[ad_1]
In a recent legal challenge, Coinbase has filed a brief with the Southern District of New York, seeking permission for an interlocutory appeal against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s expansive interpretation of what constitutes an “investment contract” in digital asset transactions. This pivotal case could set significant precedents for the cryptocurrency industry in the […]
[ad_2]
Source link
Tag: Coinbase
-

Coinbase Challenges SEC’s Definition of ‘Investment Contracts’ in Crypto Transactions
-

Coinbase Receives Official Registration as Canadian Restricted Dealer
[ad_1]
Coinbase, the international cryptocurrency exchange, has
achieved a milestone in its expansion efforts by becoming officially registered
as a restricted dealer by the Canadian Securities Administrators. With
this development, Coinbase has become the first international cryptocurrency
exchange to be registered in Canada.The registration process, which has been in progress since
March 2023, underscores Coinbase’s focus on regulatory compliance. Through
close collaboration with Canadian regulators, Coinbase has worked to establish
a policy framework.Brian Armstrong, CEO, Coinbase, Source: LinkedIn
Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, expressed appreciation for
the efforts of Canadian regulators in bringing clarity to the cryptocurrency
market. Additionally, Coinbase has engaged with Canadian banks, investment
advisors, and pension funds to facilitate their successful navigation of the
evolving digital asset landscape.A recent survey conducted by Coinbase in partnership with
Angus Reid revealed that a significant majority of Canadians (72%) view the
regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges as important. Furthermore, nearly a
third of Canadians (29%) indicated that they would be more inclined to buy
cryptocurrency if there were more regulations in place.Coinbase secures restricted dealer license in Canada, pushing expansion abroad amid SEC crackdown https://t.co/zVU1zY21jW
— CNBC Tech (@CNBCtech) April 4, 2024
Coinbase Continues Global Expansion with Canada Registration
Canada is recognized as a significant market for Coinbase,
known for its tech ecosystem and notable levels of cryptocurrency
awareness among its population. The registration as a Restricted Dealer
represents one of several steps taken by Coinbase to expand its presence in
Canada, including the official launch in August 2023 and the establishment of a
Canadian tech hub .The registration in Canada adds to Coinbase’s growing list
of registrations in key countries, including France, Spain, Singapore, Italy,
Ireland, and the Netherlands.Meanwhile, a federal judge in Manhattan has allowed the US
Securities and Exchange Commission to proceed with a lawsuit against Coinbase,
despite dismissing one claim. The decision sets the stage for a potentially
lengthy legal battle, marking a notable development in the ongoing regulatory
scrutiny of digital assets firms.Coinbase, the international cryptocurrency exchange, has
achieved a milestone in its expansion efforts by becoming officially registered
as a restricted dealer by the Canadian Securities Administrators. With
this development, Coinbase has become the first international cryptocurrency
exchange to be registered in Canada.The registration process, which has been in progress since
March 2023, underscores Coinbase’s focus on regulatory compliance. Through
close collaboration with Canadian regulators, Coinbase has worked to establish
a policy framework.Brian Armstrong, CEO, Coinbase, Source: LinkedIn
Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, expressed appreciation for
the efforts of Canadian regulators in bringing clarity to the cryptocurrency
market. Additionally, Coinbase has engaged with Canadian banks, investment
advisors, and pension funds to facilitate their successful navigation of the
evolving digital asset landscape.A recent survey conducted by Coinbase in partnership with
Angus Reid revealed that a significant majority of Canadians (72%) view the
regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges as important. Furthermore, nearly a
third of Canadians (29%) indicated that they would be more inclined to buy
cryptocurrency if there were more regulations in place.Coinbase secures restricted dealer license in Canada, pushing expansion abroad amid SEC crackdown https://t.co/zVU1zY21jW
— CNBC Tech (@CNBCtech) April 4, 2024
Coinbase Continues Global Expansion with Canada Registration
Canada is recognized as a significant market for Coinbase,
known for its tech ecosystem and notable levels of cryptocurrency
awareness among its population. The registration as a Restricted Dealer
represents one of several steps taken by Coinbase to expand its presence in
Canada, including the official launch in August 2023 and the establishment of a
Canadian tech hub .The registration in Canada adds to Coinbase’s growing list
of registrations in key countries, including France, Spain, Singapore, Italy,
Ireland, and the Netherlands.Meanwhile, a federal judge in Manhattan has allowed the US
Securities and Exchange Commission to proceed with a lawsuit against Coinbase,
despite dismissing one claim. The decision sets the stage for a potentially
lengthy legal battle, marking a notable development in the ongoing regulatory
scrutiny of digital assets firms.
[ad_2]
Source link -

