Grayscale Investments has removed cardano from its Digital Large Cap Fund. The crypto fund now holds bitcoin, ethereum, solana, XRP, and avalanche. The crypto asset manager also adjusted the holdings of its Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund. Cardano Removed From Grayscale’s Large Cap Fund Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, announced Thursday that […]
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While Amazon did not provide the actual reason for not supporting Venmo as a payment option, the notable rise of web3 payment platforms could be a major factor.
In October last year, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced that it would begin to offer Venmo, a product of PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL), as a new payment option to boost its orders on the mobile app and Amazon.com site during the festival season. Initially, Amazon announced only its US-based customers would shop with the Venmo payment option. A year later, Amazon notified its users on Wednesday that it had dropped Venmo as a payment option, and the company will no longer let users pay using the PayPal-backed payment method beginning January 10, 2024. Following the announcement, PYPL stock closed Thursday trading at $58.48, down 1.76 percent from the day’s opening value.
Notably, PayPal has been bleeding for the past two years, whereby its stock has dropped approximately 18 percent year-to-date. As of this report, PaPal had a total market valuation of about $64.18 billion. Meanwhile, Amazon did not provide a specific reason for shutting Venmo out of its business, thus leading to speculation of possible differences in internal policies and the changing landscape. Moreover, an Amazon spokesperson highlighted that there are a dozen more payment options for shoppers on their platform.
“Due to recent changes, Venmo can no longer be added as a payment method. Venmo will remain available to users who currently have it enabled in their Amazon wallet until 01/10/24,” Venmo noted.
Amazon has continued to perform well since the Covid lockdown boom, whereby its stock market has risen about 74 percent YTD to a total valuation of around $1.49 trillion.
For many years since its inception, PayPal has dominated global cross-border payments with its ruthless policies. PayPal and its payment products have been tormenting users with high fees and slow processing speed, whereby a single payment can take up to 180 days to be processed. As a result, more users have left the platform for other better alternatives, which include web3 payment platforms. Moreover, PayPal has been attempting to pivot toward blockchain technology through its latest stablecoins launch dubbed PayPal USD (PYUSD). Additionally, the company is in the process of conducting a $6 billion stock buyback to shield it from increased sell pressure.
The rise of web3 payments around the world has significantly threatened traditional businesses that are not ready to morph with the new technology. Moreover, blockchain technology offers a secure, near-instant, and cheap means to transfer funds around the world without any reliance on third parties.
Companies like Ripple Labs, Stellar Organization, and Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) are on the cusp of dominating global cross-border payments amid the mainstream adoption of digital assets.
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Binance has removed several sanctioned Russian banks from its peer-to-peer (P2P) trading service, The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 25.
The news outlet cited a quote from Binance, which stated:
“We regularly update our systems to ensure compliance with local and global regulatory standards. When gaps are pointed out to us, we seek to address and remediate them as soon as possible … [Payment methods that] do not fit with our compliance policies are not available on our platform.”
The report detailed that five banks are no longer available on Binance’s P2P crypto trading service. That service otherwise includes options allowing users to make direct transfers to and from bank accounts in exchange for crypto.
Controversy around those Russian banks emerged earlier in the week. On Aug. 22, WSJ reported that the company continued to allow peer-to-peer trading involving the Russian banks in question. Furthermore, Binance volunteers allegedly advertised an absence of Russian trading restrictions on Telegram.
Later, reports from Russian media suggested that Binance renamed certain bank options to hide their sanctioned status. The Russian majority state-owned Sberbank and the branchless neobank Tinkoff were displayed as “green local card” and “yellow local card,” matching the respective logo color schemes of those two banks.
The Wall Street Journal additionally identifies Rosbank as one of the now-delisted and sanctioned banks. It is unclear which other Russian banks were originally present on, or have been removed from, Binance’s peer-to-peer trading platform.
Binance’s P2P exchange continues to support several other Russian banks that are either not sanctioned or only partially sanctioned. The P2P exchange lists 16 Russian payment methods, including major banks such as Russian Standard Bank, Home Credit Bank, and Raiffeisenbank. Russian users can also make non-bank transfers through payment processors such as Payeer and Advcash.
The Wall Street Journal’s latest report additionally suggests that Russian users are able to use the delisted banks by manually inputting bank details.
Binance’s P2P policies are separate from its more restrictive main exchange policies. However, even those policies are being liberalized: while Binance placed a €10,000 limit on Russian accounts in April 2022, it lifted that policy in April 2023.
The post Binance removes five sanctioned Russian banks from P2P trading: WSJ appeared first on CryptoSlate.
An apparent malicious app purporting to be crypto hardware wallet Trezor has been taken off Apple’s App Store, though a quick search has revealed that other copycat apps are still lurking.
