There have been a few significant developments in the crypto industry. Binance was forced to halt the BNB chain to stop hackers from stealing more tokens, and FTX partnered with Visa payments to launch a Fiat debit card.
BNB Chain Halt
Binance has halted the transactions on the BNB chain and Binance smart chain. Around $570 million worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen from Binance's bridge. "All systems are now contained, and we are immediately investigating the potential vulnerability," said BNB chain's official Twitter handle.
The halt is to prevent any draining of funds from the liquidity pool. According to Slowmist, a blockchain security firm, over $570 million in digital assets, including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Fantom, Arbitrum, and Optimism, were stolen as a result of the exploit. The hackers started to move funds to safer blockchains through bridges by switching tokens.
FTX Partners With Visa
FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges, has partnered with Visa, a payment solutions company, to launch a crypto debit card in 40 countries. FTX users can get the card for free, and the debit card also has no usage fees. The native FTT token rallied over 7 per cent after the launch of debit card news broke but quickly returned to its initial price of $24.58 at 9:04 pm.
About Capital Set To Acquire Huobi Global
Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global, one of Asia's largest token trading platforms, announced late Friday that it had agreed to be acquired by the M&A fund of Hong Kong-based investment firm About Capital Management.
Huobi Global is one of the top 10 exchanges by trading volume. They stated in a blog post that once the transaction is completed, About Capital will "own the majority stake" in Huobi, and the ownership transfer will have no effect on trading operations.
EU Bans Russian Crypto Accounts
In the latest wave of sanctions against Russia, European Union (EU) has banned Russian citizens from using any EU crypto trading platform. "The existing prohibitions on crypto assets have been tightened by banning all crypto-asset wallets, accounts, or custody services, irrespective of the amount of the wallet," said the EU in a press release.
The new ban was introduced after the EU adopted new crypto regulatory guidelines. One of the rules required wallet providers to verify the identities of persons using their services.
US Officials Charge California Resident For Laundering Drug Money
On Friday, US authorities charged California resident John Khuu with conspiracy to commit money laundering and unauthorised importation of a prohibited substance, alleging that he was selling fake pharmaceuticals for bitcoin.
In January 2020, Khuu allegedly constructed vendor profiles on various dark web markets to sell bogus pharmaceuticals and other banned substances. Customers used bitcoin (BTC) to buy medicines. The prosecution said other cryptocurrencies were also used sometimes.