Bitcoin Held On Coinbase Exchange Reach 9-Year Low, Can Bitcoin Reach $75,000?
[ad_1]
In a recent development, data from crypto analytics firm Glassnode shows that the amount of Bitcoin held on Coinbase has reached a 9-year low. This has raised the possibility of the flagship crypto rising to a new all-time high (ATH) of $75,000 soon enough.
BTC Held On Coinbase Drops Significantly
According to Glassnode, the Bitcoin balance on Coinbase dropped to a nine-year low of 344,856 on March 18. This suggests that Bitcoin investors are choosing to move their holdings off exchanges and hold for the long term rather than sell anytime soon. A move like this reduces the short-term pressure on Bitcoin and could spark an upward trend in BTC’s price.
Meanwhile, the drop in BTC held on Coinbase looks to be a trend, with data from market intelligence platform Santiment showing a drop in the total amount of Bitcoin held on centralized exchanges (CEXs). This data is also supported by the fact that these exchanges have recorded more outflows than inflows lately.
Further data from Santiment also shows that the supply on exchanges as of March 22 stood at just over 836,000 BTC compared to the 18.82 million BTC that resides out of these CEXs. The decline in the number of BTC held on exchanges is undoubtedly a welcome development, considering how the flagship crypto token has recently been plagued with a wave of profit-taking.
Before now, the bearish sentiment surrounding BTC was further strengthened by JPMorgan’s theory that Bitcoin was overbought and that the crypto token could experience further price declines soon enough. However, with BTC back over $70,000, there is the belief that this is just the beginning of an upward trend that could see it reach new highs.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs Record Net Inflows
BitMEX Research revealed in an X (formerly Twitter) post that the Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a combined net inflow of $15.7 million on March 25. This represents a positive turn of events after these funds recorded negative flows throughout last week. The wave of profit-taking by these Bitcoin ETF investors contributed to the BTC dip that occurred during that period.
The crypto community will no doubt keep their eyes on the flows recorded by these Spot Bitcoin ETFs this week as they could give an idea of whether or not the outlook towards BTC has become bullish again. These Bitcoin ETFs now play a prominent role in the Bitcoin ecosystem, considering how much BTC these fund issuers accumulate whenever there is a high demand for them.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $70,700, up over 5% in the last 24 hours according to data from CoinMarketCap.
BTC price trending north of $70,000 | Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from BBC, chart from Tradingview.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
[ad_2]
Source link -

Highlights from Coinbase’s First Smart Contract Hack Days | by Coinbase | Apr, 2022
[ad_1]
By Michael Li, Vice President, Data at Coinbase

Hackathons have been a long-standing and important part of Coinbase culture, as they give our engineering teams the opportunity to collaborate with one another and experiment directly with the tools that are enabling a new era of open finance.
At Coinbase, we acknowledge that Web3 unlocks a whole new realm of possibilities for developers that are largely yet to be explored. In order to pursue these possibilities confidently, engineers need to have a baseline knowledge of the ecosystem, the Web3 stack, and key smart contract concepts across different blockchain protocols.
This year, we used the time set aside for the annual Coinbase hackathon to kick off Smart Contract Hack Days to give all of our engineers a crash course in Web3 development for real-world applications.
Time to BUIDL
In December, we assigned all participants to project pods of 5–10 individuals which were led by an experienced Coinbase team member that had been through in-depth blockchain engineering training. Following a day-long crash course in Solidity (developer tools and workflow), each pod had 48 hours to build a demo that would be judged on product, engineering, and design.
Participating pods had a chance to score one of the eight awards and crypto-forward prizes. Award categories included People’s Choice (selected by the entire audience), Learning Showcase (the pod that demonstrated the most learning through working on their project), Judges Choice (overall judge favorites), Best Executed (evaluates quality, teamwork and overall execution), and Most Creative (the most exciting and creative take on hack day guidelines).
Hack Day Showstoppers
Among the 44 pods that presented on Smart Contract Hack Demo Day, the top 5 categories of project submissions spanned Web3 infrastructure, gaming, DAOs, NFTs, and event ticketing.
While there were many strong ideas presented, some of the key ones to highlight (along with their taglines) include:
- (Gas)tly: Complete gas transactions with confidence
- Concert-AMWest-2: A NFT concert ticket and a marketplace contract that can transfer funds from the buyer to the marketplace and royalty to the musician
- GenEd Labs: A charitable giving DAO that enables the ethical investor to leverage the blockchain to close the skill gap within underserved communities.
- Real-Time Shibas: Capture the yield farms with your Shiba army
- BridgeIt: Pooling deposits together for cost-efficient bridging
- Not So Bored Apes: Decentralizing and revolutionizing the casino world one step at a time
What We’ve Learned After Experiencing a Day in the Life of a Web3 Dev
We were inspired by the number of creative product ideas that were presented during this time and took many important insights away to be applied for future training and hackathons.
Some of these insights include:
- Teams need more focus time to execute — many projects felt they lacked adequate time to execute due to competing priorities from day-to-day work. We will improve by providing full dedicated time for all participants in the future.
- Participants would like more autonomy in team creation — team dynamics are important. Finding teammates who share a similar vision or vibe or may have complementary work styles and perspectives can go a long way, especially in high-pressure scenarios.
- Save room for ideation — rather than being assigned to projects, participants may feel more engaged or motivated to take an idea over the finish line if they feel more passionate about what they’re building.
What’s Next?
One of the most exciting things about Web3 is its limitless potential. It is likely that it will touch every single industry — whether that be as the infrastructure that underpins a wave of new products or as the tool for interacting with brands and businesses in a more trustless and equitable way. This year’s hackathon, in many ways, is a testament to the efforts needed to onboard developers from the world of Web2 to Web3.
At Coinbase, we remain optimistic about the future of the industry and are committed to spearheading new initiatives that will allow our teams to continue learning, creating and building together.
We are always looking for top talent to join our ever-growing team and #LiveCrypto. Learn more about open positions on our website.
[ad_2]
Source link -

What are Bridges? Illicit use of bridges | by Coinbase | Apr, 2022
[ad_1]
By Heidi Wilder, Special Investigations Manager & Tammy Yang, Blockchain Researcher

