Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Disbarred Attorney Philip Reichenthal Pleads Guilty to $5m Crypto Fraud

New York federal prosecutors announced on Friday that Philip Reichenthal, a disbarred attorney, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in connection with a scheme to defraud investors who believed they were buying Bitcoin.　　Reichenthal falsely represented that he would act as an escrow agent for the transactions. He engaged with Randy Craig Levine, an international fugitive and former Coral Springs resident, in executing the deals. In their schemes, Levine fraudulently induced victims to send millions of dollars to Reichenthal, who was a licensed attorney at the time of the fraudulent activities.　　According to a Justice Department press release, between June and July of 2018, Levine persuaded the first victim, the head of a cryptocurrency escrow firm, Volantis Entities, to wire $3 million to Reichenthal to fund an over-the-counter desks Bitcoin buy. But instead of purchasing the Bitcoins for the client, Reichenthal wired over $2 million to a bank in Guatemala where Levine had an account. And no Bitcoins were purchased.　　In a second charge between February and May of 2019, Levine and Reichenthal brokered another Bitcoin transaction deal that never materialized and therefore conned the second victim. The Florida Bitcoin investor sent Reichenthal $2 million to fund the purchase of his

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Silicon Valley employees go away from large companies to Web3. What is the future of the Internet?

Julien Gaillard, the former Chief Data Scientist at Twitter Spaces, announced on Twitter that he is leaving Silicone Valley social media giant to become Head of Data Science at DeFi lending platform Aave.　　He said in that twitter‘s comment that Web3’s core values are decentralization, innovation, fairness and experimentation, which encapsulates much of the feeling of the early internet. 　　Meanwhile, David Marcus, head of the cryptocurrency project at Facebook (now known as Meta), also started his own Web3 venture on Jan. 1.　　Another Meta employee, Evan Cheng, also left in September to start MystyLab. He is currently focusing on building blockchain infrastructure and has revealed in an interview that 80% of his teams employees come from the Web2 internet industry.　　All of these prove that an era of web3 is coming to us. In this article, we will introduce web3 and the problem it solves.The World of Web3　　Web3 is a new iteration of the internet based on blockchain technology, developed with decentralization and empowerment at its core.　　Whereas Web1 was a content delivery network and Web2 built out the social media ecosystem, Web3 aims to be a distributed, decentralized network.　　Although the concept of Web3 is still vague, most people envision more widely distributed management

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Axie Infinity Smooth Love Potion (SLP) Explodes With 300% Gain This February

Smooth Love Potion (SLP) is skyrocketing in value just prior to the launch of Season 20 of Axie Infinity, the worlds most popular play-to-earn blockchain game.　　In a matter of days, the SLP token triples in value. As of February 12, 2022, SLP is now selling for $0.027 with a 24-hour range of.024 -.032.　　The in-game currency has a market capitalization of $927,503,521 and a trading volume of $1,365,400,410 during the 24-hour period.　　SLP is now the 102nd largest cryptocurrency by market value.　　The rally occurs following a significant update to the games economy, which removed player benefits for completing key in-game tasks, such as Adventure Mode SLP and Daily Quest SLP.Axie Infinity: How Does It Work？　　In the world of play-to-earn games, Axie is a well-known title. Its gameplay is inspired by classic games like Pokémon and Tamagotchi.　　Players can gather, breed, combat, and trade “Axies” in the game. SLP tokens are earned as rewards and can be redeemed for in-game features such as breeding new species.SLP/USD price at $0.028230 in the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com　　SLP is an ERC-20 token that acts as an in-game currency in Axie Infinity, a popular blockchain-based game.　　Axie Infinity allows users to collect one-of-a-kind digital creatures called Axies.　　Axies are

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Metaverse is booming, bringing revolution to real estate

