After a 2-year investigation, Hindenburg concluded Block (previously known as Square) “systematically took advantage of the demographics it claims to be helping.” The report accused the firm of facilitating “fraud against consumers and the government” as well as “avoiding regulation.” It further called Block’s loans and fees to be “predatory” in nature and designed to “mislead investors with inflated metrics.”
The US-based short seller said its research involved numerous interviews with former employees, partners, and industry experts, as well as an extensive review of regulatory and litigation records and FOIA and public records requests.
Hindenburg Report on Block
In a report released on March 23rd, Hindenburg claimed that Block “does not seem to offer a discernible

Scammers adapt better than we can imagine and change depending on the market situation. This revelation was made in a recently hosted webinar by prominent blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis wherein it gauged crime trends in the industry market during the crypto winter. The data gathered by the firm revealed how scammers adapted to the developments and volatility of the crypto market.
Not all scams behaved the same way in the context of the bear market. This time around, it was the free giveaway and romantic scams that managed to swipe money from victims’ pockets.
Scammers Post Terra Collapse
The data gathered by Chainalysis demonstrated ways in which scammers adapted to the developments and volatility of the crypto market. According to the firm’s cybercrimes research

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has often talked about the purported “dangers” of crypto-assets while highlighting the need to strongly regulate the industry. It wasn’t until the FTX blow-up that the regulator stepped up its aggression.
In yet another instance stigmatizing the asset class, the securities watchdog has released a bulletin urging investors to exercise caution when dealing with cryptocurrencies.
SEC’s “Investor Alert”
The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy cautioned investors against considering an investment involving crypto asset securities citing its “exceptionally volatile and speculative” nature. The post also pointed out that the crypto exchanges “may lack important protections for investors.”
The SEC explained that the

With the much-anticipated Shapella upgrade just around the corner, the Ethereum Foundation has increased the bug bounty.
According to the latest developers’ call, the reward was updated as part of the last-minute testing efforts.
Bug Bounty
In the 105th All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) call, Security Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation – Fredrik Svantes – revealed that the maximum bug bounty for identifying a vulnerability in the Shanghai/Capella upgrade has been doubled from $250,000 to $500,000 between now and the time of the fork.
This isn’t the first time the organization has ramped up its bug bounty program. The Ethereum Foundation announced increasing the payouts fourfold ahead of the blockchain’s transition to proof-of-stake for all “Merge-related bounties for

Arbitrum’s much-anticipated token airdrop shook up the crypto space as on-chain activity of the popular layer-2 solution soared to levels not seen before. With the introduction of the ARB token, Arbitrum finally transformed into a DAO.
Meanwhile, the hunters of this cash rain raked in an impressive amount of ARB tokens. In the first hour alone, over 42 million ARB tokens were claimed. New data found two “super airdrop hunters” that received 1.4 million ARB, worth around $1.92 million, and 933,375 ARB, worth $1.28 million. Collectively, the two “hunters” acquired around $3.3 million via 1,496 addresses.
As per the blockchain analysis firm Lookonchain, the account that received 1.4 million ARB added the entire amount to the decentralized exchange Uniswap to provide

Telegram has added a new feature enabling users to send each other the world’s largest stablecoin, tether (USDT).
USDT runs on several blockchains, but for now, Telegram has added support for the stablecoin only on Tron.
According to an update on March 22nd, USDT-TRON – TRC20 – has been added to the popular messaging app’s wallet function, thereby expanding its payment capabilities for buying and selling crypto.
USDT is the third crypto-asset joining Bitcoin and The Open Network token as assets supported by the Wallet bot (TON).
Telegram’s announcement read,
“You can now buy, swap, and make P2P trades with Tether USDT (TRC20). You can also directly send USDT to your friends with no transaction fees.”
With the new integration, Telegram is competing against other social

The much-anticipated Arbitrum ARB governance token airdrop marks the beginning of its transition into a self-executing DAO governance, and the activity on the network has soared to levels never seen before.
The Ethereum-layer 2 scaling system that uses Optimistic rollups technology to facilitate faster and cheaper transactions has already been on a roll lately. The daily transaction on Arbitrum has now hit an all-time high of 1,312,052.
The last peak was registered a month back when the figures climbed 1,103,398, which was followed by a sharp reversal amidst an industry-wide drawdown, according to the data compiled by Arbiscan. But the airdrop news gave the figures the necessary boost.
DeFiLlama data further suggested that there’s nearly $2 billion locked inside