Part 1: What are Bridges? Bridge Basics, Facts, and Stats
Illicit actors are often attracted to the newest forms of technology, and bridges are unfortunately no exception to that rule. Illicit actors are defined as individuals or groups conducting illicit activity, such as scams, thefts, or other illegal activity, on the blockchain. In the previous section of this blogpost, we covered the Wormhole and Ronin bridge exploits.
Analyzing the use of Ethereum bridges by illicit actors in January 2021 through April 2022, we find that Ronin, Wormhole, followed by Polygon and Anyswap have the most volume flowing through them.
To date, Ronin bridge’s exploit that took place in late March is the largest hack in the DeFi space, totalling more than $540 million in funds stolen (as of the day of the bridging of funds). We discussed this exploit in more detail in our previous blockpost. Unsurprisingly, this hack makes up the largest illicit volume with the Ronin bridge.
Wormhole’s Ethereum-Solana bridge was attacked in February 2022, leading to a loss of over $250m.
Polygon’s bridge was primarily abused by Polynetwork’s exploiter (although funds were returned), the bZx hackers, and the AFK System rug pull. The bZx hackers appear to have literally gone back and forth between chains to decide which ones were best to consolidate funds. Ethereum won in the end.
Anyswap BSC bridge was primarily used as a bridge by the Bunny Finance flash loan attackers, Squid Game rug pull and Vee Finance hackers.
Why would illicit actors want to bother bridging at all?
Illicit actors’ reasons for bridging funds between networks are both similar and different compared to the general population of bridge users. Possible reasons include:
- Consolidation. Combining funds through bridging makes them easier to handle and to generally then launder onwards.
- Obfuscation. Bridging over funds to other networks adds another layer of complexity to tracing funds on-chain. Tracing funds that travel through a bridge requires tracing capability on both networks and linking them through the bridge.
- Faster and cheaper transactions and to use assets that are not native to the network. Bringing over funds to other faster and cheaper networks can aid illicit actors in transferring their funds more rapidly at a lower cost. The added ability to access assets that aren’t native to the network allow both licit and illicit actors to gain price exposure to a non native asset, while also enjoying the benefits of the other network.
- To access a broader selection of dApps. As blockchain monitoring has become increasingly popular, so has scrutiny of illicit activity:
a) Instead of immediately cashing out, some illicit actors will choose to bridge over funds and then yield farm with them for a period of time, which has the benefit of passing time and earning interest on their proceeds.
b) Alternatively, illicit actors will also leverage certain DeFi protocols that help break the chain in order to obfuscate the true source of funds.
But how are illicit actors employing these methods in practice? What happens after someone has bridged over funds to another chain? Can you track through a bridge to the other side?
Because of the transparency of the blockchain and of many bridge protocols, we can trace through various bridges to identify the ultimate destination of funds.
Below are some recent examples of how illicit actors are employing bridges and how we can trace through bridges to identify the ultimate destination of funds.
Consolidation and obfuscation — as seen with an NFT phishing scheme
NFT phishing scams are nothing new, but the scale at which NFT phishing scams are occurring on social media is rampant. In this particular case, we observed several Murakami Flower phishing scams, among other popular impending NFT releases.
In this case, we observed that several of these scams bundled together their ill gotten ETH in a novel way.
Instead of pooling their ETH together on Ethereum, they bridged over the funds to the Secret Network, which was likely an attempt to obfuscate the source and destination of funds.
Although they may have bridged over funds to the Secret Network, they continued to bridge over to the same address over and over again. Consolidating funds from various phishing schemes allowed them to better get a grasp on their funds.
Accessing a broader set of dApps — an example of using bridges to then yield farm with ill gotten gains with the Squid Game rug pull
In November 2021, the Squid Game token rug pulled. Although the token was launched on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), funds were bridged over to Ethereum. While this was likely for obfuscation purposes, it was also to gain access to Ethereum-based dApps.
In particular, once the attackers bridged over funds to Ethereum, they opted for two yield farming strategies, which allowed them to earn interest on their ill gotten gains.
The first, was to swap funds to USDT and to supply liquidity to the ETH/USDT Uniswap pool (one of the deepest pools on Uniswap). The second was to take the ETH and to lend it on Compound.
While the attackers have begun to cash out, they have not only waited out the heat but have also made some interest while doing so.
Accessing a broader set of dApps — an example of using a bridge to access DeFi protocols to break the chain of traceability with a malware operation
A malware and ransomware operation primarily sourced funds from victims in Bitcoin over the years. However, in the latter half of 2021, the operation began to bridge over funds to ETH using Ren.
This allowed the attackers to mint renBTC. Using a particular protocol, Curve.Fi Adapter, the operators were able to immediately swap the newly minted renBTC for WBTC. Both renBTC and WBTC are BTC-backed tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s important to note that the attackers specifically wanted WBTC though, which they could then deposit to Compound.
Compound is a DeFi protocol that allows users to earn interest on their deposits. When a user deposits funds into Compound, such as ETH, they are provided with cETH or Compound ETH in return, which can be exchanged through Compound for the original ETH amount deposited plus interest earned. Alternatively, users can also use the cETH as collateral to then borrow other tokens.
And that’s exactly what the malware operations did. They used cBTC as collateral to then borrow stablecoins from Compound, particularly USDT and DAI. And with those stablecoins they then cashed out at various exchanges.
The idea here is that the malware operators were attempting to obfuscate the true source of their funds and to make it seem like they received funds directly from Compound.
What can we do about this?
Because of how public, traceable and permanent the blockchain is, we can leverage it to not only identify illicit actors bridging funds across blockchains but also to stop them. The primary mechanism for this is blockchain analytics.
Here are some steps we can take as an industry to combat illicit actors’ bridging of funds:
- Work with blockchain intelligence providers to identify cross-chain transactional flows to quickly identify when illicit funds have hopped from one network to another;
- Block illicit actors addresses’ on both sides of a bridge;
- Monitor inputs and outputs of protocols that are heavily abused by illicit actors who bridge over funds.
Using these and other tools we aim to preserve the integrity of the ecosystem while also encouraging innovative concepts, like bridges, to expand the crypto economy.
[ad_2]
Source link -