Mark Zuckerberg might claim the Metaverse is the future — but in the eyes of others, the future has already begun. Science fiction author Neal Stephenson coined the term “Metaverse” back in his 1994 novel, Snow Crash. Within the pages, the main character, Hiro Protagonist, navigates through the virtual world. 　　Since 2003, millions have also worked, played and socialized in the Metaverse within the online Second Life world. While the game, with a heyday in the first decade of the 2000s and featuring some blocky graphics is a far cry from the modern Metaverse vision laid out by companies like Meta and Microsoft, the idea of a virtual metaverse where people interact is not a new idea.　　Currently, Decentraland is arguably the most well-known modern-day metaverse, incentivizing a global network of users to buy and sell digital real estate, explore, interact and play games. The Decentraland Foundation came into existence in 2015 and the projects initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017 netted about $26 million at the time. While Decentraland is expansive and features plenty to do, the platform has drawn many eyes to the lucrative, and ever-growing digital real estate industry.On Nov. 25, media reports revealed the nonfungible token (NFT)-based

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Critical bug in Ethereum L2 Optimism, $2M bounty paid

Ethereum Layer-2 solution Optimism has fixed a critical software bug in one of its smart contracts on Ethereum. On February 2nd, the Optimism team was alerted by Jay Freeman of a critical bug in Optimisms fork of the Ethereum Geth client software. As per the Optimism announcement “Funds Are Safu.”　　The bug made it possible for a malicious hacker to create ETH on Optimism by “repeatedly triggering the ”SELF-DESTRUCT“ opcode on a contract that held an ETH balance.” Opcodes are different types of instructions that can run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) execution environment. Bug triggered by Etherscan employee　　Analysis of Optimisms blockchain history carried out by the Optimism team showed that the bug was not exploited. The bug seems to have been accidentally triggered on one occasion by an employee at the popular block explorer Etherscan. As per the report, “no usable excess ETH was generated.”　　According to the announcement, within hours of confirmation, the Optimism team developed and deployed a fix on the Kovan and Mainnet networks, mending the bug, and sent alerts to teams developing vulnerable Optimism forks and to L1-L2 bridge providers. Apart from the announcement, the Optimism team has also published a detailed breakdown of the incident.　　As

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Wells Fargo: Cryptocurrency Has Entered 'Hyper-Adoption Phase'

Crypto in Hyper-Adoption Phase, Says Wells Fargo　　Wells Fargos investment institute published a special report titled “Understanding Cryptocurrency” this week. The report attempts to answer whether it is “too early or too late” to invest in cryptocurrencies.　　The Wells Fargo team explained:　　We believe that cryptocurrencies are viable investments today, even though they remain in the early stages of their investment evolution.　　They added: “We recommend professionally managed private placements for now, as the investment landscape is still maturing.”　　The research team continued: “We see cryptocurrencies in the ‘early, but not too early’ investment stage, which is why we have emphasized investor education. The thrust of our view comes from global cryptocurrency adoption rates, which have quickly accelerated from a low base.” They noted:　　Cryptocurrencies have been following an adoption pattern similar to other new advanced technologies, such as the internet.　　The Wells Fargo analysts reiterated, “For todays investor trying to figure out if we are early or late to cryptocurrency investing, looking at technology investing in the mid-to-late 1990s seems reasonable.” They added:　　At that time, the internet hit a hyper-adoption phase and never looked back. Cryptocurrencies appear to be at a similar stage today … We are hopeful that greater regulatory clarity in 2022 brings higher

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Bandai Namco to Invest $130 Million in Building Its Own IP Metaverse

Bandai Namco Seeks to Boost Engagement With Metaverse Project　　Bandai Namco, one of the leading Japanese game development and publishing companies, is creating its own metaverse. The company announced the resolution in a document outlining its mid-term plan, which details the strategy the group will follow from April 2022 to March 2025. In the document, issued February 8, the company explains that this new metaverse will be part of its “IP Axis” strategy, to boost the engagement of fans with its franchises. The plan states:　　In this IP metaverse, we are anticipating virtual spaces that will enable customers to enjoy a wide range of entertainment on an IP axis, as well as frameworks that leverage Bandai Namcos distinctive strengths to fuse physical products and venues with digital elements.　　For this purpose, Bandai Namco announced it expects to spend 15 billion yen ($130 million) for the establishment of the data foundation and the development of the content for this intellectual property (IP) metaverse.Metaverse as Business Strategy　　Bandai Namco refers to this metaverse pivot as a very important part of the future of the company, citing the metaverse concept as one of the main strategies of its digital business plan. Other Japanese companies in the field

