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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan instructs the ruling party to explore metaverse and crypto

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and governing Ak Party executives had a meeting earlier this week to discuss the metaverse, with the president calling for comprehensive analysis on the matter.

Erdoğan has allegedly encouraged the Ak Party to research the metaverse, cryptocurrencies, and the manner in which transactions are done employing them.

At a meeting on January 25, party leaders were asked to evaluate the phenomena with significant ramifications for the longer future. The financial characteristics of the metaverse, cryptocurrency, and social media are anticipated to be addressed in a forum that can then be hosted by the ruling party.

“It is a sensitive subject. A good and meticulous study should be done.”

President Erdoğan allegedly said at the meeting

What beholds for the Turkish investors?

Turkey’s central bank, last April, even prohibited crypto for common goods & services, citing high risks in transactions and their possibility to create “irreparable” damage. “Their usage in payments may entail non-recoverable losses for the parties to the transactions and include aspects that may erode the faith in techniques and instruments used today in payments,” the central bank clarified.

Mustafa Elitaş, the deputy parliamentary leader of the ruling party (AKP), has disputed rumors that a 40-per cent tax will be imposed on bitcoin earnings. A bill proposal to governing local cryptocurrency trading platforms is scheduled to be introduced to the Turkish Parliament in the following weeks.

A recent tweet by Mustafa on January 13, 2022, went live. “After the first meeting we held with Crypto Money representatives in the Parliament, we continued to meet with the leading representatives of the industry and evaluate their expectations and demands.”

As per the news report by Hurriyet daily news, the Turkey government is working at a fast pace adopting crypto. The main objective of Turkey’s cryptocurrency legislation would be the openness, safety, and suitability of exchange platforms to facilitate secure transactions.

The second fundamental purpose of the policy will be to provide a favorable financial environment for the healthy expansion of blockchain-based firms. Turkey’s crypto market is among the top five globally, with approximately 5 million accounts. Following the instructions of the Turkish president, bitcoin is trading at $36,638, slowly rising from the dip.

Member of the Belgium parliament Christophe De Beukelaer to accept his 2022 paychecks in Bitcoin

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Christophe De Beukelaer, a member of the Brussels parliament, declared he would take his entire year’s salary in bitcoin to increase awareness about the digital currency in Europe and generate discussion about its usage across many sections of society.

His recent tweet confirmed this news. He thanks Mayor Eric Adams, who inspired him to take this step. Mayor Adams recently started the initiative by accepting his paycheck in bitcoin. Christophe showed his support to cryptocurrencies and bitcoin by tweeting:

“US and Asian giants are investing heavily in crypto. And the EU? Are we still going to wake up in 10 years and find that we missed the train? Centralized trade finance is not going away. These two worlds must cooperate. I want Brussels to become the leading city in Europe for #blockchain, #Crypto and #Web3. In 2022, I will be working on this. Full tilt.”

Christophe De Beukelaer

Christophe De Beukelaer added to the list

It’s always good news crypto when the top countries, their government, and leading politicians of the country speak about them. It further adds to the advantage when they take the initiative to accept their salary in Bitcoin. The trend was started by Miami’s mayor Francis Suarez. The NYC mayor Eric Adams followed him. They were joined by Christophe, who has shown his keen interest in crypto.

“I am the first in Europe, but not in the world, to want to shine the spotlight on cryptocurrencies with such an approach,” De Beukelaer stated in a blog post. “I think it’s not too late for Brussels and Belgium to be at the forefront of the cryptocurrency industry. We already have some great companies in the field, but it’s time to position ourselves clearly and create a real ecosystem.”

This is an emerging trend that many countries and their politicians will soon catch. Countries started realizing the potential of crypto, accepting them, and providing a legal framework. Wider acceptance and legalities for crypto regulation is a great initiative that will boom the crypto market. Self-education and awareness around crypto have made countries understand its usability and importance. It’s still early for people who want to jump into the crypto world.