The banking sector could potentially undergo a much-needed revamp, but until then, investors appear to be scrambling for a safety net. As the traditional financial world is rocked by the Credit Suisse chaos and the failure of a series of US banks, investors have flocked to the largest stablecoin, Tether (USDT).
The turmoil has once again helped the controversial asset extend its lead.
Tether Market Cap
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank, and Silvergate Capital, once served as a vital tripartite of lenders fetching deposits from crypto companies, all collapsed this year in a relatively short span of time. The demise of these entities highlighted the “un-stableness” of stablecoins.
The fintech firm Circle admitted a $3.3 billion exposure to SVB, which briefly dragged

MetaMask is integrating with crypto fintech platform MoonPay to expand its offering in Nigeria.
According to MetaMask developer ConsenSys, Nigeria happens to be one of the major markets for the crypto wallet service globally, ranking third in active mobile users. The latest move to gain a stronger foothold in the country comes in response to the inadequacies in the local financial system, as an estimated 90% of credit/debit card attempts to purchase crypto in Nigeria are declined.
Expansion to Nigeria
With MoonPay integration, MetaMask users in the African country will now be able to use instant bank transfers to buy crypto directly in a much faster and cheaper way. This new feature is available on the MetaMask mobile app and the Portfolio Dapp.
MetaMask’s Senior Product

Pushing on the new industry standard to boost transparency, OKX released its fifth proof-of-reserves (PoR) report. The latest edition demonstrated that the Seychelles-based crypto exchange holds clean assets worth $8.9 billion in BTC, ETH, and USDT.
Data shows that OKX’s wallets have 138,405 BTC, 1,325,259 ETH, and 3,264,352,204 USDT against user balances of 134,289 BTC, 1,284,812 ETH, and 3,199,251,622 USDT, respectively.
This proves that OKX is overcollateralized with a reserve ratio of 103% for Bitcoin, 103% for Ethereum, and 102% for Tether.
The report further highlighted that OKX holds the largest 100% clean asset reserves among major exchanges for the third consecutive month.
While the reserve ratios of Bitcoin and Ethereum noted a minor decline since the last report

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was the backbone of many startups and venture capital funds around the world. Its collapse signifies the biggest banking failure since the 2008 financial crisis. While the crypto market has largely been spared from an adverse effect, the same cannot be said for the non-fungible token (NFT) space.
According to the latest edition of the DappRadar report, the NFT traders went “numb” in response to the banking turmoil in the United States.
NFT Space Amidst Banking Chaos
The NFT industry followed a steady upward trajectory for most of 2023. In fact, the sales recorded highs as the broader market recovered while mainstream adoption of NFTs also saw a spike. However, the collapse of SVB and the de-pegging of one of the largest stablecoins – USDC – was

On-chain analyst Lookonchain detected an address tied to the exploiter of the Ethereum-based lending protocol sent 100 Ether (approximately $171,700) to a wallet associated with Lazarus Group’s mammoth Ronin network hack.
While it is still unclear if the Euler exploiter is affiliated with the North Korean state-sponsored cyber threat group linked to the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the interaction is peculiar as many community members had previously speculated that the notorious collective could be behind it.
Lazarus Group was initially sanctioned by OFAC in 2019 and has been involved in several exploits. In addition to the $625 million exploit of Axie Infinity’s Ronin network, it was also behind last year’s $100 million Harmony bridge hack.
Euler

Payment processing company Stripe announced signing agreements for a Series I fundraising of over $6.5 billion at a valuation of $50 billion.
Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, MSD Partners, and Thrive Capital will participate in the funding round alongside new investors such as GIC, Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management, and Temasek.
The Funding
Stripe intends to deploy the freshly raised funds to provide liquidity to current and former employees and address staff withholding tax obligations related to equity awards, resulting in the retirement of company shares that will offset the issuance of new ones to Series I investors.
Stripe said in a press release that it does not require this capital to run its business. Talking about the

The USDC depeg caused significant turmoil in the market last week. The stablecoin issuer Circle claimed that it has cleared “substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC.”
In a recent statement, Circle said it had redeemed $3.8 billion of USDC tokens over the period and minted $800 million.
The Boston-headquartered company also went live with a new transaction banking partner for domestic US wires in and out on March 14.
Circle further revealed going live for international wires to and from 19 countries as well with the same partner the following day. The team expects to “bring more capabilities back online” starting this week.
Highlighting the events of the past week that affected the liquidity operations for USDC, the company said,
“Circle

Last week’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the subsequent contagion appeared to have worked in favor of the decentralized exchanges as trading activity soared to levels not seen since November 2022.
According to the latest data from DeFiLlama, the daily trading volume on decentralized exchanges was up by an astonishing 255.36% over the past week and is inching closer to $60 billion, a level last seen four months ago. The figure reached almost $25 billion on March 11th as a result of investors scrambling to move money.
All the top decentralized exchanges were in the green, with the majority noting increases upwards of 100%.
Uniswap is clearly the largest decentralized exchange, as per the leaderboard, raking in a trading volume of $31.69 billion over the past

