Apple is one of the largest technology companies in the world, and the tech giant recently made a move that has left the crypto community scratching their heads. Apple recently blocked the Coinbase wallet app release, demanding that the developers give them a 30% cut of all NFT transfer gas fees.

The new app was set to be released on the Apple Store, but unfortunately, the company blocked the release, in a move that is clearly not motivated by altruism but self-interest.

According to the statement issued by Coinbase on twitter:  

Coinbase wallet developers are understandably upset with Apple’s decision, as they believe that the company's new policies will create a major bottleneck in developer innovation across the crypto ecosystem and could potentially impede the transfer of NFTs on IPhones to other wallets.

The Coinbase wallet is a decentralized wallet that allows users to store, send and receive different types of cryptocurrencies. It also provides users with a secure and private way to manage their digital assets

Example of a phishing attack:

The button redirects to a phishing site where you will be asked to enter your 12 passphrase words of your wallet. After that, the attacker is able to move all your assets away from your Ledger Wallet.

How to recognize and avoid Phishing Scams?

1. You should check if the email sender is from the official Ledger e-mail address. Sometimes an attacker could use some sort of hijacked e-mail address with high reputation to send such phishing e-mails.
   
   If the correct email is displayed, it could still be a phishing e-mail. At first glance, you might think that this is a legitimate e-mail from Ledger since it has the real e-mail address as the sender, but sometimes that is not the case. E-mail spoofing is one of the most common strategies to disguise an e-mail as legitimate.
2. The next step is to verify that the included buttons/links redirect to the correct source/domain.

Official Ledger Domain:

Phishing Site Domain:

What is a spoofed E-mail?

In collaboration with RippleX developers, Blockchain software company Peersyst announced Monday the launch of the first phase of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible sidechain: a blockchain that runs in parallel with the main XRP Ledger (XRPL) devnet or developer network—where developers test and troubleshoot new technologies before they live on the mainnet.

According to RippleX, the project is aimed at easing the burden of crypto developers, who are accustomed to using Solidity for programming smart contracts and a thriving suite of DApps (decentralized applications) on the Ethereum network. By creating an EVM sidechain, developers would benefit from XRPL's speed, cheap transactions and sustainability, without the dismal reminisce of choosing between XRPL or EVM-compatible chains.

Contrary to building an EVM sidechain, why not make XRPL's mainnet EVM-compatible? Ripple Software Engineer Mayukha Vadari explained in a blog post Monday, that such a move would be detrimental and "could undermine XPRL's efficiency, scalability and security.”

We can now unlock the full potential of decentralized finance (DeFi) in XRPL. A new world of possibilities is unlocked for XRP thanks to the sidechain with EVM. The EVM sidechain uses XRP as its native token. You don’t need any other currency to access it. Built with the powerful Tendermint protocol, and carefully customized for the XRP Ledger, it allows to achieve around 1,000 transactions per second using the Ethereum Virtual Machine, said Peersyst

Vadari explained further, that there are three phases to the EVM sidechain deployment and the endgame is to have "a permissionless EVM sidechain and bridge available on the XRPL Mainnet"

The big company Apple now allows NFT in-app purchases for software listed on the App Store for a 30% commission on sales.

In a notification sent to developers, Apple states that if any application has an NFT sale, it must be done within the application and included in the 30 percent income deduction.

Some people consider the comission as "grotesque overpriced". Let's see why:

The comissions the NFT marketplaces charge from each buy/sell is:

• Opensea: 2,5%
• Foundation: 5%
• SuperRare: 15%
• Magic Eden: 2%

The Apple rates are indeed exorbitant compared to the existent NFT marketplaces, but let's think about the pros and cons.

Pros: This action could potentially onboard hundreds of millions if not more into NFTs & crypto, because it's a recognition about the mere existence of crypto and the NFTs as digital assets

It could be a huge win for Crypto/NFTs enthusiasts that have been listening to arguments like "NFTs are scam" or "NFTs are a bubble".

Because as Gerard Eakedale said:

"Recognition is the greatest motivator"

If we take under consideration the recent declaration of other big companies like Disney, Nike, The Chicago Bulls - each declaration opens the door to the mass adoption.

One sector that could probably accept the big commissions is the gaming sector, there are around 4 billion gamers playing online right now, but it's estimated that less than 100k are playing crypto games so, the integration in the iOS app could onboards thousands or millions of players.

