Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

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CoinList ‘Rally’: 40K investors rush to buy RLY despite price pump

Social token platform Rally has completed its first “liquid token sale” on crypto asset issuance platform CoinList, with 40,000 investors snapping up RLY tokens for $0.60 each between April 1 and April 4.

The sale saw tokens distributed to investors at a set price despite RLY trading on exchanges since October, 2020. Token pricing was determined by a 20-day trailing average from March 11, 2021 to March 30, 2021 minus a 30% markdown to compensate for the RLY being locked up for 12-month a linear release.

However, investors had the opportunity to purchase RLY for less than half the price offered by CoinList on the open markets just five weeks ago.

The sale was approved through community governance in mid-March, with the 40 million RLY sodl having previously been allocated to Rally’s Community Treasury. The ballot saw 100% of the 7,400 participating token holders vote in favor of the sale. Nearly 30% of RLY are now held by Rally’s team and investors.

News of the sale appeared to drive bullish momentum for RLY, which has gained nearly 250% since trading for less than $0.29 on March 12. RLY consistently traded between $0.25 and $0.35 from mid-January until mid-May. As of this writing, RLY last changed hands for $1.

RLY/USD: CoinGecko

Half of the tokens will become tradable on Oct. 4, after which the remaining RLY will unlock gradually on a monthly basis. In a blog post on April 12, Coinlist revealed the offering generated $22 million. Investments were limited to $1,000 per person, with nearly two-thirds of the offering’s 115,000 registrants missing out on participating.

Rally is a blockchain-based social network that allows content creators to launch social tokens.

The social token sector — non-fungible tokens issued by content creators, brands, and communities — has been on the rise in 2021, with RLY and WHALE representing 83% of the social token market cap pack with $240 million combined.

CoinList \’Rally\’: 40K investors rush to buy RLY despite price pump

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Solana (SOL) price rises as airdrops attract new users to the network

Over the past six months blockchain projects that have issued token airdrops have re-emerged. Most notably, the airdrops by Uniswap (UNI) and MEME will be remembered as recipients were rewarded with gains ranging from $20,000 to $600,000 simply for holding the tokens.

One Ethereum (ETH) competitor that has seen numerous projects launch with airdrops in the past three weeks is Solana (SOL), an open-source project that focuses on utilizing blockchain technology to provide decentralized finance solutions.

While Solana isn’t explicitly making a concerted effort to launch these projects, the protocol’s main decentralized exchange Serum (SRM) was responsible for the recent COPE airdrop which distributed 2,000 tokens to users who participated in the joint DeFi hackathon held by Solana and Serum.

After the airdrop, COPE eventually listed on Serum for $0.50 on March 30 and the price of the token surged to a high of $5.43 on April 11, rewarding holders with a $10,860 reward.

SOL/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The success of the COPE airdrop prompted a series of token launches and airdrops with similar-sounding names including HOPE, ROPE and KOPE, whose launches on the Solana blockchain have coincided with a 55% rise in the price of SOL since the start of April.

Airdrops on the network may have played a small role in the recent price appreciation due to users needing SOL to receive airdropped tokens but this is not possible to ascertain based on the available data.

Interactions on the Solana blockchain, including the addition of new tokens to the Sollet wallet, require small amounts of SOL to complete the contract executions. Thus, users rushing to sign up for airdrops before they filled up would have needed to purchase SOL and fund their wallets in order to create new addresses for the airdropped tokens.

Analysts expect the airdrop trend to continue

For those worried that they missed out or that the ‘airdrop season’ is over, a recent tweet from Solana’s Twitter feed suggests that the Solana ecosystem is just getting started, meaning the likelihood of future airdrops remains high.

