Staff Picks - July 2022

Know thy customer: The future of KYC in crypto

With the regulatory push for a tighter identification standards rises, the crypto industry definitely has some innovations to offer.

Social media ‘major Web3 pain point’ as phishing attacks almost doubles: Report

A majority of the phishing attacks recorded have been conducted on social media platforms that do not have account verification features.

Crema hacker returns $8M, keeps $1.6M in deal with protocol

The Crema Finance team awarded the hacker who made off with nearly $10 million in funds from the protocol 16.7% of the stolen funds as a white hat bounty.

Celsius Pivots Toward Paying Off Aave, Compound Debt, With $950M Collateral as Prize

The troubled crypto lender Celsius started to make good on the $258 million debt on the decentralized lending protocols Aave and Compound – possibly in an attempt to reclaim collateral it had posted as guarantees. The transactions come just a day after Celsius used a debt-paydown to reclaim collateral on Maker.

Three Months in, Coinbase NFT Has Been a Disaster

Despite having more than four million users on its waitlist pre-launch, Coinbase's "Web3 social marketplace for NFTs" has been a resounding flop, registering about 2,000 times less in trading volume than its largest competitor, OpenSea, since it launched.

Celsius bankruptcy filings show a company in deep trouble

The bankrupt CeFi crypto lender is about $1.2 billion in deficit, with the majority of its liabilities being customer deposits some believe they may not be required to give back.

Putin Bans Crypto Payments in Russia

The Kremlin doesn’t want any “monetary surrogates” being used in place of the ruble.

First Regulated British Pound Stablecoin Launched

The “poundtoken” is 100% backed by British pound reserves and has the full support of British regulators.

Bank of France Eyes 2023 for CBDC Launch

The country is planning to create a wholesale CBDC aimed at financial institutions.

Hacker drains $1.08M from Audius following passing of malicious proposal

A malicious governance proposal (Proposal #85) requesting the transfer of 18 million Audius’ in-house AUDIO tokens worth $6.1 million was approved via an exploit.