Cons: Apple is still enforcing their 30% cut of any NFT sale, so under Apple's rules, companies would lose heavily on every deal.

Conclusion

Many NFT project will accept that 30% by the main reason that there are 100 million apple users, and now anyone with an iPhone can buy or sell NFTs, it indicates the beginning of the integration web2-web3.

The big challenge is that the core distinctive feature of Web3 is the decentralization of business models. So, integrate Web3 technologies into web2 centralized business models looks like not compatible at all but it's still early to make conclusions.

Nearly 40 days after the rehabilitation trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi told creditors that preparation for repayments was underway, a new memo was issued to Mt Gox creditors, disclosing new information about the "selection and registration" phase of the compensation plan, probably the final phase before the distribution of more than 141,000 Bitcoins (BTC) by the rehabilitation custodian, to about 10,000 affected customers globally.

Following the collapse of the crypto exchange, Mt Gox, in 2014, the forlorn creditors have endured a protracted legal battle, spanning over 8 years, to secure compensation for their lost investments.

Per the issued memo, creditors have until January 10, 2023, to select a preferred method of repayment and to register their information on the MtGox online Rehabilitation Claim Filing System. The payment will be later disbursed through bank remittance, a fund transfer service provider, a cryptocurrency exchange or a custodian.

“If you do not complete the necessary Selection and Registration, you will not be able to receive any of the Repayments below, and you will need to bring the required documents to the MTGOX Co., Ltd. head office or other place designated by the Rehabilitation Trustee and receive Repayment in Japanese yen,” said the notice.

Crypto exchange, Bitstamp announced that the firm will be supporting the rehabilitation process for Mt Gox creditors who choose the exchange as the preferred cryptocurrency exchange to receive their rehabilitation assets.

However, due to regulatory reasons, Bitstamp also revealed that the firm will not be supporting Mt Gox creditors who are residents of China, Iran, Macao SAR, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, or three Ukraine regions which include Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk.

Furthermore, the notice also explains how the rehabilitation trustee will authenticate the names of the registered claimants and carry out necessary verification of the user information provided during the selection and registration phase.

Launched in 2010, Mt. Gox was a famous Bitcoin exchange, handling about 70% of all Bitcoin transactions globally. Mt. Gox users ran into an estimated loss worth billions of dollars following the collapse of the crypto exchange after reports alleged that the exchange lost 850,000 worth of Bitcoins to cyber attackers.

An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022

Binance smart chain, the blockchain of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange was suspended on Oct. 6 due to an "irregular activity" on the network that resulted in the loss of 2 million BNB, nearly $600M, according to on-chain data provided by sources on the popular social media platform Twitter.

Blockchain security firm, Slowmist, reported that the initial funding for the BNB bridge—Binance Token hub— exploit came through ChangeNOW, a non-custodial instant cryptocurrency exchange.

The exploiter stole a total of 2 million BNBs in two transactions, deposited nearly $260M in Venus protocol, a decentralized protocol for lending on BSC, before spreading the funds across multiple Dapps, to launder the funds on more censorship-resistant Blockchains.

With transactions on BSC temporally halted, the exploiter has over $400M stuck on the network. Binance CEO reported the current impact estimate to be around $100M; the exploiter succeeded in taken off the funds from BNB chain, through EVM compatible-chains and L2s before the halt.

Samczsun, a researcher at Paradigm made a 21-part thread on Twitter, aimed at unravelling how the exploiter was able to "convince" the BNB cross-chain bridge to make a transfer of 1M BNB to them. Twice.

He concluded that the fons et origo of the unprecedented exploit is most likely due to a critical bug in the BNB chain bridge, stating that the damage could have been worse.

Meanwhile, Tether has blacklisted the exploiter's $4.7M USDT address.

It is still unclear at this time how the exploit was undertaken, however,  the CEO of Binance Chanpeng Zhao says the issue is contained, and user funds are safe.

Two Sigma Securities, a quantitative liquidity provider and market-maker has joined forces with Chainlink, the industry-standard smart contract oracle network, to provide its high-quality market data to the decentralized oracles of the network, as part of its effort to ensure the success and sustainability of the decentralized finance (DEFI) ecosystem.

Web3 Developers can now access Two Sigma's premium price data including swaps, options and other derivative-related information via Chainlink decentralized oracles, to improve the use cases of smart contracts on many blockchains.

