CryptoBeaver

 The Federal Reserve may have to keep rate hikes going for longer than previously expected.  Jerome Powell – Chairman of the Federal Reserve – recently spoke about the future of macroeconomic policy and U.S. inflation at the Brooking Institution. As is typical, Bitcoin’s price was affected by his comments, rising by 1% just as his speech began.  As of 18:13 UDT on Wednesday, Bitcoin traded for $16,780. The price then shot up to $16,850 at 18:30, when he began to speak. By 18:40, the leading crypto asset traded for $16,960. Over the past 3 months, the Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate in intervals of 75 basis points at a time. The current rate, according to Federal Reserve data, is 3.83%.  Before the speech, Powell was expected to reinforce his message supporting continued interest rate hikes, which would slow to 50 basis points starting in December. On Wednesday, his message was even more hawkish: “We anticipate that ongoing increases will be app...

The FTX hacker appears to have moved some of the stolen bridged assets to OKX.  On-chain sleuth ZackXBT has tracked down some of the mixed Bitcoin funds stolen by the mysterious FTX hacker this month.  The analyst found that $4.1 million worth of Bitcoin (255 BTC) has ended up on OKX, a cryptocurrency exchange.  As explained on Twitter, the hacker initially deposited the stolen funds to CoinMixer – an anonymous Bitcoin mixing service designed to make on-chain Bitcoin transfers harder to track.  The first CoinMixer deposit was made on November 20th after the attacker used Ren Bridge to move assets from Ethereum’s blockchain to Bitcoin’s. As of Tuesday, there is $7 million in ETH remaining on the address.  After examining the deposits, ZackXBT said that the hacker had likely transferred those funds to OKX, after withdrawing from the mixer.  “So far we’ve accounted for at least $4.1m (255 BTC) sent to OKX,” he said.  The analyst further elaborated that 50...

 Bitcoin-backed Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) tokens have been trading at a discount compared to their Bitcoin backing ever since the fall of major crypto exchange FTX. Market data provided by Done shows that Wrapped Bitcoin has been consistently trading at a discount compared to the value of the underlying Bitcoin ever since the fall of major crypto exchange FTX. WBTC’s price broke under the full value of a Bitcoin on Nov. 12 and its value compared to Bitcoin has seen a sharp increase in volatility ever since. WBTC has reached its peak discount compared to Bitcoin on Nov. 26, when it was worth nearly 1% less than Bitcoin despite its supposed one-to-one BTC backing. As of press time, WBTC is trading at a 0.19% discount compared to the underlying Bitcoin. One possible reason for this discount is that the fall of FTX generated a significant — and healthy — degree of distrust towards custodial solutions that resulted in a significant increase in the WBTC selling pressure. This idea is furthe...

Mitsubishi Logistics has harnessed the power of blockchain to allow its clients to track their shipments to ensure that outsourced pharmaceutical shipments are kept in proper conditions throughout.  Mitsubishi launches ML Chain System to streamline pharmaceutical drugs distribution Mitsubishi has developed the ML Chain blockchain system to help streamline the transport of drugs.  Through this technology, its clients can even view the temperature of shipments when they change hands and other crucial details. The new ML Chain can track shipments from pharmaceutical manufacturing plants and logistics centers to distributors. Takeda Pharmaceutical is already utilizing it in Japan for some of its goods. The motors company has seen that via blockchain technology can help in the transmission of tamper-proof data globally and decided to leverage it. Its new distributed ledger technology foreshadows more applications of blockchain technology to expect in the near future. More to the st...

 The Tezos Foundation has announced a professional services agreement with game engine developer, Unity. The strategic partnership with Unity’s Accelerate Solutions will see to the development of a Web3 Blockchain SDK for games and dApps, according to a press release on November 25, 2022. Tezos (XTZ) x Unity join forces  While the crypto winter of 2022 has continued to hit Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies hard, Web3 gaming has continued to see increased adoption, and now, the Tezos Foundation is joining forces with Unity, a leading game engine developer, to bring the next wave of users into Web3 gaming and more. Per a press release by the team, the energy-efficient Tezos blockchain signed professional services deal with Unity’s Accelerate Solutions group earlier in May 2022, for the creation of a new Web3 blockchain software development kit (SDK). If approved, the Tezos Foundation and Tezos Ecosystem teams plan to offer the Web3 Blockchain SDK as a Verified Solution an...

 It almost seemed inevitable following everything that happened with FTX. Another former cryptocurrency giant has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. Thus, BlockFi has followed the example of companies like Celsius and Three Arrows Capital. The cryptocurrency lender’s troubles began as the bear market intensified earlier this year, especially after the Terra collapse. There seemed to be a lifeboat thrown by FTX a few months down the road as the exchange provided a $400 million loan to BlockFi and had the option to purchase the company for up to $240 later on. However, the once SBF-led giant crashed spectacularly earlier this month, which led to a new wave of problems. Some reports emerged claiming that BlockFi was exploring filing for bankruptcy, but company reps refuted them at first. Yet, the crypto lender has indeed filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New Jersey court, as reported by CNBC. The filing reads that BlockFi had over 100,000 cr...

  Fantom was forced to become extremely frugal during the 2018 bear market, but later recovered using decentralized finance.  Andre Cronje – the so-called “Vice President of Memes” for the Fantom Foundation – provided an insider’s view into how the company has remained cash-flow positive across the past 4 years.  The developer noted that the foundation would “likely not be operational today” without decentralized finance (DeFi), and suspects the same is true for other firms.  Scaling Over One Cycle As  explained  in a blog post from Cronje on Sunday, Fantom ended 2018 with a fairly unprofitable ETH trade. After raising $40,000,000 worth of the cryptocurrency in June, it sold those holding after a major price correction leading up to December. At this point, the firm had less than $5 million remaining.  This forced the company to become extremely frugal over the following year, while periodically selling some of its native FTM tokens to fund unplanned e...