Binance was hit with a class action lawsuit
Binance and founder CZ are facing a class action lawsuit related to allegations of market manipulation and unfair competition harming its competitor FTX.
Bloomberg reported that Nir Lahav, an investor in California, along with many others, on October 2, filed a lawsuit against Binance in the District Court of Northern California.
At issue are posts made by Zhao on Twitter X in early November on the eve of FTX’s collapse. The posts were made in conjunction with the decision by the defendants to liquidate their holdings in the FTX utility token, FTT, on Nov 6. The plaintiffs estimated that Binance owned up to 5% of all FTT tokens.
The following day, Zhao stated in a Twitter post that Binance had signed a letter of intent to acquire FTX, but backed out of that deal one day later. The suit alleges that Zhao’s proposal to acquire FTX was not made in good faith and that the episode would “ultimately lead” to the collapse of FTX.
“Zhao’s tweet resulted in FTT price declining from US 23.1510 to US 3.1468. This significant drop plummeted FTX Entities into bankruptcy without giving an opportunity or chance to FTX Entities’ executives and board of directors a chance to salvage the situation and put in safe guards to protect its clients and end-users.”
The plaintiffs claim that this is a deliberate action to eliminate competitors and strengthen Binance’s position in the market. The investor group is gathering evidence of financial losses, court costs and expects thousands of people to join their class action lawsuit.
Bitcoin price surged on Oct 2 after Honda’s announcement
Honda, one of the world’s leading car manufacturers, opened its doors to crypto payments. It has announced that it will now accept Bitcoin and Ethereum payments. Bitcoin witnessed a price rise after this news.
Bitcoin will reach “unbelievable” price if this happens
After the launch of the “FedNow” program – instant payment infrastructure developed by the US Federal Reserve, Robert Kiyosaki expressed concerns about its impact and urged swift investment in assets like Bitcoin, gold, silver, and cash sooner rather than later.
The author of the best-selling personal finance book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” said that the “FED CBDC (was) coming,” referring to the widespread view that the “FedNow” payment system is the preparation for the introduction of a nationwide central bank digital currency (CBDC), in an X post on September 29.
According to Kiyosaki, if this actually happens, the Fed CBDC would result in the loss of privacy but also lead to the increase in value of gold, silver, Bitcoin, and cash, which he believes will become “priceless”, and suggests investing in these assets and saving them “now before it’s too late.”
Tottenham Hotspur sets to release SPURS fan token
English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur have announced their intention to issue a SPURS fan token on Chiliz Chain with the goal of providing fans a new way to interact and access exclusive incentives and experiences.
SPURS fan tokens will be available on Socios.com, a popular fan interaction and incentives platform. Using Chiliz Chain, a SportFi network with over two million users, SPURS fan token will allow Tottenham Hotspur to join a vast list of nearly 80 sports teams, which have already used Chiliz Chain to reach their fan bases across the world.
Binance delists these 19 spot trading pairs
On Oct 6th at 05:00 (UTC), Binance will remove: 1INCH/BUSD, AERGO/BUSD, ANKR/BUSD, DATA/BUSD, DIA/BUSD, ERN/BUSD, IOST/BUSD, KP3R/BUSD, LOKA/BUSD, LRC/BUSD
On Oct 6th at 07:00 (UTC), Binance will remove: LTO/BUSD, MDX/BUSD, OM/BUSD, POLYX/BUSD, RARE/BUSD, SLP/BUSD, SUSHI/BUSD, THETA/BUSD, YFI/BUSD.
Binance extends the monitoring tag to include BETA, BOND, WTC and XEM
More tokens will be added to the current Monitoring Tag list:
BETA: Binance Launchpad project at the end of 2021. Since then, BETA price has continuously decreased while the TVL is very low.
SEE: A blockchain project launched in 2015.
BOND: A DeFi project launched in 2020, currently almost inactive and SEC is investigating the project’s development team.
WTC: A blockchain project launched in 2017.
StarkNet delays initial unlocking of native StarkNet tokens
Data from Etherscan shows that StarkWare has postponed the initial unlocking date of its native StarkNet (STRK) tokens from November 29, 2023 to April 15, 2024, 5 months later than the original plan.
It is unknown how many tokens will be unlocked, but these STRK will be allocated to key contributors, early-stage backers, and the StarkWare team.
Binance to shut down BUSD lending by Oct 25
Binance will cease borrowing and lending services for its native stablecoin (BUSD) by October 25. The exchange will close all outstanding BUSD loan and collateral positions by the end of the month. Users would still be able to borrow and lend on Binance using stablecoins such as Tether USDT, Dai, TrueUSD (TUSD), and USD Coin USDC. Currently, users can lend their BUSD on Binance at an estimated annual percentage yield of 3%.
Polygon gradually launches new tokens
Polygon has just launched a smart contract for the POL token on the Goerli testnet, as part of their “Polygon 2.0” plan. Polygon Labs previously released three Polygon Improvement Proposals (PIPs) describing the plan for the upgrade to Polygon 2.0 and the conversion of the native token MATIC.
Binance reportedly only distributed 10% of promised BNB tokens during ICO
According to Forbes’ investigation, Binance may have significantly overstated the success of its ICO for BNB in 2017. Forbes believes that the exchange only distributed 10% of promised BNB during the ICO.
In June 2017, CZ, founder of Binance, launched the whitepaper of the BNB token. After a month, Binance announced success in completing the BNB ICO with a total raised amount of $15 million, with an average price of $0.15 per token.
Binance’s whitepaper also provides details about token distribution that indicated it would mint 200 million BNB tokens, including 80 million tokens for Binance and its leadership team, 20 million for angel investors, and 100 million for ICO investors.
However, according to the report, the actual allocations tell a different story, finding that ICO investors actually received 10.78 million BNB rather than 100 million BNB – about 1/10 of the amount they supposedly received. It was also suggested that Binance raised close to $5 million during its offering rather than $15 million.
Angel investors, on the contrary, received a doubled token distribution that actually amounted to 40 million, rather than 20 million, BNB tokens.
Vitalik Buterin proposes two-tier model to address ‘centralization challenges’ in Ethereum staking
The primary concern addressed in Buterin’s proposal revolves around the limitations of the current staking system. Buterin suggests adopting a two-tiered staking system, in which Node Operators and Delegators emerge as central figures. This approach aims to strike a balance between security, decentralization, and accessibility within the Ethereum staking ecosystem.