By securely making its price data available on-chain via Chainlink decentralized oracle networks, Two Sigma Securities is able to play a critical role in helping increase the adoption of cryptographic guarantees in risk management and financial agreements," said Yaser Jazouane, Head of Data Products at Chainlink Labs.

Two Sigma Securities is a systematic liquidity provider and trading business. Established in 2009, its objective is to bring together brilliant minds in quantitative finance and engineering and trading to facilitate innovation through independent thinking and collaborative problem-solving, to make global financial markets more efficient.

In September, Two Sigma Ventures, the venture capital arm of Two Sigma, invested $400 million across two new venture capital funds which would include crypto and Web3 investments.

High profile NFT artist, Michael "Beeple" Winkelmann is no stranger to the customary infirmity of phishing scams that plagues social media and messaging platforms of popular NFT artists, having become popular targets for phishing Scammers. ‌‌‌‌

On Oct. 3, the NFT artist issued a warning to users that the URL link to his official Discord server was hijacked; uninformed members would be directed to a fraudulent discord server— a wallet drainer— where their wallets will be compromised. ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌

However, Twitter user maxnaut.eth was the first to notice the foul play perpetrated by the scammers unbeknown to beeple at the time. ‌‌He quickly notified the NFT artist that the Discord link connected to the Beeple: Everydays — 2020 Collection on the popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea may have been “hijacked.”‌‌

Although Beeple resorted to seizing discord by the button, claiming that the platform is to blame for the URL hack, other community members on Twitter had a different opinion about the matter. ‌‌‌‌NFT analyst and security expert OKHotshot replied to Beeple’s tweet, alleging that the mismanagement of discord URLs is probably the cause of the URL hijack.

Following the warning bells that were sounded by Maxnaut.eth, the fraudulent discord URL in the affected OpenSea listing appears to have been expunged. ‌‌‌‌

However, Beeple did not reveal how many users may have been affected by the phishing attack. ‌‌‌‌

Beeple rose to stardom not long after he sold some of the most expensive NFTs on record, including the First 5,000 Days, a collection of 5000 pieces of artwork that sold for a jaw-dropping $69.3 million.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), an indispensable pillar of global finance, and Chainlink, a decentralized smart contract oracle network, are partnering on a cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP) in an initial proof of concept (PoC), to facilitate the interoperability of SWIFT on all blockchain environments.

CCIP will enable 11,000+ global SWIFT member institutions to securely and efficiently integrate with different chains, helping the interbank network conduct on-chain token transfers, however, without the security risk associated with cross-chain bridges. "This will help accelerate the adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT) blockchains and benefit various institutions across capital markets," said Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov.

On Sept. 28, at the SmartCon 2022 conference in New York City, SWIFT’s Strategy Director, Jonathan Ehrenfeld Solé disclosed that Swift and Chainlink labs started working together about 5-7 years ago. At a time before financial services on chain became a hot button issue, the duo successfully developed a proof-of-concept system for bond issuance and redemption.

While cross-chain bridges have provided a standard for blockchain communication, allowing users to move crypto assets from one chain to another, these bridges are vulnerable as their different designs present subtle attack vectors that may be exploited by hackers.  According to Chainalysis, bridge hacks accounted for more than $2 billion this year.

Unsurprisingly, Sergey Nazarov is undaunted in his quest for a cross-chain future. Speaking to Fortune at Smartcon 2022 in New York:

I don’t think there have been bridges that have generated the necessary security. But that is what CCIP seeks to solve. And I don’t think it’s an intractable problem. I think it’s a solvable problem.

The demand for moving crypto assets from one chain to another is on the rise, SWIFT's adoption of CCIP could allow the protocol to become an outpost of progressive agenda, to bridge the gap between conventional banks and blockchains. Cross-chain integration is fraught with many challenges, but, Chainlink Labs has picked up the gauntlet.

The road to decentralized finance (DEFI) for many developers, crypto enthusiasts and retail investors is a slippery slope that can be described as a poignant combination of wild possibilities and tragic history.

Nearly two weeks after decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator, 1inch Network, published a report on the vulnerability in an Ethereum vanity address tool, Profanity, many wallet addresses created via the tool have become fodder for exploiters, as millions of dollars worth of crypto assets have been reportedly stolen.