Hacker exploits Qubit Finance and steals $80 million

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The latest victim to the hacking spree is Qubit Finance. Qubit is a decentralized money market platform. In a recent tweet, the announcement was made public confirming the hack:

image 6

Qubit added in the tweet that the hacker, borrowed on BSC, minted unlimited xETH. The team is currently working with security and network partners on the next steps. At the time of writing, the exploiter address currently holds 206,809.5 BNB valued at $80,264,866.

Qubit went out and tweeted about the latest updates regarding the hack. “The team continues to track the exploiter and monitor affected assets.” They also mentioned that the team had contacted the exploiter to offer the maximum bounty.

Largest De-Fi hacks

According to Halborn, De-Fi hacks accounted for the most major hacking in 2021. The ten significant hacks include Pancakebunny ($45 million), uranium finance ($50 million), belt finance ($50 million), bzx ($55 million), easyfi ($59 million), badger ($120 million), paid network ($127 million), cream finance ($130 million), compound finance ($147 million) and poly network ($610 million). Qubit’s recent hack of $80 million was added to the list.

A full stop for the hacks?

The hackers have come a long way from hacking crypto exchanges to trezor wallets. Even though the security measures increase to secure the funds, the hackers find a loophole to get through it. Then a question arises about how to safeguard your funds.

The risk to your digital assets is mostly through cryptocurrency wallets (digital wallets) or exchange companies. A crypto wallet does not store your digital money but instead contains a private key, which allows you to exchange crypto online. This private key is your digital identification to the cryptocurrency market, and anyone who gets hold of this can make fraudulent transactions or steal your cryptocurrencies.

Cybercriminals utilize advanced tactics to hack digital wallets and steal/transfer crypto assets without the user’s awareness. Securing your wallet is vital when it comes to securing your digital money against hacks. Avoid falling for scams, phishing, and constantly changing your password to secure your funds. If you use a cold wallet, write down your key and safeguard it.

NFT purchase accessible through cards on MoonPay

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The fin-tech company, MoonPay, has stepped up its Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFT) game yet again. The crypto unicorn is now allowing the purchase of digital art and collectibles in exchange for real money, according to the announcement made on their official web page.

The users of the on-and-off-ramp payment solutions will be able to utilize a new checkout tool. This checkout tool is supposedly built for brands, creators, and marketplaces that want to give their users access to NFTs. This is the first solution that enables the purchase of digital art and collectibles using debit and credit cards like Visa and Mastercard, in addition to payments made through Apple pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Faster Payments, SEPA, open banking payments, Wire Transfers, and ACH transfers.

So far, anyone that wanted to buy an NFT had to first buy crypto. This meant that there had to be two transactions carried out and that the fees were twice as much. Now, this exemplary move has eased out the tedious process of extensive and lengthy verifications.

The checkout tool also backs the purchase of digital art and collectibles on any blockchain such as Solana, Polygon, Flow, Tezos, and Ethereum. The association of NFTs and their correlative blockchain is how the buyers and sellers bookmark the ownership. The Non-Fungible-Tokens will straight-up be sent to a buyer’s crypto wallet right after the purchase through a card on MoonPay.

Coinbase-Mastercard partnership,a head-start to revolutionize NFT purchase

The launch of the checkout tool comes shortly after the announcement of the partnership between Coinbase and Mastercard, on 18 January 2022, to make NFT payments through cards. The company emphasized its mission which is to increase economic freedom in the world. NFTs have a significant role to play in encouraging more people to join the creator economy.

The new tool is primitively used to simplify the experience of the user in buying digital art. This could also lead to an increase in the group of consumers to purchase these digital goods. Could this be the beginning of a new revolution in the NFT community?

How an engineer hacked a Trezor wallet and recovered $2M in crypto

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Joe Grand, an electrical engineer, recently tweeted about how he hacked a Trezor wallet and recovered $2M. After forgetting his wallet passcode and seed phrase, he helped the owner retrieve cryptocurrency worth over $2 million.