What are Bridges? Bridge Basics, Facts, and Stats | by Coinbase | Apr, 2022
[ad_1]
By Heidi Wilder, Special Investigations Manager & Tammy Yang, Blockchain Researcher

Introduction
Recent questions have been raised about how bridges and mixers work both for legitimate business purposes and illicit financial transactions.
Although mixing services have been extensively analyzed for years, bridges are a newer concept that became popular in 2021. Bridges allow crypto holders to ‘move’ (or ‘bridge’) their assets between different blockchains. This allows them to hop from one chain to another and gain exposure to other networks.
We observed a sharp increase in cross-chain activities from Ethereum beginning in April 2021. The daily number of deposit activities to Ethereum bridges reached its peak in the Summer of 2021 and the highest single-day record of over 60,000 transactions bridging from Ethereum occurred on September 12, 2021.
This two-part blog post aims to explain what bridging is, why it has become so popular, and why bad actors are bridging over funds across networks.
What is a bridge?
A bridge is an application that uses cross-chain communication technology to enable transactions between two or more networks, which can be Layer 1s, Layer 2s, or even off-chain services. Simply put, a bridge allows crypto holders to transfer their assets from one network to another. For example, a USDC holder on Ethereum might want to transfer their USDC from Ethereum to Avalanche via a bridge application.
However, a bridge doesn’t move an asset between chains, it links the asset on one network to its representation (i.e. a wrapped version) on the other network. The cross-chain transaction is achieved via ‘locking’, ‘minting’, and ‘burning’ that accounts for the link between the representations on different chains. We’ll discuss exactly what these terms mean in the following two examples.
Let’s say Alice wants to bridge 100 ETH from Ethereum to another network called Network Other (a made up blockchain network) via a bridge application called Bridge (also made up):
- Alice deposits 100 ETH to the Bridge contract on Ethereum;
- The Bridge contract on Ethereum locks the assets and informs the other Bridge contract on Network Other; the asset cannot be accessed until the users requests a withdrawal;
- The Bridge contract on Network Other mints (creates) 100 tokens representing the locked ETH (i.e. wrapped ETH);
- The Bridge contract transfers the newly minted wrapped ETH to Alice’s address on Network Other:
Alice now holds 100 wrapped ETH on Network Other. Later, she receives 10 wrapped ETH from someone else. Now, her address balance on Network Other increases to 110 wrapped ETH. She decides to withdraw all back to Ethereum:
- Alice sends 110 wrapped ETH to the Bridge contract on Network Other;
- The Bridge contract on Network Other burns (destroys) the 110 wrapped ETH and notifies the Bridge contract on Ethereum;
- The Bridge contract on Ethereum validates the withdrawal request (e.g. whether Alice really owns 110 wrapped ETH on Network Other). If all checks out, it unlocks 110 ETH to Alice’s address on Ethereum:
How and when did bridging get so popular?
Bridging took off in 2021. Especially after April 2021, we saw cross-chain traffic from Ethereum increased exponentially — both in daily number of transactions and unique addresses deposited to the Ethereum bridges. We believe this upward trend is likely driven by one of the reasons below:
- Increase in the number of bridge applications. Wormhole launched the Ethereum-Solana bridge, Multichain (AnySwap) launched the Ethereum-Fantom bridge and Ethereum-Moonriver bridge, and Celer launched the cBridge in 2021.
- Increase in the number of new networks that can connect with Ethereum. Avalanche, Ronin, Arbitrum One, Optimism, and Solana were launched in 2021.
- Increase in the number of decentralized application (dApp) projects launching on chains other than Ethereum and incentivized usage of these systems.
Why do users bother bridging at all?
Normally, users want to bridge from one network to another because they want:
- Faster and cheaper transactions. For example, alt-Layer 1s like Polygon, Layer 2s like Arbitrum One and Optimism are the well-known scaling solutions to Ethereum.
- To use assets that are not native to the network. For example, users can gain price exposure to a currency like Bitcoin on Ethereum, with the help of bridge projects like Ren and Wrapped Bitcoin.
- To access a broader selection of dApps. A user might want to bridge funds from Ethereum to the Ronin Network to access Ronin-specific applications, such as their gaming dApp; since some dApps aren’t deployed on Ethereum mainnet because of its limitation on transaction speed and block size.
- To gain additional income from incentive programs. Many users choose to bridge because destination networks or projects on destination networks may send free tokens to members of their communities.
What’s happened since 2021?
A lot happened in 2021. Between July and November, many new dApps and new networks were launched. Bridging activities from Ethereum were at its peak during the time. Most of the bridges became quieter from Q4 in 2021. However, this was not the case for the Polygon PoS bridge — we saw strong and steady bridge traffic, in the number of deposit transactions, from Ethereum to the Polygon Network throughout 2021, which eventually led to Polygon PoS dominating cross-chain traffic in Q1 2022.
