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“The team’s global head, Mathew McDermott, told Bloomberg the bank is “hugely supportive” of blockchain applications, and that the roughly 70-person group would hire “as appropriate” in 2023. The digital assets group’s hiring orientation is notable given that Goldman initiated a large round of layoffs last month, cutting roughly 3,200 employees.
Last week, Hong Kong used Goldman’s private tokenization platform, GS DAP, to sell an initial group of digital green bonds. The city-state sold $102 million of the bonds and cut settlement time from five days after the trade to just one.”
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“The RAK Digital Assets Oasis (RAK DAO) will be a ‘purpose-built, innovation-enabling free zone for non-regulated activities in the virtual assets sector.’ Applications will open in the second quarter of 2023, the statement said.
Free zones or free-trade zones are areas where entrepreneurs have 100% ownership of their businesses and have their own tax schemes and regulatory frameworks.
As the world’s first free zone solely dedicated to digital and virtual asset companies, we look forward to supporting the ambitions of entrepreneurs from around the world.
The new free zone adds to the more than 40 multidisciplinary free zones in the country that have attracted numerous crypto, blockchain and Web3 firms, including the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), DIFC and the ADGM.”
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“Leading game developer platform Unity is tapping into Web3, releasing a “decentralization” category in its online storefront.
As a part of the toolkit, Unity is adding support for 13 different blockchain-based software developer kits (SDKs), from chains and products including Algorand, Aptos, Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain, Immutable X, MetaMask, Solana and Tezos.
Unity aims to provide game developers resources to connect with Web3 gaming, a crypto sector that’s been on the rise. With the decentralization storefront in the Unity Asset Store, developers can build in blockchain technologies such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse to bolster gameplay experiences.
The gaming industry is rapidly growing, and the Web3 gaming sector is attracting significant investment.”
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“A recent top economic advisor for President Joe Biden, Daleep Singh, told U.S. senators on Tuesday that the administration was in active pursuit of a digital dollar as a means to crowd out private cryptocurrencies that enable ransomware and sanctions violations.
Singh, who Biden appointed as deputy director of the National Economic Council and deputy national security adviser at the National Security Council, was serving the president when the administration issued an executive order to encourage U.S. regulation of digital assets.
Since Biden’s order, the U.S. Treasury Department followed up with its own report last year that recommended that the federal government continue to work on a digital dollar while it assesses whether such a thing is in the “national interest.”
Wall Street bank lobbyists have decried the idea of a digital dollar as a threat to the stability of the financial system, though a report from the Office of Financial Research argued in July that a U.S. CBDC could give the government an early-warning system or signs of economic distress.”
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“Despite efforts by Solana developers to discourage spammy transactions that could threaten to bog down the network, a majority of the network’s compute is still being wasted on failed trades, according to an analysis by crypto infrastructure company Jito Labs.
In one recent epoch (a time period on Solana roughly equivalent to two and a half days), arbitrage transactions took up 60% of overall compute space. These transactions were attempts by bots to win slim margins on competitive trades – and 98% of their attempts failed.
The result is wasted blockspace for the network as well as capital burnt for no reason on losing trades. It blames this on the way Solana’s infrastructure handles submitted transactions: give priority to the first in line. That creates an incentive for arbitrage bots to submit multiple duplicate transactions.“
“Singh, who worked with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried at the defunct crypto exchange, was reported to have been looking for a plea deal with prosecutors last month. Singh pleaded guilty to charges including fraud and conspiracy.
Nishad is deeply sorry for his role in this and has accepted responsibility for his actions. He wants to do everything he can to make things right for victims, including by assisting the government to the best of his ability in this case.
Singh joins fellow ex-FTX executives Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang in pleading guilty to charges. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to fraud and other charges and will face trial this fall.”
See Also: SEC, CFTC Charge FTX’s Singh With Fraud Following Criminal Plea
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“Bitcoin developer James O’ Beirne has been quietly working on a feature that alerts users when someone tries to steal their bitcoin, then thwarts the theft by diverting funds to a more-secure wallet. The feature is called a vault – a type of Bitcoin smart contract or “covenant” that puts constraints on how a bitcoin can be spent.
Vault users must broadcast two separate transactions in two different blocks before spending their bitcoin (BTC). An alert is issued after the first transaction (which has a time delay), allowing users to either approve the transaction or sweep the coins to an alternative wallet.
This proposal introduces a mechanism that significantly mitigates the worst-case outcome of key compromise: coin loss.
The feature requires a soft fork – a backwards-compatible change to the blockchain. The chatter around op_vault has been steadily increasing, but it’s not clear when the proposal will be merged into Bitcoin Core – if at all.”
The Disrupt 