On June 20, Managing Partner at Crypto Lawyers, Rafael Yakobi, posted a security alert regarding Apple’s App Store. Yakobi reported that the first result in a search for “Trezor” was a malicious app designed to steal cryptocurrency.
He warned Apple users that the fake “Trezor Wallet Suite” app will “request your seed phrase, allowing its operators to steal all of your crypto.” Yakobi added:
“This app has been up for weeks, although the total number of victims is unknown, it could easily be in the hundreds or thousands.”
Security Alert
The first search result for “Trezor” in the Apple @AppStore is a malicious application that will request your seed phrase, allowing its operators to steal all of your crypto.
The name of the malicious application is “Trezor Wallet Suite.” You can verify… pic.twitter.com/vWsXTHpkYK
— Rafael Yakobi (@Deliver8tor) June 19, 2023
Cointelegraph searched the United States’ version of the App Store and could not find the malicious app referenced by Yakobi. Apple is generally quick to remove suspicious or fraudulent apps from its app store once alerted.
However, a search for “Trezor Wallet Suite” returned another potentially nefarious application called “MyTREZŌR Suite: One Edition.” It only had two reviews — both of which were warnings that the app is a scam that will steal crypto — so it appears that Apple has not fully cleaned house as of yet.
Apple insists that apps on its official App Store have been vetted and cleared for security purposes.
The safest way to download mobile applications for crypto wallets is from the manufacturers’ official website. While there is an app available for Trezor users on iOS, it’s merely a companion app with limited functionality.
Related: Apple’s outside payments ban ruled as unlawful in likely win for NFTs and crypto
According to Apple news outlet 9to5mac.com, the world’s largest tech company isn’t too friendly when it comes to crypto apps, which are only supposed to be approved under strict circumstances. The outlet noted:
“While Apple says that the App Store ‘is a place you can trust’ and fights against sideloading, what happens in real life is that even Apple can’t keep the App Store free of scams.”
Fake wallet apps on Apple’s App Store are nothing new. In 2021, one user reportedly lost $600,000 in Bitcoin (BTC) after downloading a malicious Trezor app from the App Store.
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Binance is also pausing its OTC Trading Portal services in the US. The exchange said that it will notify users if and when the portal opens in the coming weeks and months.
The US arm of top crypto exchange Binance has removed 10 advanced trading pairs from its platform. In an announcement, the exchange said it would let go of select BTC and BUSD Advanced Trading pairs by 9 am PDT on June 8, 2023. Notably, the company earlier planned to eliminate over 100 crypto assets. The initial decision was supposed to affect USDT, BTC, and BUSD advanced trading pairs for digital assets like Bitcoin Cash, Uniswap, and others. According to the breakdown of the former remover provided by Binance, 95 assets were paired with USDT. In addition, eight cryptos were paired with BTC, while two were with BUSD. However, Binance US updated the press release, noting:
“Following community feedback, Binance.US will no longer remove any USDT Advanced Trading pairs. All cryptocurrencies and USDT pairs remain available to trade. Only select BTC and BUSD Advanced Trading pairs below will be removed.”
The affected Bitcoin trading pairs are ATOM/BTC, BCH/BTC, DOT/BTC, LRC/BTC, MANA/BTC, UNI/BTC, VET/BTC, and XTZ/BTC. On the other hand, Binance US is halting the following BUSD Advanced Trading pairs: HBAR/BUSD and ONE/BUSD.
As Binance US gets rid of the selected trading pairs, it is also streamlining its Buy, Sell & Convert offering. The updated maximum order for Buy, Sell & Covert is $10,000. Also, Binance is pausing its OTC Trading Portal services in the US. The exchange said that it would notify users if and when the portal opens in the coming weeks and months.
The decision on advanced trading pairs for Binance US came shortly after the SEC slammed the exchange with a lawsuit. On June 5, the Commission filed a suit against Binance, its US platform, and CEO Changpeng Zhao over unregistered securities operations. According to the lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Columbia, Binance failed to register as a securities exchange and operated illegally in the US. There were 13 charges against Binance, including its staking program, sales of the BNB and BUSD tokens, and the Simple Earn and BNB Vault products. The US regulator added that Binance and other defendants put investors at risk while enriching their own pockets. Furthermore, the SEC claimed that Binance and its US legal entity BAM Trading did not register Binance US as an exchange broker and clearing agency. The SEC wrote:
“Defendants have engaged in multiple unregistered offers and sales of crypto asset securities and other investment schemes. Defendants BAM Trading and BAM Management defrauded equity, retail and institutional investors about purported surveillance and controls over manipulative trading on the Binance.US Platform, which were in fact virtually non-existent.”
About 24 hours after the attack on Binance, the SEC also went after Coinbase, citing similar allegations.
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Ibukun is a crypto/finance writer interested in passing relevant information, using non-complex words to reach all kinds of audience.
Apart from writing, she likes to see movies, cook, and explore restaurants in the city of Lagos, where she resides.