Figure 1 below shows the daily number of deposit transactions to Ethereum bridges. We theorize that the sharp spike around September 11, 2021 was driven by the launch of Arbitrum One.
Figure 1 Daily number of transactions deposited to Ethereum bridges since 2021.
Let’s take a look at bridge dynamics in deposit and withdrawal volumes in USD. Figure 2 below shows the daily deposit and withdrawal volumes in USD in Q1 2022. We believe that some sharp spikes in volumes were event-driven (e.g. launch of a new project, airdrop, incentive program, whale activity, bridge exploits, etc.)
- Top 3 in total deposit volume in Q1 2022 are AnySwap Fantom bridge (green, ~$8.4B), Avalanche bridge (pink, ~$7.8B), and Polygon PoS bridge (blue, ~$4B);
- Top 3 in total withdrawal volume in Q1 2022 are Avalanche bridge (pink, ~$10.5B), AnySwap Fantom bridge (green, ~ $6B), and Polygon PoS bridge (blue, ~$3.8B);
We also observed a very interesting fund movement pattern, especially with the AnySwap Fantom bridge, where large amounts of funds were moved to the Fantom network, and then withdrawn back to Ethereum mainnet after a very short period of time.
Figure 2 Daily deposit volume in USD to Ethereum bridges in Q1 2022
How safe are bridges?
As with most new technology, there are some risks to consider. For example, there are risks that users’ funds can be stuck during the deposit and withdrawal process, or they can be victims of cyber theft. When users decide to bridge an asset, they should also be aware of the underlying risks so that they can make more risk-driven decisions.
Theft Risk is the most common risk that can lead to bridge contracts losing part or all of the funds. Here are some problems that may lead to theft:
- Bugs in smart contracts. Programming or logical errors can have a serious impact on bridge security, creating opportunities for attackers to steal the locked funds from the bridge contracts.
The latest example is the Wormhole attack in February 2022 (details here). The attacker spotted a loop hole in the smart contract code, minted 120K Solana ETH without bridge approval and withdrew 80,000 ETH from Ethereum in Feb 02, 2022. Luckily, Jump Trading covered the gap by depositing 120K ETH back to the bridge contract on Ethereum.
Figure 3 Daily deposit and withdrawal volume in USD to Wormhole bridges
- Compromised custodians. Most of the bridge applications nowadays rely on external authorities to interact with the bridge and withdraw funds. They are the custodians of the locked funds — they can be trusted parties (e.g. AnySwap bridges) or a pool of validators bonded by stakes (e.g. Polygon PoS bridge and Ronin bridge). Then there is a risk that the custodians may be compromised or act maliciously.
On March 23 2022, the Ronin attackers compromised all four validation nodes run by Sky Mavis. Sky Mavis is the company who created the Axie Infinity game, Ronin Network, and the Ronin bridge. Together with the fifth validator (run by Axie Dao), which whitelisted all messages sent by Axie Infinity at the time, attackers gained control over the majority of the validators (5 out of 9).
The attacker then withdrew 173,600 ETH and $25.5 million USDC from the Ronin bridge on Ethereum without going through any verifications (more details here and here).
Figure 4 Daily deposit and withdrawal volume in USD to Ronin bridges
- Hostile Layer 1 miners/validators. If more than 50% of the Layer 1’s computing power or stakes are controlled by hostile miners or validators, they can attack bridges on chain and steal the locked funds. For example, they can revert a completed deposit transaction on Ethereum after assets are bridged to another network, which allows attackers to withdraw funds from the other network without depositing on Ethereum (more details here). Or, they can prevent bridge contracts getting updates from the other network, which may lead to major damage to user’s funds that are locked at the bridges.
These scenarios are unlikely to happen, but not impossible. In a worst case scenario, if assets locked at an exploited bridge were already bridged over from another network and used in DeFi applications, this may lead to a cascading contagion over multiple blockchain networks.
Bridge users should be aware that the loss by theft is usually not reversible.
What do we expect for 2022?
Given the explosion of bridges in 2021, we believe their popularity will continue to rise, especially as we are expecting to see developments in below areas:
- Bridging demand. As more networks and bridges launch this year, we expect to see more users wanting to bridge between networks;
- CEXs. More centralized exchanges (CEXs) will enable direct deposit and withdrawal to alt-Layer 1s and Layer 2s in 2022 (some already happened here, here and here).
- Bridge security. As more users willing to bridge, more crypto assets will be locked at the bridge contract — creating a honeypot effect, increasingly attracting hackers.
- Risk awareness. Many bridging decisions are cost-driven at the moment. We believe people have different risk appetites. However, there is a big difference between risk weighting choice of a bridge vs. choosing a cheap bridge solely because of the low fees.
It will be interesting to see, with more information and discussions around bridge security becoming available, if more risk-driven decisions would be made when it comes to choosing a bridge in the future.
Now that we understand what bridges are, why they’ve gained mass appeal, and what potential security concerns are with them, in our next blog post we’ll discuss the use of bridges by bad actors.
[ad_2]
Source link -

