Argentina’s Crypto President in Trouble: Milei Accused of LIBRA Token Failure
Milei faces fraud charges after promoting LIBRA, which quickly collapsed. Developers withdrew $107 million, leading to accusations of fraudulent behavior. The incident raises fears of unregulated assets, leading to calls for tighter regulations. Argentina’s President Javier Milei is under fire after promoting a cryptocurrency called LIBRA. The token plummeted shortly after his endorsement, and now he’s facing serious backlash.
Phemex Hackers Moved 24,000 AVAX to New Address, Worth Approximately $600,000
According to Peckshield monitoring, the hacker of cryptocurrency trading platform Phemex has moved 24,000 AVAX to a new address, worth approximately $600,000.
Peckshield stated in January that the loss of crypto assets from cryptocurrency trading platform Phemex due to the hack was approximately $69.1 million, involving multiple chains and tokens.
The Central Bank of Italy has established cooperation with cryptocurrency companies to ensure regulation.
On Feb. 17, according to a Cointelegraph report, the Central Bank of Italy and securities regulators are in discussions with cryptocurrency service providers to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards in place to address financial and cybersecurity risks.
The Governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, discussed key issues related to crypto assets, digital finance, and the cybersecurity risks associated with global and European regulation, during the 31st Assiom Forex Annual Conference held on Feb. 15.
Milei promotes cryptocurrency, price collapses and opposition calls for impeachment
Opposition lawmakers in Argentina said Saturday that President Javier Milei could face impeachment after promoting a cryptocurrency that saw its value plunge in just a few hours. On Friday night, Milei posted on social media platform X recommending the cryptocurrency $LIBRE, which is little known in the market. After the announcement, the asset quickly appreciated, reaching almost US$5. However, a few hours later, the cryptocurrency suffered a sharp devaluation, falling to less than US$ 1. The episode generated reactions in the financial market and criticism from opposition parliamentarians.
BNB Chain has launched an optimization plan to handle increased traffic by prioritizing the processing of Meme Coin transactions.
According to BlockBeats, on February 16, the BNB Chain team reported that the current design of BNB Chain prioritizes getting all transactions onto the blockchain as quickly as possible in order to minimize the average wait time in the mempool. This approach is suitable for most typical use cases. However, for fast-paced and high-risk Meme Coin transactions, it is not the best option, as small price fluctuations can have a significant impact.
The team is refining the strategy to prioritize block value, giving higher priority to transactions that interact with time-sensitive contracts (Meme Coins).
LIBRA Relationship Chart: Issuer Engaged in Insider Trading of Multiple Meme Cryptocurrencies
According to a BlockBeats post, on February 16, Solayer developer Chaofan Shou published a relationship chart about the LIBRA token issuance event and stated that “based on on-chain data, the community is welcome to correct any errors.”
According to the relationship chart, a group of behind-the-scenes conspirators issued the LIBRA token through issuance advisor Hayden Mark Davis (Kelsier Ventures) and outsourced market making to an Indian firm. Kelsier Ventures and the market maker are also insiders in the former US First Lady’s token MELANIA, ENRON, BOB, RAG, M3M3, M3M3, and OGME. LIBRA’s main sponsor, KIP Protocol (founder Julian Peh), bridged the gap with people close to Argentine President Milei, which led to Milei tweeting and promoting the token.
Indian authorities seize approximately $190 million in cryptocurrencies related to the Bitconnect case.
On Feb. 16, according to Cointelegraph, Indian authorities seized approximately $808,563,928,28190 million in cryptocurrencies related to the Bitconnect case, a fraudulent scheme that caused the loss of approximately $808,563,928,282.4 billion to 4,000 investors in 95 countries. After Bitconnect launched in 2016, its founder Satish Kumbhani (indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in February 2022) established a global network of promoters, paying them commissions to maintain the Ponzi scheme, and went on the run after the platform shut down in January 2018.
In August last year, a man from Gujarat, India named Bhatt was arrested for kidnapping, extortion, and violating anti-money laundering laws. Bhatt, who had invested in Bitconnect, kidnapped two Kumbhani employees to retrieve his funds, extorting 2,091 bitcoins, 11,000 litecoins and 145 million rupees in cash, currently valued at 12.325 million rupees. Following Bhatt's arrest, the funds involved in the case were seized by Indian authorities.
The total market cap of stablecoins has surpassed US$$ 225.2 billion, up 0.55% over the past week.
As of February 16, according to data from DefiLlama, the total market cap of stablecoins in the current crypto market is US$$ 225.282 billion, up US$$ 1.23 billion over the past 7 days, up 0.55% from the previous period, with USDT accounting for 63.22% of this total value.
Jupiter Team Clears Up Unfounded Rumors (FUD): The Team Did Not Participate in LIBRA Issuance and Market Making, and Did Not Pre-Verify This Token.
According to BlockBeats, on February 16, Jupiter team member Kash Dhanda clarified the LIBRA-related rumors on X, "There is FUD all over the place now, but the facts are as follows: The Jupiter team did not participate in the LIBRA token launch. We did not perform the deployment, market making, or participate in the issuance. We also did not pre-verify this token, only after its market cap surpassed $$ 1.5 billion. Dozens of counterfeit tokens have emerged, and given the official public statement with the CA release, we hope that users will be able to identify the official token. We will provide more details to everyone soon."
