El Salvador Launches a National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC)

 The “specialized administrative unit” ONBTC will coordinate and consult all bitcoin projects in El Salvador.

El Salvador’s government doubled down on its crypto initiatives by creating a National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC) that will oversee all local projects related to the asset.

The new agency will also be able to cooperate with other countries in matters associated with BTC.

Enter ONBTC

Despite the prolonged bear market, El Salvador’s authorities seem determined to advance their bitcoin strategy. According to a recent LinkedIn post, the government created a National Bitcoin Office that will function as a “specialized administrative unit, with functional and technical autonomy within the Presidency of the Republic.”

The agency will have all the freedom to manage and consult domestic bitcoin projects and join forces with other countries’ organizations on initiatives linked to the leading digital currency:

“The objective of the ONBTC will be to design, diagnose, plan, program, coordinate, follow up, measure, analyze and evaluate plans, programs, and projects related to bitcoin for the economic development of the country.”

The entity will analyze all individuals who wish to meet the BTC-loving President Nayib Bukele to discuss the nation’s blockchain path.

It will also work closely with the different Ministries to formulate adequate regulations on the local crypto sector and introduce educational programs for Salvadorans.

“All public institutions shall collaborate with the ONBTC for the fulfillment of its functions and objectives. For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will collaborate in cases of international cooperation, while the autonomous and municipalities may do so to the extent that their regulations allow,” the post reads.

President Bukele will hire the Director of the agency, while the latter will appoint all necessary personnel according to his understanding.

Focus on the Entire Crypto Sector

The government presented a bill earlier this week aiming to establish regulations on the local crypto industry by forming a designated commission.

Up until recently, El Salvador’s main focus was on bitcoin. The nation made history last year by becoming the first to embrace the coin as a legal tender inside its borders. It announced plans to create a Bitcoin City and built a massive vet hospital using profits from its BTC purchases.

The latest data reveals that the Central American country holds 2,381 BTC, equaling nearly $40 million (calculated at current prices). President Bukele, though, disclosed that the government will start buying one bitcoin a day starting November 18, meaning the possessions could have increased by now.

Crypto Firm Spent $600,000 to Create a Half-Elon Musk, Half-Goat Statue

 The creators are about to deliver the bizarre statue to Musk’s house in Texas on Saturday (November 26)

The cryptocurrency company EGT (which stands for Elon GOAT Token) built an interesting monument of Elon Musk. The statue represents a creature with a goat’s body and the entrepreneur’s head stuck on it that is about to shoot into space on a rocket.

The firm plans to deliver the item to Musk’s home in Austin, Texas, on November 26 and invited people to attend the claim of this “historical gift.”

Musk Put on a Pedestal

Twitter’s new owner and the world’s richest man – Elon Musk – is one of the most influential figures of our time, and people often pay attention to his words, even when he talks about crypto.

The digital asset firm – EGT – took that affection to another level by creating a bizarre statue of the South African. His 6-foot-tall head is placed upon a 30-foot-long body of a goat while the creature sits on a rocket that is about to head to “the moon.”

The developers spent $600,000 to fulfill the project and want to give it to Elon Musk as a gift so he could “catapult” the EGT token “into the limelight and accelerate its various initiatives.” The company has even created a countdown clock showing it will deliver the item to the South African’s residence in Austin, Texas, on Saturday (November 26).

Musk's statue

Musk’s Statue, Source: Daily Mail

The Canadian subsidiary of Tesla – Drive Tesla Canada – thinks the acceptance of the present will be a “global spectacle” that could go viral beyond crypto and into mainstream media.

Jeff Hoffman – the Chairman of EGT’s Advisory Board – said the creators of the monument sought to “celebrate the existence of the most innovative man of the 21st century.”

“The idea behind this statue is to capture the greatest transfer of wealth in its entire history. The creators of the cryptocurrency want it to make it memorable and save time just like it has been done in history, statues have been built to capture the moments,” he added.

Musk Can Affect the Market

Trying to convince Musk to boost the development of EGT’s token does not lack logic since the billionaire has proven he can influence the market.

In a series of tweets last July, he spoke about a mysterious cryptocurrency called Baby Doge Coin. The coin’s price skyrocketed by 90% hours after his Twitter engagements.

Last Christmas, Musk dressed his dog (called Floki) in a Santa Claus outfit and posted a picture on the social media platform. Creative crypto participants were quick to react and introduced a new token going by the name Santa Floki (with the ticker HOHOHO). The asset soared over 18,000% in the following days.