Optimism and Urgency Lie at the Heart of UK’s Global Crypto Potential | by Coinbase | Apr, 2022
[ad_1]
By Faryar Shirzad, Chief Policy Officer

The digital economy is permanently changing the nature of financial services globally and digital assets are at the center of much of this rapid change. This is something clearly understood by the UK Government. John Glen, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, used his recent keynote speech at Fintech Week to highlight the opportunities crypto presents to the UK economy — and that the country is keen to embrace them. Noting that the UK is second only to the US in the global league table of fintech hubs, Mr Glen was clear in his message that “the UK is open for business, open for crypto companies… we want this country to be a global hub, the very best place to start and scale crypto companies.”
Coinbase welcomes Economic Secretary Glen’s statement and commends the vision of the UK Government that stands behind it. The UK’s depth and strength in capital markets, fintech leadership, its globally respected regulators, its deep talent pool, and the innovative dynamism of the country’s economy combine to present an opportunity for the UK to be a leader in the next technology revolution and to become a global powerhouse for web3.
There is no question that fintech in the UK is growing rapidly and that the broader financial industry will increasingly be built on crypto rails. Mr Glen himself referenced the 200% year-on-year rise in fintech investment. He’s not a lone voice seeing the potential. Some of finance’s most influential voices are waking up to crypto’s economic and transformational power. From funds and VCs to the real economy investor, the UK is increasingly embracing crypto and recognizing its social, cultural, and economic utility.
This is a continuation of a global trend. Larry Fink, chairman of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, for example, revealed in his latest letter to CEOs that BlackRock is investigating how digital currencies, stablecoins and underlying technologies “can help serve” clients of the $10 trillion firm. At the retail level, Coinbase’s own research reveals that about a third of people in the UK who are aware of crypto own or have owned digital currency, and twice that amount intend to increase their holdings. We’re at an inflection point in the adoption curve.
But increased adoption is only the tip of the iceberg. As the possibilities of how crypto can revolutionize traditional finance reveal themselves, there will be so much more innovation at the core of this movement. Whether that’s existing payment systems being streamlined through digitalization or complex contracts being hosted on the blockchain, whole new economic frontiers will open up, bringing new employment with them.
As Mr Glen himself said, these developments create an opportunity for the UK to leverage its existing and formidable advantages to be a leader in digital innovation. He says that if crypto is going to be a “big part of the future, then the UK wants in, and in on the ground floor.” We believe the country can do this by taking steps to build a more free and open financial system, bridging the gap between traditional financial services and the crypto industry, and supporting economic growth and jobs.
Get it wrong and there’s a risk the UK cedes a critical dimension of its financial and technological leadership, and signals to the next generation of entrepreneurs to look elsewhere to build, hire, and grow. Coinbase believes and has advocated for thoughtful regulation for digital assets around the world. We applaud the work and deep thinking that the UK Government is doing to address consumer risk, market integrity, and competition in the financial sector — these are critical issues and require careful analysis.
But what is also critical now is continuing this positive reframing of the debate to focus on the opportunities from digital assets, as opposed to just the perceived risks. Without such clarity, there is a danger the UK is left behind, particularly as more and more entrepreneurs and businesses seek to use crypto rails to build their new ventures. For example, we are concerned that the proposed changes to the existing Financial Promotions Regime to cover crypto will, unless carefully recalibrated, render a de facto ban on the marketing of crypto services in the UK.
Looking ahead, we want to highlight some key principles for consideration by the Government as it considers how to best put the UK on the path to be a web3 leader:
Creation of a tailored framework for digital assets
Digital assets — and in particular blockchain technology — allow for increased efficiency in the financial sector and offer a transformational level of financial empowerment for everyday people. That is why the UK Government’s decision to bring the cryptoeconomy into a central focus of its policymaking is so important. The cryptoeconomy, however, is rapidly evolving, and policy should adapt with it through a regulatory regime that is flexible enough to cope with current and future needs as they emerge — all informed by input by stakeholders and the public.
This is a point the UK authorities clearly appreciate and understand. Mr Glen said that crypto will bring dynamism to finance and that regulation must therefore be dynamic too, “rather than a static, rigid thing.” His analogy of envisioning regulation as “computer code, which can be refined and rewritten when needed” is well-stated and absolutely correct. Marrying this vision of dynamism with the work of regulators who have achieved their international status by being reliable and predictable is clearly something that will require some effort.
For example, industry eagerly awaited the publication of the UK Government’s Stablecoin Consultation response and broadly supported the proposal to bring stablecoins — where used as a means of payment — under a clear regulatory framework. However, success will be determined by how well and quickly this is implemented. The UK Government’s planned consultation and implementation of tailored digital asset regulation will need to be a fast follow to ensure that the UK does not fall behind.
Oversight by a dedicated policy & supervisory unit
Creating a dedicated policy unit and an equivalent supervisory unit with the resources to oversee digital assets would be a worthwhile investment, potentially with a cross-regulatory function much like the Digital Economy Taskforce as proposed by the Kalifa Review. It would need to be staffed by those with specialist knowledge of the sector and could also act as a single point of contact for the industry and present clarity for new and emerging businesses who are considering the UK as their home.
Again the UK Government shows its foresight, with Mr Glen sketching out a new world for both the “newly regulated and the regulators,” with a Government Minister driving the process, including the establishment of the Crypto Engagement Group. For him to imagine a policy of industry and authorities “working together and learning from each other” while maintaining high standards, yet being flexible and working at the pace that the speed of innovation needs” sets the UK as an inviting home for web3 entrepreneurs Mr Glen’s challenge is to make sure that he delivers on his promise to create “robust and effective innovation that won’t hinder innovation, but will boost it.”
International harmonization & Industry coordination
With digital assets rapidly becoming a worldwide phenomenon, countries around the world are competing to establish themselves as leaders and to embrace the potential of the new, decentralized web. As the UK emerges as a leader in crypto and digital assets, it has a unique opportunity to work with other like-minded countries to create a workable international framework for regulation. All this needs to be done together with the industry and other stakeholders in a consultative and transparent manner. True innovation means engaging with the people working with those who have important perspectives on how the best policy outcomes are achieved. A fresh focus on digital assets does not mean leaving established institutions behind — they will unquestionably play an important role in the future and in many cases, will adopt blockchain technology as a critical component of their infrastructure.
To conclude, we must recognize that digital assets are a technological breakthrough that allows us to increase economic freedom for everyone. The UK Government certainly recognizes this, though Mr Glen rightly says that “no one knows for sure what the future of crypto looks like in the UK.” But what he has shown is that the UK clearly sees that the future can only be embraced by not focusing exclusively on perceived risks, but instead also seeing the opportunities.
Mr Glen finished his address by saying “we’re on the cusp of something important, we have the opportunity to shape and lead it.” By following through on this vision and by implementing consistent, proportionate and appropriate regulation as soon as possible, the UK can not only help bring about a better, safer, more resilient and fairer system for everyone, but also help unlock broader innovation. The UK government — and Mr. Glen specifically — deserve enormous credit for setting the stage for the UK to play an important role in the future of innovation.
[ad_2]
Source link -