Grand is an electrical engineer who has been hacking devices since he was ten years old. He was a member of the infamous L0pht hacking group, which testified before the US Senate in 1998 about a vulnerability that could be exploited to take down the internet or allow an intelligence agency to spy on traffic. His hacker name was “Kingpin.” He teaches hardware hacking to organizations and businesses that create complicated systems and want to know how hackers may attack them.

How did he crack the Trezor wallet?

Joe Grand said in his video, “a lot of people forget their passwords, and if you forget your password, then you can’t access the information on the chip, and you’re out of luck, and you’re out of money that’s the problem we’re dealing with today.”

He added that some guys contacted him out of the blue, saying that they have a trezor hardware wallet. They have a couple of million dollars stored on a device like this, and they want him to see if he can hack the wallet, defeat the security, and get access to the information to prove that the money is theirs.

“If he screwed something up, there was a good shot that it would never be able to be recovered,”

Reich, owner of the wallet

Grand, who runs a tailored lab in his family’s backyard in Portland, bought many similar wallets and placed the same version of firmware on them as Reich and his friend. Then he spent three months conducting research and experimenting with various approaches on his practice wallets.

Grand was fortunate in that he had past studies to help him. In 2017, Saleem Rashid, a 15-year-old hardware hacker from the United Kingdom, devised a technique to successfully unlock a Trezor wallet belonging to tech writer Mark Frauenfelder, freeing $30,000 in Bitcoin. Grand had put out a detailed video on the process on Youtube.

Are these wallets safe?

Ever since the video went viral, trezor wallet owners have been on the verge of doubt of how secure their funds are on the wallet. As a reply to Joe Grand’s tweet, Trezor replied:

image 5

No matter what secured updates come, hackers will always find a loophole to crack it. Wallet owners don’t need to panic. There is no bad news here; keep your wallet safe and do not forget your password. It’s as simple as that.

Russia has its competitive advantages through Bitcoin mining: Says Putin

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In a recent meeting with the government members through a video conference, Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, claimed that the country has its competitive advantages primarily through bitcoin mining.

“As for cryptocurrencies, the Central Bank has its own position, it is connected with the fact that, according to the experts of the Central Bank, the expansion of this type of activity carries certain risks, and first of all for the citizens of the country, given the high volatility and some other components of this topic,” said Putin in the meeting.

“Although, of course, we also have certain competitive advantages here, especially in the so-called mining”

Vladimir Putin

Russia’s blanket ban on mining

On Thursday, Russia’s central bank presented prohibiting the use and mining of cryptocurrencies on the Russian domain, citing concerns to financial stability, individuals’ well-being, and the country’s monetary policy autonomy. The central bank claimed that hypothetical demand propelled cryptocurrencies’ fast rise and resembled a financial pyramid, signaling the risk of market bubbles endangering financial stability.

The bank advocated prohibiting financial institutions from engaging in any cryptocurrency transactions and suggested that measures be devised to stop transactions involving purchasing or selling cryptocurrencies for fiat currencies.

Does that mean good news for crypto in Russia?

Putin said in his recent meeting that he would ask both the Russian government and the Central Bank to reach a consensus during the discussion. Following this, he would request that the debate be held soon and then report on the outcomes of the debate. Various other topics regarding the country and its safety were also discussed during the meeting.

Scepticisms of how and what to do with cryptocurrency and its related activities have always risen from many countries. Countries including India have long wanted to ban crypto, but the recent rising adoptions have urged them to think about regulations and a proposed framework. Countries including El Salvador regulating bitcoin as a legal tender has pushed other governments to voice their opinions.

But it’s evident from the recent developments that even multinational companies started adding crypto as a viable payment option, and they even started opening up new job positions in the crypto sector.