New users are the lifeblood of successful blockchain networks, and the use of airdrops continues to be one of the most utilized methods for drawing attention to fledgling projects and sapping liquidity from one protocol to another.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Solana (SOL) price rises as airdrops attract new users to the network

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US CFTC Orders Ponzi Scheme Operator To Pay $32 Million Fine

A US District Court for the District of Nevada has fined Circle Society and owner David Gilbert Saffron for operating a cryptocurrency ponzi scheme. This is according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Circle Society Ponzi Scheme

The regulator stated that both the Nevada-based corporation and its operator have to pay $32 million as ordered by the court.

Saffron, an Australian citizen, residing in the US, started the firm Circle society to offer binary options on forex and cryptocurrency pairs. Both he and the company allegedly deceived investors to send funds in order to participate in a commodity pool, with promises of high returns.

Since 2017 when Circle society was created, Saffron has reportedly duped investors of at least $15.8 million from about 179 people. According to the CFTC, he diverted investor funds to his crypto wallet to pay other participants “in the manner of a Ponzi scheme.”

The court’s final judgment requires defendants Saffron and Circle Society, jointly and severally, to pay restitution claims of more than $14.8 million to defrauded pool participants and disgorgement fine of $15.8 million, and a civil monetary fine of over $1.48 million.

The judgment also enjoined the defendants from registering with the CFTC or trading on any other CFTC-regulated entities.

However, the CFTC has told victims not to expect much as they might not be able to get their full funds back.

“The CFTC cautions victims that restitution orders may not result in the recovery of any money lost because the wrongdoers may not have sufficient funds or assets,” the statement read.

The regulator filed the civil enforcement action against Saffron and Circle Society in 2019, alleging that Saffron solicited and accepted a minimum of $11 million in Bitcoin and US dollars with other defendants’ help in the company.

The CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert had then said that fraudulent schemes like Saffron and his company do not only cheat innocent people out of their hard-earned money, but they also threaten to undermine the development of new and innovative markets.

Spike In Crypto-Related Scams

Cybercrime seems to have increased since the advent of cryptocurrency as it is constantly being used to scam people. Even though regulators continue to warn users against crypto scams and, in fact, scams in general, people are still falling victims.

Even though fraudulent activities had existed before crypto came along a decade ago, many crypto owners are falling victims because many retail investors have knowledge gaps. With the fear of missing out (FOMO) surrounding digital tokens, crypto investors are readily suckered into deals with these fraudsters promising huge returns.

Last month, the CFTC ordered fraudulent Bitcoin trader Benjamin Reynolds to pay $572 million in penalty and restitution for a crime he committed in 2017. He was ordered to pay a $429 Million fine penalty and an additional $142 million as restitution to victims.

US CFTC Orders Ponzi Scheme Operator To Pay $32 Million Fine

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Digital Asset Custody Provider Hex Trust Finalizes $6M Round led by QBN Capital

Hong Kong-headquartered crypto-asset custody service provider Hex Trust reveals that it has secured $6 million in capital via a Series A round that was led by QBN Capital.

As part of its latest investment round, Hex Trust also received contributions from Cell Rising, Radiant Tech Ventures, Kenetic Capital, HashKey, MD Labs, Fenbushi Capital, Borderless Capital, Genesis Block Ventures and Henri Arslanian.

Hex Trust’s management noted that the funds raised would allow it to further scale its business operations while being able to recruit new talent to work at its Hong Kong and Singapore offices.

Hex Trust further noted that during 2021, they’ll make plans to  expand operations into the European market, where the company has teamed up with SIA, an established provider of banking tech infrastructure.

Hex Trust said the capital secured will also be directed towards making enhancements to its proprietary, bank-grade custody solution, called Hex Safe™. The technology-driven service provides a wide range of custody and treasury management solutions for digital assets, security tokens, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well.

Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-founder at Hex Trust, stated:

“We are past the inflection point, as blockchain has established itself as the next financial markets infrastructure. Financial institutions are quickly making their moves, and the next 12 months will be critical to define the structure of the overall market. Hex Trust is now perfectly positioned to accelerate its growth and play a leading role in this space, enabling digital assets adoption for a broad range of regulated financial institutions. We are thrilled to be accompanied in this journey by such established investors.”