In a security alert tweeted by Blockchain security firm, Peckshield, a hacker made away with 723 Eth, around $950,000, from a crypto wallet using the same vanity address vulnerability related to a recent attack on the algorithmic market maker, Wintermute, resulting in a staggering loss of $160 million.

After stealing the crypto assets from the wallet, the exploiter transferred the crypto to the sanctioned crypto tumbler Tornado Cash.

Here, it will have been blended with other crypto assets, to mask the origin and recipient of the transaction.

Vanity addresses are randomized, custom-made crypto wallet addresses that are created to begin or end with special characters. However, some of the 1inch contributors noticed Profanity's failure to create the 256-bit private key with enough randomness, resulting in addresses easier to breach through a brute force attack

Due to its high efficiency, many vanity addresses were created through profanity and have become major targets for hackers. Earlier this month, $3.3 million was drained from multiple profanity-based Ethereum addresses.

The Profanity vanity address generator was abandoned by its anonymous creator years ago. To mitigate the risk attributed to the profanity tool, the developer has left the code in an uncompilable state, with the repository archived, ensuring no one continues to use the tool.

In this Vestorportal's Spotlight edition we had the pleasure to talk to Mark Kelly aka Saucebook, Writer, Blogger, Artist and Collector; known by the quality of his work and the indisputable respect in the community.

Spotlight

Who is Mark Kelly?

I go by Mark Kelly everywhere I'm not Saucebook. In the persona of Mark Kelly I'm a father and grandfather many times over, still actively working in financial services consultancy, covering compliance topics.  I was briefly head of Compliance at Coinbase UK.  As Saucebook I'm a novelist, poet and banjo player, and now an NFT Artist specialising in AI-assisted art. Trying to balance that creation with a keen interest in collecting, and more recently curation.

I read this quote many years ago:

"You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge"

When I was doing my research about Damon Runyon, I found surprisingly he said it - why do you have a pic of him as your pfp?

Damon was my writing hero from teenage years.  Very funny, in an understated way.  Always wrote in the 1st person present tense "So I am sitting in a bar when who walks in but...", I think I liked the narrator character - always on the fringes of the action, but never directly involved.  Such a powerful influence that I made him a character in my first novel.  So, even were I ever to own a Bored Ape, nothing is replacing Damon as my pfp.  And thanks for the quote - I hadn't come across that one!

You got interested in the NFTs really recently. How did you discover the NFT world? What caught your attention?

I thought being in the space over a year made me an OG! I certainly wasn't an early adopter, but I think Beeple got my attention with his huge sale in 2021. After that I had a first try at being a creator, minting a few haikus and other literary NFTs on OpenSea.  The world wasn't ready for them, maybe it still isn't or perhaps they weren't that good. While I was waiting for my application to Nifty Gateway to be accepted (I'm still waiting) I got interested in the art itself and started collecting on Nifty Gateway.  Not a great collector or trader, and I missed out on the 10k projects that were happening in the rest of the space, but pure collecting kept me occupied for six months.  Then I had the door opened to me for visual art creation with the introduction of text to image AI software.  Finally I could bypass my poor manual artistic skills and capitalise on word power.

Many people think that AI softwares are new but, they are not, the history of AI art dates back to 1973, when Harold Cohen created the first-ever AI painting. What's the reason behind the explosion of AI art now?

It was something of a dark art until pioneers made the tools readily accessible.  I started creating (and minting) using very simple online software (Nightcafe).  I'm embarrassed now at some of the work I was asking people to buy, but thankfully a lot of it was lost in a wallet hack at the beginning of 2022.  Now everyone has access to word-based painting of remarkable quality and those of us who want to be recognised as professional AI artists have to pedal ever faster to maintain a marginal edge.

Leonardo Da Vinci said:

"Painting is poetry that is seen more than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen".

Do you think that AI solves the equation Words=Art?

"Words have value too" was my motto when I was trying to promote literary NFTs.  I still believe that, but now my words can also generate beautiful visuals.  In some cases the visuals can be generated by a literary prompt - this might finally be the way that my haikus reach their audience.

Did you ever imagine you'd be creating the wonderful Art you make right now? Please tell us about your experience creating AI.