Latin America: New collaboration eases millions of investors for crypto to fiat transactions

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Latin America jumps ahead with its new collaboration, which will provide seamless crypto to fiat transactions. Wyre has announced an alliance with the Stellar network, which will allow local Brazilian and Argentinian currencies to be efficiently onboarded into digital assets. Due to the integration, Wyre is expanding its operation throughout Latin America, allowing developers and companies interested in using cryptocurrency to simply expand into new countries and consider new forms of payment.

The conversion of many worldwide currencies into cryptocurrency has always been a pain in the ass. Still, Latin America has a robust cryptocurrency infrastructure, making it desirable for businesses and innovators to flourish. Furthermore, the combination of Wyre and Stellar will allow for finance in one of the most rapidly growing cryptocurrency sectors to be liberalized and increased access to digital money through a more secure infrastructure.

A little glimpse about WYRE

Wyre is the crypto ecosystem’s top fiat-to-crypto and payment infrastructure, provider. The firm focuses on developers, providing simple-to-integrate APIs that allow thousands of developers to bring crypto to the people. Since its creation, the firm has “on-ramped” over 15 million end-users to its partners and handled over $10 billion in payments. Wyre’s main product, “Checkout,” is the world’s quickest fiat-to-crypto gateway and has assisted hundreds of crypto apps in reaching their target audiences.

“Building the cryptocurrency infrastructure to be more accessible is critical, especially as cryptocurrency becomes a more popular form of payment.”

 Erich Grant, director of business development at Wyre

This integration will use Stellar’s robust SEP-24 protocol to enable easy and secure value transfers across the network at a fraction of the cost of traditional payment rails. It will allow users to access Stellar’s network and anchors via Wyre’s API and Widget to convert Brazilian Reals and Argentine Pesos into various digital assets.

Latin America and crypto adoption

Latin America was always far ahead of others with regard to adopting and accepting cryptocurrencies. The region always tried to provide a flexible ecosystem for crypto to flourish. It is also home to El Salvador, which was one of the early adopters of Bitcoin as a legal tender.

This is just the beginning of the earliest stages of crypto adoption. With each country and government following the bandwagon, it’s difficult to overlook how far the crypto ecosystem has risen.

Mark Zuckerberg-backed stablecoin project to fade out soon?

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Mark Zuckerberg-backed stablecoin project Diem seemed to be headed for a dead-end as reports emerged that the Diem Association is supposedly ‘weighing a sale of its assets as a way to return capital to its investor members.’

However it remains unknown with regards to the kind of asset the Diem Association owns, but Bloomberg reported that the group is in talks with investment bankers about selling its intellectual property and finding “a new home for the engineers that developed the technology.”

Having said that, a sale would likely be the final blow to the crypto project that Mark Zuckerberg had once trumpeted. As a matter of fact, on many occasions plans to get the stablecoin off the ground continued to meet tough opposition from reasons such as regulatory pushback and lawmaker concerns.

Things didn’t improve even after rebranding Diem as Libra as several high-profile partners backed out of the project in 2019.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Diem project was scaled down owing to regulatory pressure?

As per media reports, negotiations were not successful between Diem and Fed when the latter did not approve the proposal. Last summer, Facebook started a pilot testing of Novi, the cryptocurrency wallet previously known as Calibra. But the fact that Novi was forced to launch without support for Diem and instead it used a different stablecoin called the Pax Dollar was enough to indicate that Diem’s future remained uncertain.

Things looked hopeful when Facebook exec David Marcus, who was hired by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2014 from PayPal to oversee its Messenger app as well as the social network’s crypto plans, said at the time that Facebook remained committed to Diem.

“I do want to be clear that our support for Diem hasn’t changed and we intend to launch Novi with Diem once it receives regulatory approval and goes live,” he wrote. But a month later Marcus announced that he was leaving Facebook. Still, there is no official confirmation from the Diem Association regarding the future of the project.

