Robinhood launches self-custody wallet; Poop emoji Ordinal sold for $28k

On Mar 1, 2023

The biggest news in the cryptoverse for Mar. 1 saw Robinhood launch its self-custody wallet on Apple’s app store. Elsewhere, Justin Sun of Huobi and TRON fame called for unified regulation in the crypto industry. Plus, news on Binance’s AI art generator, a digital U.S. dollar and Coinbase’s BUSD volumes.

CryptoSlate Top Stories

Robinhood’s self-custody wallet launches on iOS

Crypto exchange platform Robinhood‘s wallet application launched on the iOS application store on Mar. 1, according to the announcement published on the Robinhood blog.

The announcement states that the users can earn a one-time reward of up to 5 USD Coin (USDC) if they transfer $10 to the wallet app using their Robinhood Crypto wallets. If users initiate the transfer from another wallet or exchange, they can claim a 1 USDC reward for doing so.

Robinhood’s wallet application currently supports Polygon (MATIC) and Ethereum (ETH) networks, with the expectation to increase the number of supported chains in the future. It also supports NFTs on MATIC and ETH chains.

Justin Sun calls for unified crypto regulation

Tron DAO (TRX) founder and Huobi Global adviser Justin Sun said regulations are beneficial for the crypto industry. and added that a globally unified rule would complement the spirit of blockchain in an exclusive interview he gave CNBC.

Sun explained that blockchain technology emerged to set a global standard for financial interactions, and therefore an international regulatory framework would be a good fit for the crypto industry.

Former Biden adviser urges development of digital dollar to ‘crowd out’ private crypto

Former Joe Biden administration adviser Daleep Singh told the senate banking committee on Feb. 28 that developing a central bank digital currency — i.e., a digital dollar — would help safeguard national interest and supersede private cryptocurrencies.

Singh formerly served as Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. He was one of the main people who developed the sanctions placed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

In response to queries from Elizabeth Warren, Singh said that crypto allowed bad actors to conduct certain financial crimes like ransomware and agreed that they would not be possible without cryptocurrencies.

Binance’s AI NFT generator gets overwhelmed by requests within an hour of launch

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, popularly known as ‘CZ,’ announced the launch of the beta version of an artificial intelligence (AI) generator of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Bicasso, on March 1.

Within an hour of the announcement, however, the AI tool received more requests than it could handle. The tool started prompting, “Too many requests in queue, please try again later.”

BUSD’s trading volume dropped to lowest point in February on Coinbase

Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin trading volume dropped to its lowest point since Coinbase listed it in April 2022.

According to data from Kaiko’s research analyst Dessislava Ianeva, the stablecoin’s trading volume in February was $9 million. Ianeva added that BUSD accounted for just 0.02% of Coinbase’s total volume.

Over the past month, BUSD has come under intense regulatory scrutiny. On Feb. 13, BUSD issuer Paxos was ordered to stop other mints of the stablecoin by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

Poop emoji Bitcoin Ordinal sells for $28k – wash trading or legit?

A Bitcoin Ordinal depicting a poop emoji was sold for 1.2 BTC — equivalent to roughly $28,000 as of press time — on March 1.

The ordinal is labeled Inscription #121 and was minted on block 773820.

It is unclear whether the transaction was a legitimate sale or a wash trading attempt to drive more interest in the ordinal and overall NFT ecosystem.

Quantum Temple enters NFT partnership with Indonesian Ministry of Tourism

When it comes to blockchain and cultural heritage, few have greater expertise on this matter than Linda Adami, an alma mater of the Dubai Future Foundation’s innovative accelerator program, Adamis is today working at the forefront of blockchain technology and sustainable tourism.

“Cultural heritage is incredibly underfunded,” she told CryptoSlate during a Mar. 1 interview. “But what if we can create immutable archives of culture using NFTs, and use them toward developing a new model for incentivizing current and future generations to stay involved in cultural heritage.”

Indian exchange Bitbns admits it was hacked for $7.5M last February

Crypto sleuth who goes by ZachXBT on Twitter, claimed that Indian crypto exchange Bitbns covered up a hack under the guise of “system maintenance” on Feb. 1, 2022. ZachXBT shared a screenshot of the maintenance tweet put up by BitBNS during which time the exchange was hacked, he claimed on March 1, 2023.

Bitbns CEO Gaurav Dahake admitted in an AMA session today that the exchange was indeed hacked 13 months ago. But Dahake claimed that the system was taken offline to analyze anomalies and was not a tact to hide the hack.

Yield Farming Sector up 8% according to CryptoSlate data

Yield farming platforms and protocols surged 8% over the last 24 hours, with a total sector market cap now north of $10 billion.

The yield farming token sector refers to a subset of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem that focuses on providing incentives to users for providing liquidity to various DeFi protocols.

Chainlink launches web3 serverless developer platform to connect web2 APIs to web3

Web3 oracle provider Chainlink has unveiled a new serverless developer platform, ‘Chainlink Functions,’ on its Web3 services platform to empower developers to build decentralized applications and connect smart contracts to any web2 API.