I mentioned that Nightcafe supported my first efforts.  My next move was into the specialist Discord groups, especially Pytti, which supported animations and the telling of stories via complex scripts.  These tools could be accessed via Google Colab notebooks, but it was always a coin flip whether you would be allocated a decent GPU or run out of memory halfway through.  My third main platform was Visions of Chaos, which runs locally on a Windows Desktop with a large GPU.  I bought the best spec machines I could so that I could crank out the highest resolution possible.  If I'm associated with any particular style it would probably be the underwater seascapes (the ruDALL-E script in Visions of Chaos turned out to be very good with jellyfish).  I also did some extremely detailed cybercities, which proved very popular.  My next challenge is to create smoothly animated AI videos that don't give you a headache, as most of the software to date has generated very glitchy results.

You have collected almost 400 pieces only in Foundation. What kind of Art styles have you collected, and why have you collected that big amount of pieces? How do you decide what to buy?

It's easier to say what I haven't bought. I only rule out NSFW art and Pepes. Some themes are overused (like whales in the sky) so they would have to be exceptional for me to buy any more. To choose something I need to see immediate visual impact, together with evidence of skills and effort (ie time invested).  It also has to be within budget - most of my purchases are funded by sales, so when sales are slow, buys are fewer and cheaper.  Hence those 300 or so FND works were acquired at an average of 0.06 each.  As soon as you give up the idea of owning big name artists with instant price appreciation, a whole world of beautiful and inexpensive artwork opens up for you.

Selling and buying art is an important event. I think that beyond the money it is the feeling of joy, satisfaction, and being proud of the hard work. Have you every bought the first NFT minted of a new artist? How does it feel?

Many times.  Sometimes I don't even realise until they tell me, and it always gives me a thrill.  I'm also keen to support them beyond that first step, and that will be possible for my favourite collected artists now that I have been given the role of publisher on Nifty Gateway.  This excludes my own art, but allows me to feature 3-4 new artists weekly in a series that I'm terming Saucebook Sundays.  It will encompass weekly themes such as 3D, Abstract Art, Photography, and the full series will start with a week dedicated to Iranian female artists who, in addition to any other adversities they may have faced, were recently and summarily ejected from some popular platforms.

As a collector you should receive many messages everyday trying to persuade you to buy, do you think that these actions like DM and tag collectors devalue the work of an artist?

I have a saying that caution flees from desperation.  I don't think you should bemoan lack of sales on the public feed, as it is likely to drive people away.  I don't mind people explaining their situation in DMs.  A lot of good friendships have been formed based on unpromising starts with a DM shill.  I'm a lot more truthful in DMs than on public feed (where I would never critique someone's art), so people coming for advice sometimes get a shock that it's not all positive.  I've been scammed through DMs just like many others, but I see such value in that in-depth engagement that I never want to shut them down.

What would be your message to those who are new in the NFT world and want to build a career as artists?

Maintain a healthy balance between creation and marketing.  No-one wants to see the same artwork being shilled in art threads for months on end.  If sales aren't happening, look at your process and try to up your game.  There are so many tempting ways to waste your time - Twitter and Discord are prime examples.  People are exhausting themselves jumping from one Twitter Space to another hoping for a golden moment to tell 100 or fewer people about their work.  Better to build your followers through active engagement on people's public posts so that eventually when you drop a post it is seen by thousands.  One curious tip I was slow to learn - I get more engagement, profile visits and followers from words than from art or links.  Thoughtful responses to discussion threads started by the person you want to notice you will serve you better than shilling your whole portfolio at every opportunity.

Neal Stephenson wrote the book "Snow Crash" in 1988. In that book for the first time the word "metaverse" appeared. The book is considered inspiration for the cyberpunk fans, do you think the NFT world right now with so many artists, collectors, community builders, devs - who are connected even when they are geographycally isolated - is laying the groundwork for the "Metaverse"

Online life is so absorbing that real life can struggle to match it for intensity and satisfaction.  I've been vaguely disappointed in real life NFT events, and find myself checking Twitter in a stairwell, as it's so hard to spot and engage with the people you are interested to meet.  I'm a little resistant to entering the actual metaverse, as I have no gaming background and 3D navigation is a nightmare for me.  In online galleries I find myself stuck in a corner, so the current stage of connectedness via screen and keyboard suits me just fine.

The arts are a powerful tool to portray the way how society expresses itself in a specific moment of time, and it could let testimony for the future generations about the zeitgeist of this era. Please tell us your insight about the impact of the Crypto- NFT on the society and economical system.

