Blockchain Financial News

As Africa‘s Web3 landscape gains momentum, it faces significant regulatory hurdles that threaten to stifle its transformative potential.

Hedera has announced the latest member of its governing council – the tech giant Hitachi. Hedera’s President Charles Adkins told Cryptonews why having household names join the ranks is relevant.

The TEAMZ WEB3 / AI SUMMIT represents an evolution from the TEAMZ WEB3 SUMMIT 2023, previously recognized as one the most significant and influential events in Japan’s Web3 landscape. For 2024, we’re expanding our focus to encompass both the burgeoning realms of Web3 and AI, two domains that have seen explosive growth recently.

Disclaimer: The text below is a press release that is not part of Cryptonews.com editorial content.

A transaction involving nearly $15 billion worth of XRP from an unknown wallet to the Bitfinex exchange as part of a “partial payments exploit” has failed.

Ethereum (ETH) has been in the spotlight due to its new staking upgrade. The EIP-7514 or ‘Dencun’ upgrade seeks to implement a Max Epoch Churn Limit and control the growth of staked tokens on the blockchain.

In a noteworthy move within the cryptocurrency landscape, Ripple’s XRP has made a triumphant return to the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) after a hiatus of three years. This development highlights the evolving dynamics of the crypto market, where established players like XRP find their way back into the investment portfolios.

GameStop has decided to shut down its NFT marketplace, signaling its withdrawal from the cryptocurrency space.

People are always on the lookout for the next big investment opportunity, and one name that’s been getting attention is Retik Finance. It’s a decentralised finance (DeFi) platform that could be a rival to the well-known Solana (SOL). Right now, it’s priced at only $0.070, making it a bit of an underdog. Some think it could skyrocket by 50 times in 2024, following a similar path that brought Solana into the spotlight. Solana, a well-established player in the crypto space, has experienced remarkable growth and garnered significant attention from both small-time and institutional traders. However, Retik Finance parallels Solana, from its visionary perspective to its commitment to decentralisation and security, suggesting that it could replicate Solana’s price trajectory and potentially surpass it.

The Indonesian government has recently ordered the closure of ten Bitcoin mining companies located all around the nation as part of a big crackdown on criminal activities including cryptocurrency mining. After conducting a comprehensive investigation into these activities, which found that they were operating without the requisite licenses and permissions, this action was taken. One thousand three hundred and fourteen Bitcoin mining rigs were taken into custody as a result of the searches that took place in Medan, which is located in North Sumatra. It has been stated that these illicit mining operations entailed the theft of energy. The suspects are said to have reached into utility poles operated by the state-owned electricity firm PLN in order to steal electricity.

The Orbit Chain, a multi-asset blockchain focusing on cross-chain transfers, recently fell victim to a sophisticated exploit. Notably, on December 31, 2023, a series of unauthorized transactions led to a significant financial loss, amounting to approximately $81.6 million.

Polkadot’s (DOT) founder, Gavin Wood, recently introduced Polkadot 2.0. This approach uses core time rentals to become flexible and is an excellent addition to its ecosystem. Meanwhile, Toncoin (TON) and InQubeta (QUBE) are notable DeFi projects positioned to drive significant development with their dynamic ecosystems.

Despite falling around 5% on Friday, the Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) price remains over 20% up versus the lows it printed earlier in the year near $0.00010.

, a leading cross-chain launchpad, is embarking on a groundbreaking journey by migrating its native token, $SNP (soon to be $zkSNP), to zkSync, heralding the dawn of the era of Zero Knowledge and Layer Zero integration. Notably, $SNP is set to become the first-ever omnichain launchpad token.The Synapse Network team, after thorough consideration, has therefore chosen to migrate to zkSync, marking the beginning of a transformative journey.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's co-founder, recently proposed a significant change to the Ethereum blockchain's proof-of-stake (PoS) system. The core of his proposal is to reduce the number of signatures that validators must process. Currently, Ethereum's PoS mechanism involves around 895,000 validators processing approximately 28,000 signatures per slot, which results in a heavy load on the network​​​​.

With a strategy that places an emphasis on continuity from the previous year, Ethereum is making steady growth throughout the year 2024, with co-founder Vitalik Buterin serving as the driving force behind this success. A recent sequence of tweets by Buterin reveals that the emphasis for the year 2024 is mainly aligned with the components that have been formed since the beginning of the year: merge, surge, plague, verge, purge, and splurge. This indicates that the strategy for the year is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd., a prominent player in the blockchain and digital asset mining sector, has successfully closed a significant financing deal. On December 28, 2023, the company completed the sale of 5,750,000 special warrants, resulting in aggregate gross proceeds of approximately CAD $28.75 million​​​​. This marks a pivotal moment for HIVE, which focuses on Bitcoin mining and developing environmentally friendly data centers.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the decision by US regulators to approve the country’s first spot-bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

Uri Kolodny, the CEO and co-founder of StarkWare Industries, has stepped down from his role due to family health issues. However, he will remain a board member of StarkWare and Starknet Foundation.

Stephen Harrison, a British actor based in Thailand, has publicly apologized for his involvement in the  HyperVerse cryptocurrency scandal .

By Elizabeth Howcroft and Alun John