Coinbase is ramping up its expansion effort, with Singapore being the first stop. As part of its ambitious plan, the crypto exchange has announced forging a strategic banking partnership with Standard Chartered in the city-state to provide its users with an option to move funds between any lender and Coinbase.
The news comes amidst the crypto industry losing a number of banking on- and off-ramps due to the recent turmoil in the US banking industry.
Coinbase-Singapore
According to the official blog post, Singapore customers will now be able to transfer funds to and from their Coinbase account using any local bank in the city-state for free. The aim is to offer users more flexibility and control of their assets by enabling them to cash in or cash out of their Coinbase

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the addition of key industry members to the newly constituted Technology Advisory Committee (TAC).
The official press release stated that the agency has appointed White House official Carole House as the new chair, while blockchain analysis company TRM Labs’ Ari Redboard has been onboarded as the vice chair of its Technology Advisory Committee.
Committee Members
The Technology Advisory Committee will be joined by executives from IBM, Amazon, CME Group, and Cboe Global Markets. Professors from university law schools, including Cornell, Washington College of Law, and the University of Michigan, have also been named in the list.
The TAC also features several members from the cryptocurrency industry, namely – Ava Labs

Omniscia, the auditing partner of Euler Finance, has released a post-mortem report on the same which stated that the vulnerability that was exploited by the malicious hackers originated from the decentralized finance lending protocol’s incorrect donation mechanism that failed to account for the donator’s debt health.
The vulnerable code introduced in eIP-14 brought about several modifications throughout the Euler ecosystem. This enabled the attacker to create an over-leveraged position and liquidate it themselves in the same block by artificially causing it to go “under-water,” said the firm in a statement.
The feature at the center of the vulnerability was not in the scope of any audit conducted by Omniscia.
An outside audit was responsible for reviewing the vulnerable

Blockchain security firm, Halborn has detected several critical and exploitable vulnerabilities impacting more than 280 networks, including Litecoin (LTC) and Zcash (ZEC). Code-named “Rab13s,” this vulnerability has put over $25 billion of digital assets at risk.
This was first detected in the Dogecoin network a year ago, which was then fixed by the team behind the premier memecoin.
51% Attacks and Other Issues
According to the official blog post, Holborn researchers discovered the most critical vulnerability related to peer-to-peer (p2p) communications which, if exploited, can help attackers craft consensus messages and send them to individual nodes and take them offline. Eventually, such a threat could also expose networks to risks such as 51% attacks and other severe

The decline of centralized entities has worked out well for their decentralized counterparts. Over the weekend, USDC witnessed a significant trading volume on several decentralized exchanges.
Uniswap, for one, reached its highest daily volume ever of $11.84 billion on March 11th. But it isn’t the only decentralized protocol that saw traction.
Decentralized Exchanges Register Impressive Growth
The development comes in the backdrop of Circle’s USDC de-pegging event that occurred over the weekend after the collapse of Signature, Silvergate, and Silicon Valley Bank.
Several centralized crypto exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Bitpay, halted payments and auto conversions in the stablecoin. This caused the stablecoin prices to fluctuate wildly, and gas fees

Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer – Nissan – has reportedly filed for four Web3-related trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last week. The applications are for its Infiniti, Nismo, and Nissan brands.
According to the filing, Nissan intends to strengthen its foothold in the web3 space by creating virtual clothes, cars, headgear, trading cards, toys, tickets, and an online NFT marketplace for trading and minting NFTs.
The filing also covers “entertainment services” such as online video, images, artwork, tickets, audio, sounds, music, and trading cards. Nissan’s application covers software for creating, minting, sending, receiving, accepting, trading, storing, tracking, authenticating, and submitting NFTs and videos.
The company

The unprecedented injection of liquidity into the market from the Federal Reserve during that period was an attempt to stimulate an ailing economy.
But before that, crypto, which closely tracked the stock market’s movements, went into a downward spiral soon after. Bitcoin crashed from $8,000 to $3,750 in a matter of hours.
It was the “loaded” retail and amateur players that tapped crypto and meme stocks as markets recovered. Eventually, the asset class soared to new heights in 2021. While dramatic blow-off peaks and drawdowns of over 80% are not out of the norm, the last bull run managed to capture the attention of investors, both big and small, like no other.
Several public companies made significant investments in crypto. Overall, it was a record-breaking year for space.