I'm unsure about the impact as of yet.  Anyone I speak to in the "real" world has either never heard of NFTs or is deeply skeptical.  We have to remember we're in a very specialised bubble.  However, society does have an impact on the NFT space.  Herman Hesse spoke about the "age of the feuilleton" in his Glass Bead Game.  We are in that age, where thoughts need to be summarised in 240 characters and people make $1,000 purchase decisions on the basis of a two-second glance at an artwork. That's why even the shortest animation is a challenge for an NFT artist.  There's a risk that it's never going to be played but will be scrolled past quickly. Our brief attention span as a society is reflected in the art we choose to support.

How deep has the NFT space had an impact in your personal life?

Honestly? My time in the NFT space is a sixtieth part of my time on Earth, so it hasn't shaken me up in any fundamental way.  It is my most absorbing pastime at the moment, but is not putting food on the table or a roof over our heads.  All of this could change in the blink of an eye, so maybe ask me again in a year.  That's one of the compelling aspects to the space - every day brings unlimited opportunity (but no day brings a guarantee)

Recently you entered in Nifty Gateway as a curator. Could you explain us about what is Nifty Gateway, and the work you will play them?

Nifty Gateway was the main platform I used when starting as a collector in March 2021.  It operates in a bit of a silo compared to the rest of the ETH ecosystem, but I was very happy there for six months.  I always hoped to appear there as an artist, but the recent chance to become a publisher scratches a different itch - how to continue to support my favourite artists after already buying from them on Tez, OpenSea or Foundation.  Giving them the chance I never had, to have their work curated onto Nifty Gateway, is a great responsibility to take on, and will be occupying a lot of my time in the coming months.  In the meantime I will also be curating (and dropping my own work) on the Mint Marketplace, whose launch is imminent.  In short, having made some progress as both an artist and collector, I feel I know both sides of the business well enough to stand in the middle and connect artists with collectors in a way that is sympathetic and fair to both parties.

What are your plans looking into the future?

I have a Nifty Gateway curation schedule which is unpublished but comfortably stretches to the end of 2022.  When I find time I want to prepare a second submission to SuperRare, as the first was unsuccessful.  Other than that I am prepared to take whatever comes my way.  In my experience something good always turns up, but it never arrives exactly when or in the manner you expect!

Find all important Links for Mark Kelly aka Saucebook's artworks here.

If you are an artist and want the world to see your work and tell more about you, don't hesitate and send us a DM on Twitter or reach out to contact@vestorportal.com.

The largest stablecoin operator, Tether, has been ordered by the United States District Court in New York to provide relevant documents on the backing of USDT, following the dismissal of Tether’s motion that blocked the release of its financial records.

Per the lawsuit claims dating back to 2019, Tether allegedly conspired with affiliated companies to employ unbacked USDT as part of a campaign to inflate the price of crypto's bellwether, Bitcoin.

The order requires Tether to tender  “general ledgers, balance sheets, income statements, cash-flow statements, and profit and loss statements"  including transaction records of trades or transfers of stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies by Tether, as well as the information on the timing of transactions.

Tether was also required to provide information about the accounts it holds on bitfinex, Poloniex and Bittrex. However, the attorneys representing Tether moved to block the order to release the required documents, labelling the plaintiff's request as “incredibly overboard” and “unduly burdensome”.

The presiding judge, Katherine Polk Failla dismissed this notion, stating that the documents the Plaintiffs seek are of utmost importance to ascertain the backing of USDT with US dollars. She further added,

"The documents sought in the transactions RFPs appear to go to one of the Plaintiffs' core allegations: that the Defendants engaged in crypto commodities transactions using unbacked USDT, and that those transactions "were strategically timed to inflate the market."

Much of the controversy around Tether arises from its history of providing minimal levels of transparency in the way of documentation, raising whispers and suspicion about its dollar reserves.

The outcome of the lawsuit, depending on the level of detail provided, could give investors access to appropriate data, to replace the conjecture and assumption about the claims that tether has been artificially driving up market prices using unbacked USDT.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Ian Balina, founder and CEO of Token Metrics, citing his violation of the US securities law, by his involvement with an unregistered Initial coin offering (ICO) for Sparkster token (SPRK) in 2018.

