Bitwise's CIO Excited About Product Offering Access to Ethereum's DeFi

Bitwise's Matt Hougan said he has "extraordinary confidence" in the Ethereum ecosystem and suggested that a "great product" could capture some of the action. Cryptocurrency asset management firm Bitwise has indicated interest in offering an exchange-traded product (ETP) that covers Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem of networks and applications, according to the company's chief investment officer. “I'm kind of embarrassed and happy that Bitwise doesn't have one, because I think it would be a great product,” Matt Hougan explained in an interview with Forbes published on March 31. Hougan said he has extraordinary confidence that the Ethereum ecosystem will continue to evolve, but he said it is still uncertain which Layer 2s and applications will emerge victorious.

Hougan also reiterated that the market is also underestimating the significance of the Dencun upgrade by a factor of 10 or 20. It's a radical change, and I think the market hasn't recognized it. Meanwhile, Hougan said he is concerned the market may not be ready for a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) by May and expects the U.S. securities regulator to delay approval until December. “It’s hard to get financial advisors to think about Ethereum right now,” as TradFi is still processing the recently approved Bitcoin spot ETFs, Hougan said. “If they shove it down their throats in May, I'm not sure they'll be [ready],” Hougan stressed. Bitwise filed its S-1 and 19-b4 forms with the SEC on March 28 to list a spot Ether ETF.

BlackRock, VanEck, ARK 21Shares, Fidelity, Grayscale Hashdex, Franklin Templeton, and Invesco Galaxy are among the other applicants vying for SEC approval for an Ether spot ETF, and many commentators expect May to be a crucial period for potential large-scale approvals. However, some analysts' chances of getting the Ether spot ETF approved have further diminished as the SEC appears unwilling to work with applicants in recent months. But not everyone agrees with this. Bitwise is one of 11 spot issuers of Bitcoin ETF. Its Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) has accumulated more than $1. According to BitMEX Research, citing data as of March 28, there are 6 billion in inflows, the fourth largest behind BlackRock's IBIT, Fidelity's FBTC, and Ark 21Shares' ARKB.

Also Read: Crypto Market Dips Marginally Even As Trading Volume Rises By 19.18 Per Cent

Prisma Finance Warns of $540K Still at Risk, Hacker Insists Team Reveals Themselves

Decentralized finance (DeFi) company Prisma Finance says it still has $540,000 in account balances left to revoke the smart contract responsible for last week's $11.6 million exploit. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “white hat” hacker behind the exploit says he will withhold refunding funds until the company apologizes and reveals the identities of its online team. In a "Way Forward" post on April 1, lead author "Frank" said he would continue to work to return funds, but the top priority was to reactivate the protocol, but said he needed all users to secure their wallets and positions. At first they were safe.

The protocol suffered a multimillion-dollar exploit last week that was later revealed to be the result of two MigrateTroveZap contracts aimed at migrating user positions from one Trove manager to another, according to a post-mortem post by Prisma emerged last week. updated March 31st. However, Frank noted that there were still 14 accounts that had not yet revoked the affected smart contract, five of which were still “at risk” and had open positions totaling more than $500,000. Frank explained that part of his “move forward” was to “maintain additional reserves” while Prisma attempted to recover the stolen funds. On April 1, a new proposal to reduce liquidity was presented. Prisma also emphasized that the exploited contract has been isolated from the core protocol and plans to restart it once the remaining user funds are safe.

Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “white hat” has accused the DeFi company of not acting in good faith, claiming that the funds will not be returned unless it publicly apologizes. Part of this apology involves Prisma holding an online conference where the entire team has to show their faces with an ID and apologize to all users and investors for not properly auditing their smart contract. Since the attack, blockchain security firms Cyvers and Peckshield discovered that the hacker began exchanging of the stolen funds for Ether (ETH), and around 200 Ether were transferred to the OFAC-sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. Before the exploit, Prisma Finance had a total value of $220 million, but this has since dropped to $87 million.

UK Court Freezes $8 Million of Craig Wright's Assets

A British court freezes more than $8 million of Craig Wright's sterling assets ($8.4 million). A British court has approved the freezing of 6.7 million pounds ($8).4 million) from Craig Wright's assets to prevent him from avoiding legal fees. The decision came after Wright transferred some of his wealth out of the United Kingdom following a court ruling discrediting his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of $69,596 worth of Bitcoin BTC. According to a U.K. Court document, this prompted him to transfer shares in his London company RCJBR Holding to a Singapore company on March 18, Judge James Mellor stated:

COPA was concerned that Craig Wright was trying to avoid paying court costs. The judge backed a “global freezing order” by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to cover the entire legal costs of 6.7 million pounds ($8).4 million). COPA was founded in 2020 “to promote the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technologies and eliminate patents as a barrier to growth and innovation.” Its 33 members include Coinbase, Block, Meta, MicroStrategy, Kraken, Paradigm, Uniswap, and Worldcoin. Wright, an Australian computer scientist, falsely claimed that it was Nakamoto who filed copyright lawsuits related to the Bitcoin network. Requested two websites to remove the Bitcoin whitepaper in January 2021.

In April 2021, COPA filed a lawsuit against Wright, denying his claims. On March 14, Mellor ruled that Wright was not Nakamoto. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded by pointing out the trend of abusive lawsuits against prominent Bitcoin contributors, discouraging development due to the time, stress, expense, and legal risks involved. Wright applied for copyright registration for the Bitcoin white paper in the US in 2019. The Bitcoin white paper is now subject to the MIT Open Source License, which allows anyone to reuse and modify the code for any purpose.