“Bring Back Tone Vays” — a news podcast produced by the ForkLog editors and friends about the week’s main industry events.
Episode topics: the hype around the Blast project, pressure on crypto mixers in the United States, a scandal over fake participant profiles at the DevTernity conference, and the threat of imprisonment for Changpeng Zhao.
Participants: Lena Jess, Vasily Smirnov.
Special guest: Anton Toroptsov, Regional Director of the CommEX crypto exchange in Russia and the CIS.
Hype around Blast
In recent times, considerable attention from investors and users has attracted the Blast project — L2-solution based on Ethereum, promising native yield in Ethereum and stablecoins. The project’s founder is the creator of the NFT-marketplace Blur under the alias Pacman.
Blast promises yields of 4% for Ethereum and 5% for stablecoins. Although its mainnet is planned to launch only in February 2024, TVL of the protocol surpassed $660 million.
Many market participants point out that the project suspiciously resembles a Ponzi scheme. The founder’s responses to community criticism can be read in our article.
Pressure on crypto mixers
Pressure on crypto mixers in the United States continues. The trading platform Binance announced the delisting of the mixer’s native token Tornado Cash (TORN) from the list of tradable assets, after which its price fell by more than 50%.
“When a token no longer meets our standards or the industry changes, we conduct a more thorough review and, possibly, delist the asset from the listing. We believe this best protects all of our users,” according to a Binance statement.
Also this week, the Bitcoin mixer Sinbad.io was placed under sanctions by OFAC. U.S. authorities say the service provided material and technological support to the North Korean government, as well as assisted cybercriminal activity.
Fake Participants
On social media, a scandal erupted around the DevTernity IT conference, on whose site fake participant profiles were found. One Anna Boyko was presented as a Coinbase employee and one of the leading Ethereum participants. Project representatives said they did not know any colleagues by that name.
Esteemed developers and industry representatives declined to participate in the conference. David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web framework, said he had not seen anything like this “in decades of attending conferences.”
What a strange tale. Never seen anything like this in decades of speaking at conferences. Regardless of what may ultimately be up or down here, I’m out. https://t.co/97aK4525NV
— DHH (@dhh) November 26, 2023
Threat to CZ
Former Binance chief Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is to remain at liberty but must not leave the United States because of a “managed flight risk.” This phrasing appears in a new Department of Justice motion.
Former SEC lawyer John Reed Stark stressed that, unlike the previous motion, prosecutors stated clearly and unambiguously that at sentencing they may insist that CZ be sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
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