The proposed charges centred around the ICO of Cayman islands-based issuer, Sparkster Ltd. The ICO, which was concluded in 2018, raised $30 million from more than 4000 participants in the US and around the world.

According to the court filing, the SEC charged Ian Balina with promoting an "unregistered securities offering" of crypto asset SPRK tokens and lack of disclosure of the remuneration he received for his promotion.

Balina responded, in a tweetstorm, stating that the proposed charges issued by the SEC were "based on multiple misconceptions of fact and law"‌              

Notably, the SEC's filing included a full-throated claim to jurisdiction over the entire Ethereum ecosystem; an audacious claim that indicates the second largest cryptocurrency might soon get entangled in a whirlpool of regulatory vicissitude.

“The U.S.-based investors in Balina’s pool irrevocably committed to the transaction when, from within the United States, they sent their ETH contributions to Balina’s pool.  At that point, their ETH contributions were validated by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country.  As a result, those transactions took place in the United States.

About 45% of Ethereum validators are operating from the United States, according to Etherscan. The second-largest node operator is Germany, with about 19%. Some critics of the Ethereum Merge, have argued that the transition comes at the cost of more centralization since a large percentage of node operators, in the US are inches away from probable regulatory scrutiny and censorship.

After the successful completion of The Merge, SEC Chair Gary Gensler asserted that the transition could bring the Ethereum network closer to the definition of security in the eyes of the government. It remains to be seen whether or not the leadership within SEC will eventually classify Ethereum as an unregistered security. Gary Gensler, SEC Chair is yet to take a stance on the matter.

After more than 5 years of herculean testing and preparation, the highly anticipated Merge upgrade successfully retires Ethereum Proof-of-Work (PoW) system where miners compete to validate the next transaction block— and earn rewards for their participation— by solving cryptographic puzzles.

Ethereum's coterie of developers, experts, investors, researchers and a menagerie of enthusiasts were on tenterhooks waiting to see if the network would begin successfully proposing and validating new transaction blocks via Proof-of-Stake.

The historical transition occurred on Sept.15 at 06:42:42 UTC at block 15537393, with the merger of the Ethereum mainnet execution layer and the Beacon Chain’s consensus layer at the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) of 58750000000000000000000, meaning the network shifted to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) seamlessly and will no longer rely on miners to produce new blocks.

The flawless PoW-PoS transition of the Ethereum network was not in any way fortuitous as envisaged by some critics of the network—largely from the Bitcoin maximalists. The Merge upgrade was an endeavour so risky that many doubted it would come to fruition. So many steps could have gone wrong and the cost of failure could have been astronomical.

Ethereum’s shift to PoS significantly reduces the carbon footprint of the network by 99.95%, reduces the issuance of ETH through rewards to validators for their work in maintaining the network —making ETH become a deflationary asset and will also make the network secure and highly scalable—potentially increasing transaction speeds of the second largest Blockchain, according to the Ethereum foundation.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recognized the significance of the occasion and expressed his gratitude to all who contributed to making Ethereum's historic upgrade a success.                                                      

Meanwhile, Ethereum Core Developer Preston van Loon confirmed the network’s block production time after merge completion became 10% faster on PoS.

E‌Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake consensus engine will be maintained by validators – individuals who “stake” at least 32 ETH. These staked ETH tokens act like lottery tickets: The more ETH a validator commits to the network, the more likely one of its tickets will be drawn, granting the validator permission to propose a new block.                                                   ‌

According to a local news outlet Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, CEO of Terraform Labs, intensifying its investigation into the Stablecoin-led implosion of the Terra ecosystem.

The warrants were issued for five additional persons, including Nicholas Platias, head of research of the now defunct Terraform Labs and Han mo, on allegations of violating the Capital Markets Act.

In May 2022, the collapse of the $40 billion Terra ecosystem and its algorithmic stablecoin (UST), provoked a widespread insolvency domino effect, with companies like Celsius Network, Voyager Digital and Singapore-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital filing for bankruptcy, as the value of the crypto assets plummeted to new lows, crashing nearly 100% in value.

Currently, the affected members of Terraform Labs, including CEO Do Kwon, have taken up residence in Singapore. As a result, the prosecutors are expected to coordinate with Interpol to arrest Do Kwon and others within a year.

Meanwhile, the price of Terra’s native tokens, LUNC, USTC, and LUNA, plummeted by at least 35% since the report of the arrest warrant.