the driving force in the market, reaching a new high for the year at $36,000 on October 24th. This surge in price has led to increased volatility, as reflected in the rising full-term implied volatility (IV).Bitcoin Options To Expire　　However, despite the positive market sentiment, there has been notable selling activity from a large whale in the second half of the week, potentially impacting the continuation of the markets upward trend.　　Additionally, 880,000 ETH options are about to expire with a Put Call Ratio of 0.47, a max pain point of $1,650 and a notional value

2023-10-27Deep Dive

Shiba Inu Community Tracks Down Founder’s Wallet, You Won’t Believe How Much It Holds

Recent reports about Shiba Inu‘s pseudonymous founder Ryoshi by the Shiba Inu community after tracking the founder’s wallet have sparked controversy within the Shiba Inu ecosystem.Shibburn Claims Ryoshi Holds $1 Billion In Shiba Inu　　According to an X (formerly Twitter) post by Shibburn, the Shiba Inu community-driven burn tracker, the burn tracker has claimed that Ryoshi holds a significant $1 billion worth of SHIB tokens amounting to over 10% of the token total supply. The claims basically contradict the previous belief about Ryoshi that he had no SHIB holdings.　　The foundation of the trackers claims can be traced back to the historical data from Bubble Maps, a renowned on-chain analytical platform. In January 2023, it showed that a considerable amount of the SHIB supply was under the control of a group of wallets purportedly linked to Ryoshi.　　In addition, the data asserts that these wallets already started to collect SHIB tokens as of August 2020. This was performed with the native wallet, identified as 0x1406, which for a small initial deposit of 38 ETH, or $10,000 at the time, accumulated an astounding 103 trillion SHIB tokens.　　The wallet reportedly held over $5 billion in assets as Shiba Inus market capitalization surged to $40 billion

2023-10-27Deep Dive

Binance CEO Wealth Dips Amidst Regulatory Challenges

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index has made a significant adjustment, reducing its revenue estimate for cryptocurrency exchange Binance by 38% due to a noticeable decline in the firms trading volumes this year.Binance CEO Wealth Takes a Hit as Bloomberg Billionaires Index Slashes Revenue Estimate　　According to Bloomberg, this adjustment had a substantial impact on Binance CEO wealth, reducing it to $17.2 billion after a $11.9 billion drop.　　This year, Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, played a part in events that led to Sam Bankman-Fried‘s legal troubles. In November, CZ announced the liquidation of a token connected to FTX, following a report that revealed Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, held a significant position in it.　　The announcement prompted a rush by some FTX customers to withdraw their funds, overwhelming the exchange, which subsequently declared bankruptcy, wiping out Bankman-Frieds fortune that had peaked at $26 billion in March last year.Regulatory Challenges and Market Trends Impact Binance　　Binance had a substantial market share earlier this year, reaching 62% of total on-exchange crypto trades in the first quarter, partly due to a zero-fee promotion for popular trading pairs. However, this share dropped to 51% by the end of the third quarter, according to research firm CCData, as the

2023-10-27Deep Dive

Ethereum Core Developers Confirm Dencun Upgrade Will Not Be Implemented Before Year-End

Ethereum client developers confirmed on Thursday that the anticipated Dencun upgrade will not be implemented in a network hard fork until the end of 2023.　　Last month, with the Ethereum Holesky testnet launching later than planned, it was widely believed that completing the Dencun upgrade before December was unlikely.　　An anonymous Prysm developer, Potuz, confirmed during the latest core developer call that a mainnet fork in 2023 is not feasible. He noted that over the past few months, the 10 developer networks (devnets) that were launched for testing the upgrade have consistently experienced consensus issues, with “none of them going smoothly.”　　