GoPlus Security Launches GPS Staking Program with High APY
On February 15, Web3 on-chain security leader GoPlus Security officially launched its GPS token staking program with an industry-leading annualized yield (APY). The program offers three flexible staking options to meet the needs of different investors.
The staking program will continue until February 15, 2026 (8:00 UTC). GoPlus Security stated that it will continue to monitor staking activity and may adjust rewards to benefit the community, and any adjustments will only be to increase rewards, never to decrease them.
Whales accumulate ADA: Investors buy US$ 136 million in five days. Technical Resistance: ADA Needs to Break $1 to Continue Rising. Opportunity or risk? Market awaits confirmation of sustained growth. Large investors have been moving the Cardano (ADA) market in recent days. These whales have acquired around 170 million tokens, totaling approximately $136 million. The purchase occurred over a period of just five days, signaling renewed confidence in the cryptocurrency. The high volume of purchases indicates a possible recovery in ADA’s value.
Solana has continued to see significant gains in recent months. Created in 2021, the network has reached an inflow volume of US$10 billion. Since its founding, Solana has seen a growing number of people interested in its protocols. The amount of liquidity that has entered Solana has doubled in just one year, after taking a little over two years to approach the US$5 billion mark.
About $10 billion has flowed into Solana in just over 3 years. Source: Flipside Attracting liquidity
Bridges are infrastructures that help with interoperability between blockchains. Through them, users and projects move assets and data between different networks. On Solana, three protocols stand out: Wormhole, Mayan Finance and Debridge, responsible for the largest total volume of cross-chain transactions in the entire blockchain.
According to HTX market information, JUP broke through US$ 0.9 on February 14 and is currently trading at US$ 0.9214, up 9.56% in the past 24 hours.
As previously reported by BlockBeats on February 14 at 1:00 am, Jupiter announced that 50% of all protocol fees will be used to buy back and lock up JUP for 3 years, starting next Monday.
GoPlus Security Alert: A Trading Platform or Trading Bot May Have Been Hacked
GoPlus Security Alert: A Trading Platform or Trading Bot May Have Been Hacked, Multi-Chain Asset Collection Has Now Surpassed $1 Million. According to information from BlockBeats, on February 14, some GoPlus users reported that their assets were stolen. According to the security monitor, the stolen cryptocurrency address was created yesterday and currently has over $1 million in assets accumulated at the address; "0x49add3e8329f2a2f507238b0a684d03eae205aab"
Consensys and MetaMask, as well as over 40% of Ethereum validators, support increasing the gas limit.
Consensys, a blockchain technology and infrastructure company, published a paper stating: “To achieve our goal of making Ethereum the most comprehensive decentralized computing platform in the world, we need to expand the base layer while advancing the L2 roadmap.”
Consensys and MetaMask validators, as well as over 40% of Ethereum validators, support increasing the gas limit. This means that each block will be able to include more or more complex transactions, which in the short term will reduce gas costs and transaction confirmation delays, and in the long term will allow developers to build more complex applications.
South Korean judicial authorities will officially establish an investigation group
South Korean judicial authorities will officially establish a joint investigation group on cryptocurrency-related crimes. South Korea’s prosecutors’ office will officially establish a special department dedicated to solving crypto crimes and punishing price manipulators and cryptocurrency fraudsters. The Virtual Asset Crime Joint Investigation Group (JIU), operated by the Seoul Southern Regional Public Prosecutors’ Office, will officially launch “no later than February or March.”
A empresa listada na Bolsa de Valores de Hong Kong, Qichan Holdings, divulgou a autorização de aquisição de um potencial negócio de criptomoedas com um valor total não superior a USD 48 milhões.
Segundo a BlockBeats, em 29 de janeiro, a empresa de capital aberto em Hong Kong Enterprise Development Holdings Limited (ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT HOLDINGS LIMITED) emitiu um comunicado divulgando informações sobre a autorização para a aquisição potencial de criptomoedas, indicando que, a partir da data em que a resolução ordinária sobre a autorização de criptomoedas e a aquisição potencial de criptomoedas for formalmente aprovada pelos acionistas em uma assembleia geral extraordinária, durante um período de 12 meses, o conselho de administração será autorizado e investido do poder de adquirir no mercado aberto um total de até US$ 48 milhões em criptomoedas, incluindo, mas não se limitando a, Bitcoin ($BTC ), Ethereum ($ETH ), Tether (USDT), USD Coin ($USDC ) e Dogecoin.
Taiko Announces Strategic Partnership with OpenZeppelin to Develop Next-Generation Based Rollup Stack.
According to BlockBeats, on January 25, Ethereum’s L2 network announced a strategic partnership with OpenZeppelin to develop the next-generation Based Rollup stack, taking Based Rollups to the next level. Some of the key goals include solving scalability, interoperability, and composability issues.
Based Rollups are known to be a class of L2 solutions that directly leverage the ordering functionality of the L1 blockchain. This model achieves seamless integration, fully leveraging the decentralization, liveness, and security features of L1. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake introduced the concept of Based Rollups in March 2023, aiming to overcome the issues faced by existing Rollup solutions.