A representative for the Diem Association Michael Crittenden cited the original Bloomberg’s report on the matter and did say it contained unspecified “factual errors,” but declined to elaborate or comment further into the specifics.

Project Galaxy plans to build the world’s largest Credential Network, secures $10M funds

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Leading Web3 focused data network Project Galaxy scored a $10 million financing round that was co-led by Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital, with participation from an array of leading investors such as Coinbase Ventures, Binance Smart Chain, Solana Ventures, Alameda Research, Injective Protocol, and many other Web3 industry leaders.

The new funding as per the press release would be utilized to develop the credential data network, expand support for multiple data sources, and build out robust application modules to aid projects leverage digital credential data in an effective manner. Credential data today are segregated across closed databases are highly centralized and according to the post, has led to a fractured landscape that is not open to the users as it should be.

This is where Project Galaxy aims to fill the gap by solving this issue by ‘using an open and collaborative credential data network that helps Web3 developers leverage digital credential data to build better products and communities.’ On the other hand, it would reward data curators when credentials are used in Galaxy’s application modules and Credential Oracle Engine.

Speaking on the development Mable Jiang, Partner at Multicoin Capital, the firm who led the funding round said,

“Project Galaxy is quickly becoming one of the most important layers of the Web3 stack and credentialing data is an absolutely massive market. It can be used for building user experiences, marketing, and advertising campaigns, and validating work and education experience, among many other applications. The design space is vast and lucrative but requires a coordinating network to unlock its full potential.”

Use cases of Project Galaxy

Besides leading one of the largest databases of Web3 credentials in the world, Project Galaxy also claims to offer several application modules to support web3 projects to build better products and more engaging communities. For instance, projects can reward community members and increase engagement using Project Galaxy’s OAT [On-chain Achievement Tokens] module.

Additionally, the team is also creating more modules to help calculate on-chain credit scores, apart from building Sybil attack prevention algorithms, as well as the Project Galaxy Credential Oracle service, which can be customized for more specific use cases.

Most prominent companies in the world are hiring for crypto positions

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As the demand for crypto grows, so does the development of the industry, resulting in widespread adoption by countries, businesses, companies, and people. This created a gap in the industry for crypto positions and openings.

As a result, numerous well-known multinational corporations have recently advertised employment openings in the crypto industry. Meta, Reddit, Visa, Apple, Nike, JPMorgan, Walmart, Amazon, and Fidelity are among the firms with employment openings in the crypto industry.

For example, Meta is looking for someone who can integrate cryptocurrency and payments, and Walmart is darting for senior crypto specialists, among other things.

  • Amazon
  • Meta
  • Reddit
  • Visa

What does this mean for job seekers?

During last year’s epidemic, urban India’s jobless rate soared to around 20%. In 2022, the global unemployment rate is expected to reach 207 million people, says the ILO reports. Closed stores, offices, a shortage of labour, and other factors contributed to the high figures. On the other hand, the crypto market was left off the list of donors.

The crypto market, which has experienced market booms practically every three months, has remained one of the few industries that have stayed unaffected. Instead, it exploded, even on a worldwide scale. When an industry boom, a rise in demand follows suit, resulting in more sumptuous employment, i.e. jobs. In India, crypto careers have experienced a lot of success and growth.

Various openings are available for crypto positions globally. These include roles of community manager, client relations, crypto content writer, events manager, country manager, translators, exchange manager, crypto market analyst, blockchain developer, chief technology officer. Etc.

The rising adoption of crypto by different countries and the spiking interest by individuals created a boom for the cryptocurrency market. From being speculative around crypto claiming that it’s unsafe, people have educated themselves to understand the importance and potential of crypto.

Many startups are emerging, including crypto exchanges and crypto news and advertisement platforms. All these companies are hiring for various roles, which can be found through a simple Google search, Linkedin, or Naukri. Crypto provides a better opportunity for investors and seekers who are willing to do research and self educate themselves about this potential technology.