The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday rejected Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon’s dispute of a subpoena by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The federal agency was seeking documents and testimony in connection with its investigation of whether Terra used the Mirror Protocol to sell unregistered securities. Kwon was served with the subpoena in September 2021 while he was attending a conference in New York City. Kwon claimed in an October filing that the SEC had violated its own rules, the Administrative Procedure Act and other regulations by serving the subpoena in person. He …

Terra (LUNA2) reversed a portion of the losses this June 9 as its price per token rose by as much as 67.5% on the day, catching many traders off-guard with their perpetual swap positions. LUNA2 traders are shorting it In detail, LUNA2's price soared from $2 to as high as $3.58. The volatile intraday move coincided with the liquidation of nearly $4 million worth of LUNA2 trades on Binance and Bybit, including $2.46 million worth of short positions, data from Coinglass shows. Interestingly, LUNA2's funding rates across Binance and Bybit remained negative, suggesting that traders are still short despite the …

Terraform Labs, the parent company behind the collapsed Terra ecosystem, is currently under multiple investigations from the South Korean authorities. The latest investigation revolves around the alleged embezzlement of Bitcoin (BTC) from the company’s treasury. According to a report published in a local daily, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency received an intelligence tip last month informing them of possible embezzlement of BTC by one of the employees of the firm. The police stated that the investigation into the alleged embezzlement of BTC from the company’s treasury had no direct connection with tainted co-founder Do Kwon, and they are investigating individual …

Anchor Protocol was originally designed to offer an interest rate of 3.6%, but this was dialed up to 20% just a week before release to attract more investors, a core developer alleged in an interview with Korean media outlet JTBC. “I did not know that this would go out with such a high-interest rate. Set to 20% just a week before the release,” said the employee, referred to only as Mr. B in the Korean report: “I thought it was going to collapse from the beginning (I designed it), but it collapsed 100%.” Mr. B said that the platform was …

UST's dramatic collapse sent shockwaves through the crypto markets — and led to probing questions on whether algorithmic stablecoins can, and should, have a place in the world of DeFi. But now, one project says it is tackling the major issues that have led to these digital assets to fail in "violent, public events" — causing selloffs to the tune of billions of dollars and decimating the life savings of countless investors. The Balance Ecosystem brings together a suite of products that aim to ensure algorithmic stablecoins can be used in a safer way. The supply of USDB is said …

On Friday, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) began an investigation into payment gateway services that work with digital assets. The FSS is South Korea’s financial regulator that operates under the Financial Services Commission (FSC), both of which are government institutions. As reported by local news outlet Money Today Co., the FSS had recently demanded reports from 157 payment gateways about any service related to crypto, its plans for the future and disclosure of digital assets. But, an FSS report stated that only six held any digital assets. Related: How Terra’s collapse will impact future stablecoin regulations Although the FSS …

The past week in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem saw many new developments, including the rebirth of the Terra 2.0 blockchain. Meanwhile, Binance’s incubation platform Binance Labs launched a $500 million fund to support and promote Web3 adoption. Singapore’s central bank partnered with JP Morgan to explore DeFi applications in wholesale funding markets by establishing tokenized bonds. KuCoin launched its very decentralized wallet with DeFi and nonfungible token support. The top-100 DeFi tokens showed signs of a breakout from a month-long bearish trend, with most of the tokens showing overall gains in the past seven days. Maker founder proposes MetaDAOs …

May 2022 was not for the faint-hearted. Even the most embattled and experienced crypto traders were tested in the first two weeks of the month on a brutal drop following the United States Federal Reserve’s announcement that interest rates would be rising by 0.5%. Crypto used to exhibit a lower correlation with real-world events and was generally unaffected by capitalistic successes and failures. However, a very steady approximate peg between Bitcoin (BTC) and the S&P 500 index was seen throughout the first five months of 2022. Inflation and war fears have not been kind to both markets either. Crypto mimicking …

Terra remained the focus of the majority of headlines throughout May for its spiral collapse leading to a loss of over $40 billion in investors’ money. Despite some early resistance from the community and heavy backlash from the likes of Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, Terra co-founder Do Kwon managed to relaunch the collapsed network with a new chain called Terra 2.0 (Phoenix-1). The amended proposal for the relaunch of the network by increasing the genesis liquidity, which introduces a new liquidity profile for pre-attack Luna Classic (LUNC) holders and decreases the distribution to post-attack TerraUSD Classic (USTC) holders, was …

Japan is moving forward with legislation regarding the issuance of stablecoins, i.e., digital assets with their value pegged to fiat currencies or stabilized by an algorithm. On Friday, Japan’s parliament passed a bill to ban stablecoin issuance by non-banking institutions, local news agency Nikkei reported. The bill reportedly stipulates that the issuance of stablecoins is limited to licensed banks, registered money transfer agents and trust companies in Japan. The new legislation also introduces a registration system for financial institutions to issue such digital assets and provides measures against money laundering. According to the report, the bill aims to protect investors …

The recent collapse of the once third-largest stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST), has raised questions about other fiat-pegged tokens and their ability to maintain their pegs. Stablecoins' stability in question Stablecoin firms claim that each of their issued tokens is backed by real-world and/or crypto assets, so they behave as a vital component in the crypto market, providing traders with an alternative in which to park their cash between placing bets on volatile coins. They include stablecoins that are supposedly 100% backed by cash or cash equivalents (bank deposits, Treasury bills, commercial paper, etc.), such as Tether (USDT) and Circle USD (USDC). …

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, expressed skepticism around the revival plan for the Terra ecosystem and the launch of the new LUNA token. “I try not to predict what the community will do. [...] Many are skeptical. I’m one of those guys,” said CZ in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. Following the collapse of TerraUSD (USD), the Terra ecosystem’s stablecoin, CZ criticized its team for not handling the crisis properly and pointed at the project’s flaws that led to the crash. Still, Binance is now actively participating in Terra’s revival plan by hosting the airdrop of its …