2023-10-27Deep Dive

PeckShield: Attackers Targeting Fantom Foundation Wallet Convert 4,390 ETH into 8 Million DAI

According to PeckShield monitoring, the attacker who targeted the Fantom Foundation-related wallets has exchanged approximately 4,390 ETH for about 8 million DAI. On October 17th, a wallet labeled “Fantom Foundation” was compromised, resulting in the theft of tokens worth around $7 million (about 4,500 ETH).　　In response, the Fantom Foundation issued a statement on the X platform, confirming that a few Fantom wallets, including approximately $550,000 of Fantom Foundation funds, were compromised. The vast majority of the Fantom Foundations funds (over 99%) were not affected and remain secure.　　Additionally, a personal wallet of a Fantom employee was impacted. Some of the affected wallets had been labeled as “foundation wallets” but were later reassigned to a Fantom employee, and this incident is considered a targeted attack on an individual. The official team is currently tracking and investigating the funds lost by the employee.　　

2023-10-27Deep Dive

Coinbase Launches 'Stand With Crypto' Initiative to Counter Proposed Crypto Taxation by the IRS

Coinbase has initiated the “Stand With Crypto” campaign aimed at opposing the transaction information collection proposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in its cryptocurrency tax laws. The campaigns webpage indicates that cryptocurrency advocates have donated over $2 million, with over 100,000 advocates participating and making over 16,000 contacts with Congress.　　The page also provides a channel for donations, and the current top three donors are barmstrong.eth ($11,584.05), wwarren.eth ($10,047.84), and bleznak.eth ($8,806.03).　　Previously, Coinbase sent a 14-page letter to the IRS expressing serious concerns about the nature and scope of the proposed tax regulations. Coinbase stated, “We have long advocated for the establishment of a tax system that treats digital assets on par with traditional financial assets. The proposed regulations will impose unprecedented, unconstrained, and unrestricted surveillance on the daily lives of Americans, allowing the government to oversee the most private healthcare decisions and even the purchase of a cup of coffee.”　　

2023-10-27Deep Dive

Unciphered Offers To Hack Former Ripple CTO Wallet To Recover 7,002 BTC

Crypto recovery company, Unciphered, claims they can surpass the 10-try limit to unlock former Ripple CTO wallet, which is holding 7,002 BTC ($244 million).　　Stefan Thomas, the former CTO of Ripple, possessed an IronKey hard drive that held 7,002 BTC (currently valued at approximately $244 million). Unfortunately, Thomas forgot the necessary information to access the drive and was left with only two attempts to guess the password.Offering To Hack Former Ripple CTO Wallet　　According to an open letter, Unciphered, a crypto recovery firm, has proposed unlocking a specific IronKey hard drive owned by Stefan Thomas, the former CTO of Ripple. This hard drive contains 7,002 BTC, equivalent to approximately $244 million.　　Next, we pored over everything we knew about your device, utilizing expertise from some of the top hardware hackers, crypto mathematicians, and exploit developers in the industry, looking for any sign of weakness. Spoiler alert: we found one. We got in.　　“After we had performed this feat the first time, we trained and practiced. We rehearsed. We needed to ensure every aspect of the hack was repeatable. And since then, we have repeated this process thousands of times.”　　Unciphered wrote: 　　Additionally, Unciphered claims to have developed a technique to bypass the security measures of

2023-10-26Deep Dive

FTX future direction: Sell the Exchange or Partner for Revival?

The FTX exchange is carefully assessing its future after bankruptcy proceedings, including its extensive customer base of over nine million or potentially forming a partnership with another entity to revive the platform.FTX future direction Decided by Mid-December, Sale or Partnership Possible　　According to a Bloomberg report, a decision on the companys course of action will be made by mid-December, as disclosed by Kevin Cofsky, the investment banker representing Perella Weinberg Partners, during a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware. Ongoing negotiations are underway with various investors to explore potential binding offers.　　FTX future direction is considering several options, ranging from selling the entire exchange, including its extensive customer base of over nine million users, to forming a partnership with another entity to revive the platform. Cofsky has also considered the possibility of independently rejuvenating FTXs trading platform. However, the identities of potential buyers have not been revealed.FTX Recovers $7B in Assets and Prepares for December Payout　　Since declaring bankruptcy last year, FTX has actively raised funds to meet its creditor obligations. According to court records, FTX administrators have successfully recovered approximately $7 billion in assets, including a significant $3.4 billion in cryptocurrency holdings.　　Furthermore, during the court proceedings, the companys attorney, Andrew Dietderich, reportedly announced

2023-10-26Deep Dive

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