As noted by its management team, Hex Trust claims to be one of Asia’s leading digital asset custodians. The company says it’s “fully licensed, insured, and provides bank-grade custody for digital assets.”

Hex Trust is reportedly led by experienced banking technologists and “award-winning” financial markets. The company has developed a proprietary platform – Hex Safe™ – that “delivers a flexible custody solution for banks, financial institutions, asset managers, exchanges, and corporations to safely, securely, and efficiently operate in the digital asset ecosystem.”

As explained by Hex Trust:

‘”Through Hex Safe™, clients can access liquidity providers, exchanges and lending & staking platforms, enabling seamless access to services while assets are held in our highly-secure and regulated platform. Hex Trust has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.”

As covered in April 2020, Hex Trust became the very first licensed crypto-asset custodian in Hong Kong to integrate its services with R3’s Corda platform.

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Sacramento Kings To Offer Bitcoin Salary Option To Players

US professional basketball team Sacramento Kings is offering its staff and players the option of earning in Bitcoin. This was disclosed by the team’s Chairman, CEO, and Governor Vivek Ranadivé on popular social networking app, Clubhouse.

Sacramento Becomes First NBA Team To Offer Bitcoin Salaries

Ranadivé made this known in a room hosted by a club called the ‘Satoshi Roundtable.’ The room was headed by Tim Draper, a venture capitalist well-known in the industry for purchasing Bitcoin from the US Marshall’s auction in 2014, and co-hosted by Bruce Fenton, a prominent Bitcoin advocate, and investor. 

The news first broke out on Twitter after a Clubhouse audience member, Neil Jacobs, tweeted what the Sacramento Kings owner said.

“I’m going to announce in the next few days that I’m going to offer everyone in the Kings organization, they can get paid as much of their salary in bitcoin as they want, including the players,” said Ranadivé, according to Jacobs.

The news has generated many opinions from crypto critics and enthusiasts. Most say that this move would strengthen the California NBA team’s long-standing claim to be one of the most pro-crypto teams in professional sports.

This is not the first time the sports team has innovated using blockchain tech. Sacramento Kings announced back in 2014 that they were open to receiving payments in Bitcoin for their team merchandise in partnership with payment processor BitPay.

It also started mining cryptocurrency in 2018 by setting up a program called MiningForGood that donates the funds to charity. 

In 2019, Sacramento Kings went on to launch rewards tokens for fans. The token was called The Kings Token, and it was done in partnership with blockchain-based event ticketing platform Blockparty.

Basketball Embraces Crypto

The recent use of crypto in sports has triggered the global expansion of sports and teams as cryptocurrencies are now widely adopted in the sports sector.

The Dallas Mavericks sports franchise owned by Mark Cuban is another NBA team using crypto as payments for tickets and sports merchandise. 

Last month, Cuban announced that they would be accepting Dogecoin as payment for tickets and merchandise. Shortly after that, Cuban confirmed that they immediately received more than 20,000 Dogecoin transactions making the Mavericks the largest Dogecoin merchant in the world.

Before the Dogecoin announcement, Mavericks already allow Bitcoin payments for tickets and merchandise through a partnership made with BitPay in 2019.

Not only is crypto being used to allow fans to purchase tickets and merchandise and for clubs to pay players’ salaries and transfer fees recently, but it has also gained momentum in the NFT sector.

The NFT market for trading cards and collectibles is a multi-million dollar industry enabling fans to immortalize sporting moments in pictures and other various mediums.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a major player in the NFT space through its online digital collectibles marketplace, the NBA Top Shot. The NFT mania has become a good source of revenue for basketball teams, with the NBA reportedly closing deals over $500 million, according to The Verge.

Sacramento Kings To Offer Bitcoin Salary Option To Players

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