Crypto Market Overview July 19th | Dex-Trade
Jed McCaleb from Ripple's Has Sold All His XRP Holdings
Crypto giant Ripple has officially confirmed that former CTO and co-founder of the company, Jed McCaleb, has completed the sale of his XRP holdings last Sunday, making his last exchange of 1.1 million coins from almost 9 billion assets received while working at the company. According to blockchain explorer XRP Scan, the Ripple co-founder sold his last piece of the reserve for $394,742.18 at 6:31 am UTC. And just a few hours later, information appeared in McCaleb's account about its removal, that is, its complete exclusion from the global XRP registry. Ripple transferred about 9 billion native coins to its former CTO back in 2012. This is roughly 9% of the 100 billion XRP that was shared among the other co-founders. And even then McCaleb said that he would start selling his stock "as quickly as possible." However, the businessman agreed to Ripple's terms to liquidate the tokens depending on the daily trading volume. Two days after McCaleb's selloff, XRP is trading at $0.3574, about 1.8% lower than yesterday but 14.98% higher than last week. In fact, this means that the businessman’s accusations of deliberate dumping of the token are groundless, as its value continues to grow, and volatility remains within the traditional limits for the channel.
A Group of Hackers Stole 320 NFTs from Premint
According to a study by blockchain security provider CertiK, last Sunday a group of hackers used malicious JavaScript code to hack the popular Premint marketplace, where authors register their NFTs, and stole 320 non-fungible tokens worth more than $400,000. Technically, the malicious code opened a window for unauthenticated site users to verify ownership of their wallet as part of the authentication process. Thus, hackers managed to gain access to user wallets in a matter of minutes. At the same time, some users immediately suspected manipulation and rushed to Twitter and Discord to spread the word about it. Over the course of Sunday, the hackers sold all 320 stolen NFTs for 275 ETH, which is just over $400,000 at today’s rate. Cybercriminals regularly use Tornado Cash and other mixing services to clean up their stolen cryptocurrencies. In our case, the stolen NFTs were lots from well-known collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and Otherside. One of the collectible Bored Ape was sold for 89 ETH (approximately $132,000) on OpenSea. But it was not the only platform that "played along" with the criminals.
Senator Warren Wants to Play 'Harder' with Crypto
Despite the lack of wording and most of the regulation of crypto in the US in principle, Senator Elizabeth Warren already wants to tighten the rules of the game in the country, which she herself stated in a recent statement addressed to the US Congress and the SEC. However, despite the fact that such a statement frankly smacks of cryptophobia, it also has a rational grain, since the crypto industry has seen an exponential increase in theft and money laundering. Of course, according to the senator, the new rules should be designed to protect investors and prevent people from being deceived by cryptocurrency companies. If anything, the recent collapse of a number of cryptocurrency-related investment companies should be seen by the government as a wake-up call. The senator's remarks, of course, touched on the dramatic events with Terra, but the main reasons for concern were Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy in early July, and the infamous Three Arrow Capital (3AC). Among other victims, companies such as Vauld, Babel and Voyager were mentioned, which, by the way, blocked access to their users' funds. According to Senator Warren, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler must act quickly to initiate the process of developing strict cryptocurrency regulations in the United States. However, Gary was known as a crypto enthusiast even before he became chairman of the SEC.