Mark Zuckerberg-led social media giant – Meta – is developing a decentralized text-based app called Codenamed P92.
According to a report, users can log in to the new app through their Instagram credentials. The latter’s head, Adam Mosseri, has been roped in to lead the project. With the new app using existing Instagram data, including names, profile photos, and followers, among other things, this may not sit well with many since Meta has faced criticism in the past for its handling of user data and privacy issues.
Keeping this in mind, the company has also onboarded the legal department to work out privacy concerns before rolling out the app in public.
Decentralized Social Network
P92 will be based on a decentralized framework similar to that of Mastodon, which has

Decentralized proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain Hedera finally confirmed a security breach. In an update, the team behind the platform revealed that attackers managed to exploit the Smart Contract Service code of the protocol’s mainnet to transfer Hedera Token Service tokens held by victims’ accounts to their own.
It said the root cause of the issue has been identified by the team, and are working on a solution.
Hedera Exploit
Hedera further noted that the attackers targeted those accounts which were used as liquidity pools on multiple decentralized exchanges – including Pangolin, SaucerSwap, and HeliSwap – that utilize Uniswap v2-derived contract code ported over to use the Hedera Token Service to carry out the theft.
Hedera announced shutting down network services and

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s non-fungible token arm – Binance NFT – has announced adding support for the Polygon network on March 8th.
The integration of the Polygon network will enable users to explore and trade a wider variety of NFTs across multiple blockchains. This includes – BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Ethereum (ETH) network, as well as Polygon from their Binance accounts.
Despite the announcement, Binance has taken a cautious approach in terms of NFT listings. As such, the marketplace said that not all NFT collections would be available at the moment.
According to the official blog post, only handpicked ERC-721 NFT Collections on the Polygon network are available on the Binance NFT marketplace.
So far, ten collections have been added. The platform plans to integrate

Shiba Inu developers revealed that the Shibarium public beta platform will be launched sometime this week.
The plan for the layer-2 platform was first unveiled in January this year. It was viewed as a major step for the Shiba Inu ecosystem from being a mere memecoin to offering a way for the SHIB community to access faster and cheaper transactions, with increased scalability and enhanced security. The team backing the token revealed building Shibarium on top of the Ethereum network.
The upcoming launch of the beta version of Shibarium is for testing purposes only.
As stated in its introductory blog, Shibarium’s Layer 2 blockchain protocols intend to tap the Metaverse, Web3 innovation, and gaming. The team had earlier also teased the possibility of going off-chain for more

Glassnode has detected the movement of approximately 40,000 Bitcoins tied from wallets tied to seizures conducted by US law enforcement.
The transfers have sparked concerns about a sell-off primarily because such an activity could point towards a potential sale that could put significant pressure on Bitcoin’s price.
Bitcoin is currently facing significant sell pressure after dropping below a critical area of support to $22,018.
Movement of Seized Bitcoins
The transfers were flagged by Glassnode. According to the crypto-analytic firm’s update, a majority appear to be internal transfers. However, nearly 9,861 BTC (worth $217 million) seized from the Silk Road hacker have been sent to the crypto exchange Coinbase.
This was later confirmed by the blockchain security firm,

Increasing electricity costs and a decline in digital asset prices coupled with high mining difficulty in the fourth quarter slashed mining profit margins and made it difficult for miners to stay afloat.
Chinese crypto mining rig maker – Canaan – reported a mining revenue of $10.5 million in the fourth quarter, representing an increase of 16.3% from the previous quarter. It was also up by a staggering 368.2% compared to the same period in 2021.
But the bigger picture tells a different story.
Canaan’s Financial Results
According to the official press release, Canaan was not spared in the crypto winter either, as its year-on-year revenue took a severe hit. The company reported a staggering loss of 82% to $56.8 million. During the same period, it sold a total computing power

The hacker of the DeFi project – Uranium Finance – started moving 2,250 ETH, worth approximately $3.35 million, in stolen funds into the popular coin mixer, TornadoCash.
The movement of funds from the wallet was detected by the blockchain security firm, PeckShield, on March 7th.
Data from Etherscan reveals that the hacker transferred the funds over a time frame of seven hours in transactions ranging from 1 ETH to 100 ETH.
In addition to this, another Ethereum wallet tied to the hacker shows it was last active 159 days ago. Gauging further, it was found that 5 ETH was sent to privacy-focused Ethereum zk-rollup on Aztec.
Uranium Finance was exploited on April 28, 2021. The attackers targeted its v2.1 token migration event and exploited the project’s balance modifier.
The

Kraken has had a tough time with the United States regulatory agencies. Despite the difficult environment, the crypto exchange is planning to roll out its own bank.
Marco Santori, Kraken’s chief legal officer, revealed Kraken Bank is very much on track to launch.
Kraken Bank
According to Kraken Support, the offering will initially be available to the existing clients of the exchange in the US. Potential international expansion is also in the cards.
Its official website states that Kraken Bank will be based on the Wyoming SPDI framework allowing it to “prioritize asset custody and safekeeping, data protection, security standards, and stringent regulatory oversight.”
It further explained that SPDI banks are required to maintain full reserves, which means user funds won’t be