Part 1: Quantitative Crypto Insight: Stablecoins and Risk-Free Rate | by Coinbase | Apr, 2022
[ad_1]
By George Liu and Matthew Turk
In part one of this quant research piece, we introduce the decentralized finance (DeFi) collateralized lending platform known as Compound Finance and discuss its use case for stablecoins, in comparison to the notion of a “risk-free” interest rate from traditional finance (TradFi). Our goal is to tie these concepts together to educate on how different types of low-risk investment work within the TradFi and crypto markets.
This introduction examines stablecoin lending yield and shares insights on yield performance, volatility, and the factors driving lending yield. Part two of this piece will examine the factors that drive lending yield in more detail.
Stablecoins are a niche part of the ever-growing crypto ecosystem, primarily used by crypto investors as a practical and cost-efficient way to transact in cryptocurrency. The invention of stablecoins in the crypto ecosystem is brilliant because of the following properties:
- Similar to the fiat currencies used in model economies, stablecoins provide stability in price for people transacting across digital currencies or between fiat and digital currencies.
- Stablecoins are native crypto tokens that can be transacted on-chain in a decentralized manner without involvement of any central agency.
With the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies by investors from the TradFi world, stablecoins have become a natural exchange medium between the traditional and crypto financial worlds.
Two of the shared core concepts in the traditional and crypto financial worlds are the concepts of risk and return. Expectedly, investors are likely to demand higher return for higher risk. During the current Russia-Ukraine war, the Russian interest rate increased from an average of approximately 9% to 20% in 2 weeks, which is a clear indication of how the financial market reacts to risk.
Central to the framework of risk and return is the notion of a “risk-free” rate. In TradFi, this rate serves as a baseline in judging all investment opportunities, as it gives the rate of return of a zero-risk investment over a period of time. In other words, an investor generally considers this baseline rate as a minimum rate of return he or she expects for any investment, because rational investors would not take on additional risk for a return lower than the “risk-free” rate.
One example of a “risk-free” asset is the U.S. Treasury debt asset (treasury bonds, bills, and notes), which is a financial instrument issued by the U.S. government. When you buy one of these instruments, you are lending the U.S. government your money to fund its debt and pay the ongoing expenses. These investments are considered “risk-free” because their payments are guaranteed by the U.S. government, and the chance of default is extremely low.
A “risk-free” rate is always associated with a corresponding period/maturity. In the example above, treasury debt assets could have different maturities, and the corresponding risk-free rate (also called treasury yield) are different as well.
The duration could be as short as one day, in which case we call it overnight risk-free rate or general collateral rate. This rate is associated with the overnight loan in the money market and its value is decided by the supply and demand in this market. The loans are typically collateralized by highly rated assets like treasury debt, and are thus deemed risk-free as well.
Source: WallStreetMojo
With the growth in acceptance of crypto assets and the corresponding market globally, crypto based investing has become a popular topic for people who have been previously exposed only to the traditional financial market. When entering into a new financial market like this, the first thing these investors generally observe is the risk-free rate, as it will be used as the anchor point for evaluating all other investment opportunities.
There is no concept of treasury debt in the crypto world, and as such, the “low-risk” (rather than risk-free) interest rate is achieved in DeFi collateralized lending platforms such as Compound Finance. We use the term “low-risk” here, because Compound Finance, along with many other DeFi collateralized lending platforms, are not risk-free, but rather subject to certain risks such as smart contract risk and liquidation risk. In the case of liquidity risk, a user who has negative account liquidity is subject to liquidation by other users of the protocol to return his/her account liquidity back to positive (i.e. above the collateral requirement). When a liquidation occurs, a liquidator may repay some or all of an outstanding loan on behalf of a borrower and in return receive a discounted amount of collateral held by the borrower; this discount is defined as the liquidation incentive. To summarize risk in DeFi, the closest we can get to risk-free is low-risk.
To clarify, for the sake of this post (and part two), we are looking into Compound V2. On Compound, users interact with smart contracts to borrow and lend assets on the platform. As shown in the example diagram above:
- Lenders first supply stablecoins (or other supported assets) such as DAI to liquidity pools on Compound. Contributions of the same coin form a large pool of liquidity (a “market”) that is available for other users to borrow.
- The borrower can borrow stablecoins (take a loan) from the pool by providing other valuable coins like ETH as collateral in the above diagram. The loans are over-collateralized to protect the lenders such that for each $1 of the ETH used as the collateral, only a portion of it (say 75 cents) can be borrowed in stablecoins.
- Lenders are issued cTokens to represent their corresponding contributions in the liquidity pool.
- Borrowers are also issued cTokens for their collateral deposits, because these deposits will form their own liquidity pools for other users to borrow as well.
How much interest a borrower needs to pay on their loans, and how much interest a lender can receive in return, is determined by the protocol formulas (based on supply/demand). It is not the intention of this blog to give a comprehensive introduction to the Compound protocol and the many formulas involved (interested parties please refer to the whitepaper for an in-depth education). Rather, we would like to focus on the yield that an investor can generate by providing liquidity to the pool, which will facilitate our yield comparison between the two financial worlds.
A Compound user receives cTokens in exchange for providing liquidity to the lending pool. While the amount of cTokens he holds stays the same through the process, the exchange rate that each unit of cToken can be redeemed with to get the fund back keeps going up. The more loans are taken out of the pool, the more interest rate will be paid by the borrowers, and the quicker the exchange rate will go up. So in this sense, the exchange rate is an indication of the value of the asset that a lender has invested over time, and the return from time T1 to T2 can be simply obtained as
R(T1,T2)=exchangeRate(T2)/exchangeRate(T1)-1.
Additionally, annualized yield for this investment (assuming continuous compounding) can be calculated as
Y(T1,T2)=log(exchangeRate(T2)) — log(exchangeRate(T1))/(T2-T1)
While the Compound pools support many stablecoin assets such USDT, USDC, DAI, FEI etc, we are only going to analyze the yields on collateralized lending for the top 2 stablecoins by market cap, i.e. USDT and USDC, with market capitalizations of $80B and $53B respectively. Together, they make up over 70% of the total market for stablecoins.
Here below are the plots of the annualized daily, weekly, monthly, and biannual yields generated according to the formulas in the previous section. As one can see, the daily yield is pretty volatile, while the weekly, monthly, and biannual yields are respectively the smoothed version of the prior granular plot. USDT and USDC have pretty similar patterns in the plot, as lending of both of these assets experienced high yield and high volatility for the start of 2021. This indicates there are some systematic factors there that are affecting the DeFi lending market as a whole.
Source: The Graph
One hypothesis of the systemic factors that could affect the lending yield involves crypto market data such as BTC/ETH prices and their corresponding volatilities. To illustrate an example (higher risk in this case), when BTC and ETH are in an ascending trend, it is believed that many bull-chasing investors will borrow from the stablecoin pools to buy BTC/ETH and then use the purchased BTC/ETH as collateral to borrow more stablecoins, and then repeat this cycle until the leverage is at a satisfying high level. This leverage effect helps the investors to magnify their returns as BTC/ETH keeps going up. We will explore this analysis more in part two of this blog post.
Future Directions
This blog has given a broadly applicable introduction to DeFi collateralized lending through the lens of Compound Finance and how it compares to “risk-free” rates from TradFi. As mentioned above, in part two of this blog post, we will further examine collateralized lending yields and share our insights on yield performance, volatility, and driving factors.
We, as part of the Data Science Quantitative Research team, aim to get a good holistic understanding of this space from a quantitative perspective that can be used to drive new Coinbase products. We are looking for people that are passionate in this effort, so if you are interested in Data Science and in particular Quantitative Research in crypto, come join us.
The analysis makes use of the Compound v2 subgraph made available through the Graph Protocol. Special thanks to Institutional Research Specialist, David Duong, for his contribution and feedback.
[ad_2]
Source link -