Musk is famous for his affection toward the first-ever memecoin Dogecoin and often praises its merits. His interaction with the token last year, specifically the numerous endorsements on Twitter, was one of the reasons DOGE reached an all-time high of nearly $0.75. The ongoing bear market, though, has cooled off the price expansion, and it currently trades at around $0.08.

MakerDAO Disposes of renBTC as Stablecoin Collateral

 The Alameda-linked tokenized Bitcoin asset will no longer be used to back DAI. 

MakerDAO – the issuer of the decentralized stablecoin DAI – unanimously passed a proposal this week to remove renBTC as a form of reserve collateral. 

The Bitcoin-pegged token was deemed too risky to hold exposure to in light of its connections to the now-bankrupt trading desk Alameda Research. 

Alameda and Ren

As announced by MakerDAO over Twitter on Thursday, Maker’s governance voted to offboard the RENBTC-A Vault type in a governance poll that opened on Monday.

Nearly 75,000 votes were in favor of the motion, with 0 abstaining or objecting. 

“Considering the acquisition of the Ren project by Alameda Research and the recent bankruptcy of the latter, the Ren development team disabled the Ren network mints,” said Maker. Ren 1.0 network, it said, will shut down within 30 days after November 18th. 

Ren is a bridge protocol for transferring digital assets to other blockchains (ex. transferring BTC to Ethereum). Facilitating such bridges requires a trusted third party to hold organic BTC in reserves, such that the bridge token (renBTC) is always redeemable with BTC 1:1. This allows the price of the bridge token to consistently track that of the base asset. 

Stablecoins work in much the same way, with organizations like Tether and Circle holding billions in cash and U.S. Treasuries to back their dollar equivalent tokens. Both organizations release periodic attestations affirming the status of their reserves. 

By contrast, MakerDAO backs its DAI stablecoin through a basket of cryptocurrencies like USDC, ETH, renBTC, and others. 

Ren was acquired by Alameda Research earlier this year and has since received quarterly funding from the firm. After the trading desk filed for bankruptcy, Ren announced last week that it would disable its previous Ren 1.0 tokenized Bitcoin offering in favor of a new, community-controlled “Ren 2.0” faster than previously planned. 

The team clarified that Ren 1.0 “remained and still remains fully safe and operational.” According to CoinGecko, the asset is still price pegged to BTC, trading at $16,600 at writing time. 

“Marking this event as the end of Alameda’s involvement in the project by sunsetting Ren 1.0, safeguards the reputation, integrity, and hence long-term prospects of the Ren ecosystem,” said Ren in its statement last Friday. 

Risks to Ren?

Despite renBTC’s current stability, Maker’s Risk Core Unit stated that the DAO’s offboarding of the asset could itself cause it to de-peg from Bitcoin. “Disabling burns means that Maker has a limited time frame to offboard the collateral to minimize potential future complications,” explained Maker. 

The organization added that its offboarding from RENBTC-A  “doesn’t represent any threat or deficiency to the Maker Protocol’s financial health, nor to its solvency.”

Another FTX-linked Bitcoin asset – soBTC – has already dropped 90% in value after FTX disabled withdrawals earlier this month. The exchange was responsible for holding the Bitcoin backing those tokens, but was exposed as having zero Bitcoin on its balance sheet as of November 10th.

Crypto Lender Hodlnaut Investigated by Singaporean Authorities

Hodlnaut’s directors might have defrauded clients, the Singaporean police claimed.

Law enforcement agents in Singapore have reportedly opened an investigation against the troubled crypto lender Hodlnaut. 

The police suspect the company’s executives might have cheated users over the years and committed other crimes.

According to a Bloomberg coverage, Singapore’s police force started probing Hodlnaut for its alleged involvement in cheating and fraud offenses. This comes as a result of numerous reports which blamed the firm’s directors for having made “false representations relating to the company’s exposure to a certain digital token.”

“If you have deposited digital tokens with Hodlnaut and believe that you may have been defrauded through, among others, false representations made by Hodlnaut, you may wish to lodge a police report at the nearest Neighbourhood Police Centre or online,” the police outlined.

The Singaporean-based cryptocurrency lender halted withdrawals, deposits, and token swaps in August, citing “difficult market conditions.” It dismissed approximately 80% of its workforce and reduced its interest rates nearly a week after suspending services.

