Weekly Crypto Update: Nigerian Startup Shutdown, Binance’s 23rd BNB Burn, Arizona Blockchain Tax Bill Vetoed, Bitrue Hack
The cryptocurrency market is rapidly evolving with constant changes and updates. In this weekly update, we will cover some of the most important events that happened in the cryptocurrency world this week.
Closure of Nigerian crypto payments startup, Lazerpay
Laserpay, a Nigerian-led DeFi company, announced on April 13, 2023 that it was shutting down operations due to an inability to raise funds. The company’s decision to shut down was necessary, according to the statement released by its founder and CEO, Emmanuel Njoku. The start-up had in November 2022 announced layoffs, after the main investor withdrew. The company has recommended that sellers use bank or crypto payout options and withdraw their funds from the platform before April 30, 2023.
Binance’s 23rd BNB Burn
Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, recently completed its 23rd BNB burn, including the autoburn and Pioneer burn programs. The total BNB burn was approximately 2,020,132.25 BNB, with an approximate USD value of USD 676,744,304. The Pioneer Burn program also permanently removes an amount of BNB from circulation equal to demonstrably lost funds from eligible BNB chain users.
Arizona Blockchain Tax Bill Vetoed
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed legislation that would have largely stopped local governments from imposing taxes on individuals and businesses that operate blockchain nodes. The legislation aimed to reduce or eliminate regulation and taxation of node operators at the state level. However, the governor’s decision to veto the bill means that cities and towns can impose taxes or fees on individuals or entities that operate a node on blockchain technology.
Bitrue suffers from hacks
Bitrue, a cryptocurrency exchange, was the victim of a hot wallet exploit that allowed attackers to withdraw nearly $23 million worth of various cryptocurrency assets. The firm had to temporarily suspend all withdrawals due to a short exploitation of the hot wallet. Bitrue expects to reopen withdrawals on April 18, 2023, after conducting additional security checks.
Amazon’s Bedrock AI servers
In other news, Amazon announced the launch of its Bedrock AI servers to take on Google and Open AI. Bedrock will allow users of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build out generative AI from foundational models (FMS). FMS like GPT-4 is an example of such a model with Chat DPT as a generative AI application built on top of it. Bedrock is a serverless experience where users can personalize FMS with their data.
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