Daily Digest - 8 December 2022

Headlines

▌Coinbase: Revenue in 2022 Will Decrease by More Than 50% Compared to 2021

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase stated that its revenue in 2022 will be reduced by more than 50% compared with 2021. Display issues are being investigated, web users may see intermittent connectivity issues.

Policy

▌PSR Official: UK Regulators Are Strengthening Their Encryption Supervision Approach

Jinse Finance reported that Nick Davey, an official of the UK Payment System Regulator (PSR), said in an interview that the UK Payment System Regulator is exploring how to regulate the encryption industry, starting with research on distributed ledger technology. While we don’t expect to see digital currencies displacing traditional currencies in the near future, it’s important that innovation and competition in the payments space be balanced with strong safeguards to ensure people are protected when they pay. Regulators, however, have gotten a head start on policing the industry. The Treasury Department has placed under its supervision Fnality International, a payments system that uses distributed ledger technology that is still in testing. It will be the first wholesale payment system to use central bank money and a decentralized network that operates 24/7. The company already has 17 major institutions as shareholders and will partner with some of them.

Cryptocurrency

▌European Central Bank executive member Panetta: Cryptocurrency Is "A Bubble of a Generation"

Fabio Panetta, executive member of the European Central Bank, said that encrypted assets that promise to revolutionize the way people pay, save, and invest have become a "generational bubble", highlighting the need for stricter regulation and risk management of the market. Bitcoin has lost roughly two-thirds of its value over the past year, confirming a long-held view by policymakers that a product like bitcoin is too volatile to be considered a currency. According to Panetta, it turns out that crypto assets are not money. Many are just a new way to gamble.

▌Bloomberg: Judge Rules Celsius Must Return $44 Million in Cryptocurrency to Users

Chief Insolvency Judge Martin Glenn issued a ruling on Wednesday ordering the cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network to return approximately $44 million worth of cryptocurrencies to customers after the parties involved in the Celsius bankruptcy case believed that the funds belonged to users rather than Celsius, even though it doesn't go into Celsius' interest-bearing account.

▌Stablecoin Protocol Helio Has Repurchased $3 Million Worth of HAY Tokens on the Open Market

The stablecoin protocol Helio stated in an official tweet that it has started the bad debt recovery process of HAY tokens through the first batch of buybacks. At present, HAY worth 3 million US dollars has been repurchased, and the repurchase is still in progress. The team will share the relevant address after the first batch of repurchase is completed. Previously, Ankr, a blockchain infrastructure platform, stated that it would allocate 15 million US dollars to repurchase the additional HAY issued in the market caused by the hacker attack, and cooperate with Helio to deal with the bad debts caused by the attack.

▌Source: Canada Pension Plan Abandons Cryptocurrency Research

Sources said that the Canada Pension Plan (CPPI) has concluded its research on cryptocurrency investments. CPPI told the news organization that it has not made direct crypto investments. Because it is Canada's largest pension fund managing approximately $388 billion for 20 million Canadians.

▌Microsoft Uncovered an Attack Targeting Cryptocurrency Startups

Microsoft claims that a threat group it monitors as DEV-0139 has intended to target cryptocurrency investment companies through Telegram channels used to connect with their VIP clients.

Microsoft’s security segment discovered an invasion yesterday, December 6, that was aimed at cryptocurrency startup companies, according to a press release. Through Telegram chat, they gained trust and sent an Excel document with the subject “OKX Binance and Huobi VIP fee comparison.xls” that was laced with malicious software code which allowed them to quickly monitor the victim’s computer.

▌Ethereum Developers Agreed to Focus on Enabling Withdrawals in the Shanghai Upgrade, Separate From Their Work on EIP-484

On December 1, 2022, Ethereum developers gathered for their 99th Consensus Layer (CL) call. Chaired by the Ethereum Foundation’s Danny Ryan, the CL calls are one of two bi-weekly meeting series where Ethereum developers discuss and coordinate changes to the protocol of Ethereum. To kick off the call, Danny Ryan reiterated the discussion from ACD Call #150 where CL client teams came to consensus about focusing exclusively on staked ETH withdrawals for Shanghai. “I think crucially what was made clear by Consensus Layer teams is that they believe that EIP 4844 is not nearly in the same readiness as [staked ETH] withdrawals and coupling them would significantly delay withdrawals. We will not couple them. We will work full steam ahead on Capella in its current form,” said Ryan on the call.