Coinbase Halts UPI Deposits in India following the NPCI statement
[ad_1]
Coinbase halts payments via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on Sunday in less than 4 days after the its launch. Clients of the crypto exchange in India are unable to purchase cryptocurrencies via UPI as a payment method. ‘Currently unavailable’ error is displayed.
On 7 April the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) tweeted that it is unaware of any crypto exchange using UPI.

source: twitter
Coinbase response to the NPCI with the following statement:
“We are aware of the recent statement published by NPCI regarding the use of UPI by cryptocurrency exchanges. We are committed to working with NPCI and other relevant authorities to ensure we are aligned with local expectations and industry norms.”
At the time of this writing, India-based users are unable to buy tokens via UPI (selling option is available). It is unclear whether it is related to a significant drop in crypto trading volumes following the 30% tax in India.
It has been reported that cryptocurrencies volumes dropped by as much as 55% following the new crypto tax. Mobikwik wallet, which has partnered with many crypto exchanges announced it is terminating its e-Wallet services from cryptocurrency exchanges.
It is possible that due to the NPCI statement on 7 April, banks may be blocking transactions to Coinbase via UPI. It is still unclear at this stage why depositing via UPI is disabled at Coinbase while some suggesting it is temporary.
India Cryptocurrency Regulations
According to local reports in India, the government may not announce any form of regulations on cryptocurrencies until there is a global consensus.
The assumption is that India is waiting for Europe and the US to announce their framework for regulating cryptocurrencies. India’s central bank (RBI) opposes cryptocurrencies, stating that they are a threat to financial stability.
India’s court however removed the restrictions that were imposed by the RBI in 2020. Since the India crypto market spiked by +641% from July 2020 to June 2021. It has been suggested that local banks side with the RBI’s views on cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase halts payments via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on Sunday in less than 4 days after the its launch. Clients of the crypto exchange in India are unable to purchase cryptocurrencies via UPI as a payment method. ‘Currently unavailable’ error is displayed.
On 7 April the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) tweeted that it is unaware of any crypto exchange using UPI.

source: twitter
Coinbase response to the NPCI with the following statement:
“We are aware of the recent statement published by NPCI regarding the use of UPI by cryptocurrency exchanges. We are committed to working with NPCI and other relevant authorities to ensure we are aligned with local expectations and industry norms.”
At the time of this writing, India-based users are unable to buy tokens via UPI (selling option is available). It is unclear whether it is related to a significant drop in crypto trading volumes following the 30% tax in India.
It has been reported that cryptocurrencies volumes dropped by as much as 55% following the new crypto tax. Mobikwik wallet, which has partnered with many crypto exchanges announced it is terminating its e-Wallet services from cryptocurrency exchanges.
It is possible that due to the NPCI statement on 7 April, banks may be blocking transactions to Coinbase via UPI. It is still unclear at this stage why depositing via UPI is disabled at Coinbase while some suggesting it is temporary.
India Cryptocurrency Regulations
According to local reports in India, the government may not announce any form of regulations on cryptocurrencies until there is a global consensus.
The assumption is that India is waiting for Europe and the US to announce their framework for regulating cryptocurrencies. India’s central bank (RBI) opposes cryptocurrencies, stating that they are a threat to financial stability.
India’s court however removed the restrictions that were imposed by the RBI in 2020. Since the India crypto market spiked by +641% from July 2020 to June 2021. It has been suggested that local banks side with the RBI’s views on cryptocurrencies.
[ad_2]
Source link

