1. South Korea requires all public officials to disclose crypto holdings from 2024

South Korean lawmakers have unanimously passed a bill that mandates public officials and candidates to disclose their cryptocurrency holdings starting from 2024. The requirement applies to high-ranking officials above Grade 4, including National Assembly members, regardless of the amount of crypto they own. Previously, the Public Service Ethics Act only required disclosure of assets like cash, stocks, and bonds exceeding 10 million Korean won (approximately $7,572), without including cryptocurrencies or virtual assets. The bill also imposes investment limits for officials involved in the crypto sector. This move comes amidst an ongoing scandal involving a former lawmaker and highlights South Korea's efforts to enhance transparency and fairness in its cryptocurrency market through new legislation.

The key advantage of declaring crypto assets over other assets like cash, stocks & bonds are it’s transparency & auditability in nature, where the public officials and candidates can publish their public wallet addresses and all the asset value & transaction history will be traceable by anyone. This will ensure public officials are held accountable of their own financial actions, to which it may also set a good example for other countries like Malaysia to detect & fight corruption.

2. Inferno Drainer, a new phishing scam that made $6 million in cryptos & NFTs

Scam Sniffer, a platform specializing in scam identification, has revealed that a malicious software provider known as Inferno Drainer is linked to thousands of scams resulting in the theft of several million dollars. The security firm analyzed data from Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and other blockchains to identify 4,888 victims who collectively lost over $5.9 million in cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Inferno Drainer is reported to have created nearly 689 phishing websites since March 27, offering its malicious software as a service for a fee of 20% to 30% of the stolen assets.

The victims of these scams include well-known brands in the crypto ecosystem, such as Pepe, Collab.Land, zkSync, MetaMask, and Nakamigos. Scam Sniffer also identified another similar scam called Venom Drainer, which drained $27 million from 15,000 victims, targeting around 170 brands.

The DeFi space is still a pretty dangerous place, as there were 28% more scam incidents compared to 2021, but the amount of money lost was less than half of the previous year, probably because the crypto market has been down. Thus, it’s important not to put large sums of money that you can’t afford to lose in DeFi and always double check the links you plan to click with official websites to ensure it’s the correct one.

3. Stably USD, a new USD stablecoin on the Bitcoin Blockchain

Stably, a crypto startup, has launched Stably USD, a dollar-backed stablecoin designed to facilitate trading in the growing Bitcoin blockchain ecosystem. The company aims to make trading Stably cheaper and more efficient than using fiat currency or Bitcoin itself. Stably USD is built on the ordinals protocol, which was originally intended for inscribing NFTs on a aatoshi number Bitcoin's smallest denomination, but has since expanded to support various tokens.

Stably's stablecoin aims to address the challenges faced by ordinals traders who currently need to either convert fiat currency to tokens at a fee or use the volatile Bitcoin for transactions. By maintaining a stable value and remaining accessible on-chain, Stably USD aims to provide a solution to these issues. The stablecoin is backed by fiat currency held with Prime Trust, and users will need to go through a KYC and AML process to convert their stablecoins back into dollars.

In my opinion, there’s nothing new about this stablecoin compared to leading stablecoins like Tether and USDC, while also facing the same centralization risks. Would be interested to see if other algorithmically & overcollaterized stablecoins like Cardano’s DJED will be a more decentralized solution where they also share similar UTXO architecture and a possibility for DJED to be bridged to the Bitcoin blockchain after Cardano announced an upgrade to support ECDSA & Schnorr cryptographic signatures back in Jan-2023.

4. Celsius Network is taken over by…..Fahrenheit????

Insolvent lender Celsius Network is set to be acquired by crypto consortium Fahrenheit (Oh, the irony of these temperature metrics!), led by venture capital firm Arrington Capital and miner US Bitcoin Corp. The consortium won the bid for Celsius in a lengthy auction process and will acquire Celsius's institutional loan portfolio, staked cryptocurrencies, mining resources, and additional alternative investments. To finalize the deal, Fahrenheit must pay a $10 million deposit within three days. The backup bidder was the Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium, including Van Eck Absolute Return Advisers Corporation and GXD Labs LLC.

Under the terms of the acquisition, the new company will receive $450 to $500 million in liquid cryptocurrency, and US Bitcoin Corp will construct crypto mining facilities, including a 100 megawatt plant. However, the deal still requires regulatory approval to proceed. The sale of Celsius was warned to face potential "regulatory roadblocks," similar to the sale of Voyager's assets that was halted due to regulatory concerns. Celsius filed for bankruptcy last July following a rush of withdrawals amid plummeting crypto prices, which exposed liquidity issues and marked a challenging period for the crypto industry.

Personally, even though if Celsius will be back in operation, I don’t see how they can attract more investors as many investors have lost a lot of money with Celsius. With all the bear markets and bankruptcies, I’m sure more people understand better on the “not your keys, not your crypto” analogy and keep their money in safer options like cold wallets. Would be interested to see how are they going to offer attractive yields under strict supervision from the regulatory body.

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