Week in Review: Media report Interpol red notice for Do Kwon, and Binance opens ETHW mining pool

The week closed with reports that Interpol issued a red notice for Terraform Labs chief Do Kwon, FTX won the Voyager Digital asset auction, and Binance opened a mining pool for ETHW, among other developments.

Bitcoin fails to hold above $20,000

Bitcoin began the week on a positive note. On Tuesday the price rose above $20,000, but could not sustain the level. Over the past seven days, digital gold has risen by 1.5%.

As of writing, bitcoin was trading near $19,200.

Most of the top-10 by market cap were in the red. The best performer was BNB, up almost 3%.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalisation stood at $969.68 billion. Bitcoin’s dominance rose to 38%.

Media reports Interpol red notice for Do Kwon

Earlier in the week Bloomberg reported that Interpol issued a red notice for the arrest of Terraform Labs (TFL) CEO Do Kwon. Under the procedure, the request will be received by law enforcement agencies in 195 countries. His file does not yet appear on the organisation’s site.

Kwon himself later said that he is not in hiding and visits shopping centres freely, but did not disclose which jurisdiction he is in.

Meanwhile, researchers found that on the eve of the arrest request by South Korean law enforcement, 3,313 BTC were sent from the Luna Foundation Guard wallet on Binance. The transactions occurred between September 15 and 18, and the funds were transferred to OKX and KuCoin.

In turn, TFL accused the South Korean prosecutors of overreach, calling the case “politicised.” The company also opposed the transfer of 3313 BTC.

FTX wins auction for Voyager Digital

The cryptocurrency exchange FTX US won the auction for the sale of Voyager Digital assets, offering around $1.4 billion. According to broker representatives, the bid reflects a fair market value of the cryptocurrencies stored on the platform worth more than $1.3 billion. The bid also includes an additional consideration of about $111 million.

This week FTX US CEO Brett Harrison left the presidency. The American arm of the exchange also said it would relocate its office to crypto-friendly Miami.

Researchers presented concept of reversible Ethereum transactions

A group of researchers from Stanford presented a concept for new Ethereum token standards — ERC-20R and ERC-721R. They are designed to introduce an option to reverse a transaction in case of asset theft.

Under the proposal, management of the smart contract would be conducted by a \”decentralised structure\” through voting. The victim could provide evidence and request freezing of stolen assets, after which a quorum would render a decision. The community criticised the initiative, noting that it runs counter to the essence of cryptocurrencies.

Bank in Kazakhstan completed first bitcoin operation

Kazakhstan-based cryptocurrency exchange Intebix (Biteeu Eurasia) and the Eurasian Bank conducted the first joint fiat-to-bitcoin purchase. The bank developed its own process for inputting and withdrawing tenge to the exchange with low fees. The financial institution also announced plans to issue a payment crypto card by year-end that could be used in stores.

A few days later, deputies of Kazakhstan’s Majilis presented a draft law regulating cryptocurrency mining in the country. The document allows mining only for participants of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), and non-resident legal entities with contracts with licensed data centres.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said he was ready to legally recognise the project enabling cryptocurrency conversion with AIFC participants if the pilot results prove successful and the service is in demand.

What to discuss with friends?

• Bitcoin blogger Lark Davis accused of involvement in pump-and-dump schemes.
• In China they detained 93 suspects in a $5.5 billion cryptocurrency money-laundering operation.
• Alex Mashinsky left the post of Celsius Network chief.
• Scientists called Bitcoin the \”digital oil\” because of its impact on the climate.

Prices of GPUs in China fell sharply after The Merge

Chinese retailers said that the price of flagship RTX 3080 GPUs, used for Ethereum mining, has fallen by almost 40%.

According to 2Miners, about 80% of Ethereum miners turned off equipment after The Merge. Hashrate analysis on alternative networks confirmed a drop in the metric after the upgrade.

What about miners?

Bitdeer, the mining-services provider led by former Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu will launch a $250 million fund to buy assets from \”troubled\” companies in the industry. Bitdeer will allocate $50 million as a junior tranche. Partners will provide the remaining $200 million.

This week Arcane Research presented a report on public miners, showing that the vast majority of companies posted undistributed losses on their balance sheets, despite a strong 2021. For Core Scientific, the figure stood at $1.3 billion.

Binance launched a mining pool focused on mining Ethereum PoW fork tokens (ETHW). The asset is not yet trading on the exchange. Platform representatives noted that ETHW support in the pool does not guarantee listing.

As a result of another difficulty adjustment, the mining difficulty of the leading cryptocurrency decreased by 2.14%, to 31.36 T. The metric showed negative momentum for the first time since July 21, 2022.

Developers of Polkadot and Cosmos unveil updated roadmaps

The Parity Technologies, the Polkadot-associated organisation is preparing the first set of major optimisations to the consensus protocol since its launch in December 2021. The developers have focused on scalability, governance among parachains, the Relay Chain, staking, and bridges to other ecosystems.

The Cosmos developers published a white paper outlining new functionality for the project’s ecosystem. One key solution — Interchain Scheduler — is a cross-chain marketplace focused on MEV opportunities. It will be linked to a multi-chain transaction relaying service (analogous to Flashbots in the Ethereum context).

Also on ForkLog:

• SEC fined a former Tether auditor $1 million.
• Robinhood released a beta version of a non-custodial Web3 wallet.
• Chainlink and SWIFT will develop a solution to enable cross-chain transactions.
• Media: the EU will discuss a full ban on cryptocurrency operations for Russians.

What else to read?

New educational cards discuss Cardano and MakerDAO projects Cardano and MakerDAO. They explained how the Bollinger Bands indicator works and provided five examples of metaverses you can interact with today.

In traditional digests, the main weekly events were gathered in the fields of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention companies pay to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in ForkLog’s review.

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