Hodlnaut filed to be placed under judicial management with the Singapore High Court, hoping it could “rehabilitate” its business and prevent a forced liquidation of its assets:

“The judicial management application provides a moratorium (or temporary pause) against legal claims and proceedings against Hodlnaut. This pause will provide us with the breathing space to focus our efforts on the recovery plan to rehabilitate the company.”

The authorities approved the request and appointed Rajagopalan Seshadri, Paresh Jotangia, and Ho May Kee as the firm’s interim judicial managers.

The Exposure to Terra’s UST

As CryptoPotato recently reported, Hodlnaut was among the victims of the colossal Terra crash in May this year. The company lost $190 million due to its exposure to the algorithmic stablecoin UST. 

“It appears that the directors had downplayed the extent of the group’s exposure to Terra/Luna both during the period leading up to and following the Terra/Luna collapse in May 2022.”

The crypto lender appears to have been hiding the facts from its users. Bloomberg’s data revealed that some of the company’s employees deleted over 1,000 “key” documents that could have shown the exposure.

Terra’s native token – LUNA – and its stablecoin – UST – plunged to virtually zero causing huge panic among investors and distress in the entire market. Multiple sources disclosed that some people had even committed suicide due to their multi-million losses. 

10,000 BTC tied to Mt Gox Hack Moved After 7 Years

 It is worth noting that funds have not moved from the now-defunct Mt.Gox exchange’s cold wallets since 2018.

A crypto wallet attributed to the failed BTC-e linked to the 2014 Mt. Gox hack moved 10,000 Bitcoin, now worth over $165 million, to a group of personal wallets, exchanges, and other services on November 23rd.

A report by Chainalysis suggested that the funds’ movement marks the largest withdrawal by the Russia-focused cryptocurrency exchange – BTC-e’s controllers. The US authorities ceased its operations in 2017 due to its role in laundering funds associated with other forms of cybercrime, including crypto stolen in the 2014 Mt. Gox exchange hack.

BTC-e and another exchange called WEX, believed to be the successor entity, sent small amounts of Bitcoin to a Russian electronic payments platform – Webmoney – on October 26th. Over two weeks later, BTC-e conducted a test payment out of its wallet before moving nearly 100 Bitcoin indirectly to an exchange on November 21.

According to the blockchain analysis company, around 9.950 BTC are currently being held in personal wallets of the total sent in the last several days. The rest of the funds were found to have been moved through a series of intermediaries to four deposit addresses at two large exchanges.

Chainalysis believes a Russian exchange may have acted as an intermediary to launder this BTC-e money.

Blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant co-founder and CEO Ki Young Ju also confirmed the illicit transfer of funds. He also added that 65 BTC was moved to HitBTC and advised the crypto exchange to suspend the account.

For the uninitiated, BTC-e was shut down, and its funds were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2017. Despite this, it still held a significant amount of Bitcoin. A year later, it transferred more than 30,000 BTC out of its service wallet.

Alexander Vinnik is alleged to be the owner and operator of the BTC-e. The Russian national is also accused of large-scale money laundering through the now-defunct trading platform and other crimes.

Core Scientific warns of 'substantial doubt' to continue operations, posts $435 million loss

 Bitcoin miner Core Scientific will need extra liquidity to keep operations going past November 2023 — and it's facing a steep uphill battle to do so. The miner also posted revenue of $162.6 million in the third quarter, down 0.9% from the previous period. 

The company had already warned that it might run out of cash by the end of the year and that it would not make payments in late October. Core's woes reflect the struggles of the industry, which has faced rising power costs combined with decreased bitcoin prices and higher mining difficulty. Compute North has already filed for bankruptcy, while Argo said it was facing negative cash flow.

FTX Group has cash balance of $1.24 billion, new bankruptcy filing shows

FTX Group, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11, has a combined cash balance of $1.24 billion, according to a new court filing. The latest figures are "substantially higher cash balances than the Debtors were in a position to substantiate as of Wednesday, Nov. 16," it reads.

The cash balances are divided among four silos — the Alameda silo, dotcom silo, ventures silo and West Realm Shires (WRS) silo — and include amounts of both their debtor and no-debtor entities. About $751 million is held in debtor entities and the rest, $488 million, is in non-debtor entities, per the filing. FTX Group collapsed amid a sudden liquidity crisis.