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Intel to Develop Crypto Mining Accelerators, Claims Circuits Will Deliver '1000x Better Performance

Intel to Engage in Blockchain Technology　　On Friday, the senior vice president of Intel‘s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, Raja M. Koduri, published a blog post that discussed blockchain technology and the “new custom compute group.” Koduri explained that Intel is fully aware that there are some blockchains that “translates to an immense amount of energy.” The Intel executive said that the company’s customers are asking for “scalable and sustainable solutions.”　　“Intel will engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and will help advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way,” Koduris blog post explains.　　Intel‘s Koduri further added that the company’s first product will ship later in 2022. The first firms that will receive Intel‘s blockchain accelerator include Jack Dorsey’s Block (formerly Square), Argo Blockchain, and Griid. Koduri remarked that Intel Labs has been focused on “reliable cryptography, hashing techniques and ultra-low voltage circuits” for decades. The Intel executive expects the companys accelerator to have better performance per watt.　　“We expect that our circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000x better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA256 based mining,” Koduris blog post insists.　　In order to bolster these concepts, Intel has formed a new

2022-02-13Deep Dive

Billionaire Bill Miller Has 'Very Big' Bitcoin Position — Calls BTC 'Insurance Against Financial Cat

Bill Miller Says ‘Bitcoin Is Insurance Against Financial Catastrophe’　　Famed value investor Bill Miller talked about bitcoin in an interview with CNBC Wednesday. He is the founder of Miller Value Partners and currently serves as its chairman and chief investment officer. He manages the firms Opportunity Equity and Income Strategy funds. Prior to Miller Value Partners, he co-founded Legg Mason Capital Management.　　Referring to bitcoin, Miller described, “It‘s like an insurance policy.” He elaborated: “Insurance policies have no intrinsic value. In fact, you want them to have no intrinsic value. You don’t want to have your house burned down or get in a terrible accident but you pay for insurance every year in case that happens.” Miller continued:　　Bitcoin is insurance against financial catastrophe as we see in Lebanon, or in Afghanistan, or many of these other countries where we saw around the time of the pandemic.　　Miller also clarified what he said in January about bitcoin being half of his net worth, noting that many media reports misinterpreted what he said. Miller explained that he only put a few percent of his net worth into bitcoin which then grew to become half of his total fortune as the price of the cryptocurrency soared.

2022-02-13Deep Dive

JPMorgan Predicts Long-Term Bitcoin Price of $150K — Outlines Challenges Ahead

JPMorgans Bitcoin Price Prediction　　Global investment bank JPMorgan has revealed its prediction for the long-term price of bitcoin as well as the cryptocurrencys fair value.　　JPMorgan Chase & Co.s strategists, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, wrote in a research note published Tuesday that their long-term theoretical target for bitcoin is $150K, up from $146K predicted last year.　　At this level, bitcoins total market value would be on par with that of all gold held privately for investment purposes, they explained.　　The analysts clarified that bitcoins “fair value” is around $38K, up from $35K estimated last year.　　They calculated the coins fair value based on bitcoin being roughly four times as volatile as gold, adding that if the volatility differential narrows to three times, then the fair value of BTC would rise to $50K.　　The JPMorgan strategists wrote:　　The biggest challenge for bitcoin going forward is its volatility and the boom and bust cycles that hinder further institutional adoption.　　At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin is $43,855 based on data from Bitcoin.com Markets. BTC is up almost 19% over the past seven days and almost 5% in the last 30 days.　　Meanwhile, a JPMorgan client survey shows that the majority of respondents expect bitcoins price to reach $60K

2022-02-11Deep Dive

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