NFT News Official TheBitTimes.com

South Korea’s largest exchange , Upbit, suffered 159,061 attacks during the first half of 2023. According to the local media Yonhap, it is nearly 2.17 times more than in 2022. To fight back against the increasing trends of hacking attacks, the company increased the portion of funds it held in cold wallets by 70%. It also grew the security levels for its hot wallet funds. Upbit is currently one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange s in South Korea. The company has a trading volume of nearly $1.2 billion. Due to Binance regulatory issues, the company increased its market share by 5.5%. Upbit is gaining traction and attracting users in the competitive cryptocurrency exchange landscape. You might also like: Upbit falls victim to fraudulent deposit incident In 2019, the exchange experienced a significant hack, losing $51 million worth of Ethereum (ETH). Despite this setback, Upbit resumed its normal operations after a two-month hiatus, demonstrating its resilience an...

VanEck’s monthly crypto market recap reveals that trading volumes of centralized exchanges declined to $52.8 billion in August, representing a 15.5% decrease compared to July. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) faced a challenging month, recording 9% and 10% losses, respectively. VanEck: Crypto markets hit lows In August, as reported by VanEck, the trading volumes of digital assets hit a two-year low, coinciding with an all-time low in their volatility. According to the analysis, this decline was attributed to waning investor interest. The analysts attributed the declining investor interest to the allure of beach vacations in the U.S. and the U.S. 10-year treasury bond, whose yield reached its highest level in 15 years in August. The report also revealed a substantial decrease in venture capital funds allocated to blockchain projects, with only $500 million deployed in August 2023, representing a significant drop from the $1.9 billion and the $2.7 billion recorded in August 2022 an...

In a recent statement, BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz expressed his belief that crypto exchanges can operate without internal market makers, citing concerns raised by the revelation that Crypto.com has internal trading teams engaged in crypto trading activities. The disclosure has sparked apprehension regarding a potential conflict of interest at Crypto.com. Growing presence of external liquidity providers According to BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz, the presence of high-frequency traders (HFTs) and proprietary trading firms in the cryptocurrency industry can effectively replace the role of internal market-making teams. Lutz believes that these external entities are capable of ensuring liquidity and bridging the gap between buyers and sellers during imbalances in the market. Lutz further highlighted that BitMEX itself had previously operated an internal trading entity called Arrakis Capital, serving as a major internal market maker.  You might also like: Raoul Pal predicts ‘exponential ...

Data analytics platforms have reported billions of dollars in outflows from Binance over the last week, but this can be misinterpreted, argues Changpeng Zhao. While data suggests that crypto assets have been flowing out of centralized exchange s at an accelerated pace over the last week, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao argues it may not be as bad as it appears.  Leading analytics platforms such as Nansen and DeFiLlama have all measured increased exchange outflows from Binance over the past seven days after news of the SEC lawsuit against the firm hit the airwaves. According to Nansen, there has been a net outflow of $2.36 billion from Binance over the past seven days along with $123.7 million flowing out of Binance.US. DeFiLlama reported an even larger figure of $3.35 billion in outflows from Binance, while Glassnode data shows the exchange's BTC balance having declined by 5.7% or around $1 billion over the past seven days. CEX asset flows. Source: DeFiLlama However, in a June 10 Twitt...

Earlier this month, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced that it will once again allow crypto trading for retail clients as of June 1. The decision comes after a consultation process with industry stakeholders during the period from 2021 when crypto trading was banned in China and Hong Kong . Despite significant hype surrounding Hong Kong’s lifting of its crypto ban, so far only two crypto exchanges have been registered by the SFC — OSL Exchange and HashKey Pro. However, Huboi announced last week that it has applied with the SFC to offer its services in Hong Kong and OKX has revealed it will be offering crypto trading to Hong Kong residents via its app. Binance has so far not announced that it intends to register with the SFC to offer its services in Hong Kong. The business closed shop in China in 2017 when crypto exchanges were banned. Read more: Hong Kong architect loses millions trading Tether, crypto on scam site Crypto will remain ba...

The price of the memecoin has surged by over 2,000% in the past two weeks. On May 1, cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced that it would be listing memecoin Pepe (PEPE) at 17:00 Hong Kong Time (HKT) and open Pepe withdrawals on May 2 at 17:00 HKT. In supporting the listing decision, OKX staff wrote:  “Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character and internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Pepe was designed to be a green frog with a human-like body; this is one of the most popular memes in the world.” Several cryptocurrency exchange s, including MEXC Global, Bitget, Gate.io and Huobi, listed Pepe trading pairs two weeks prior, stirring what appears to be a trading frenzy . The token has returned 2,340% since April 17 and is now trading at $0.000001223 apiece at publication. Following news of the OKX listing, Pepe’s price has surged over 50% in the past 24 hours. Created on the Ethereum blockchain by anonymous developers, the Pepe token was created, according to CoinMarketCap, “as ...

FTX was one of the key exchange partners for Busan city, but its recent collapse made the administration reconsider its plans of onboarding third-party crypto exchanges. Busan, the blockchain city of South Korea, has moved a step closer to forming a local crypto exchange, but it has dropped most of the global centralized exchange partners. The drastic decision comes in the wake of the recent colossal failure of centralized exchanges. The city announced the steering committee comprising 18 local blockchain experts but none of the five exchanges that had agreed earlier this year to assist the city in establishing its first official digital asset exchange. The five exchanges included Binance, Crypto.com, Gate.io, Huobi Global and FTX. The steering committee is a municipal advisory body tasked with providing advice on the establishment and operation of the digital asset exchange, as well as strengthening the system of external cooperation. The possible elimination of global crypto exchan...