Philippines follows through on Binance ban

Israel Doubles Down on Blocking Crypto Funding of HamasIn a move to disrupt the flow of funds to Hamas, Israeli authorities have ordered the closure of over 100 cryptocurrency accounts on Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.Photo by Leonid Altman on PexelsHeightened monitoring of crypto-related financingIsraeli authorities were already monitoring crypto accounts suspected of terrorism financing before the recent attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Since then, they have requested information about hundreds of accounts on Binance, suggesting that the scale of their actions has grown significantly since October 7.A statement from Israeli police last week outlined that they had frozen crypto accounts related to financing of Hamas. According to a report on Tuesday by the Financial Times (FT), the Israeli authorities have taken matters further still, having closed more than one hundred accounts on Binance.Scrutinizing 200 additional accountsSources cited by the FT as being close to the situation have revealed that these actions were initiated in response to Hamas’s assault on October 7. Authorities have also sought information on approximately 200 additional crypto accounts, with most of them being held on Binance. While Binance has acknowledged blocking a “small number” of accounts since the summer, it emphasized its adherence to internationally recognized sanctions rules and declined to provide further comment.Governments and regulators have long expressed concerns that terrorist organizations might exploit lightly regulated crypto markets for financial transactions. However, the recent attacks on Israel and the subsequent crypto-based fundraising campaigns by Hamas have made these concerns more pressing.Tom Alexandrovich, the Executive Director at the Israel National Cyber Directorate, stated that cryptocurrency has become a major tool for terror financing during these times of conflict. He noted that the amount of crypto funds involved has significantly increased since the start of the attack.Tether freezes accountsTether, the issuer of leading US dollar stablecoin USDT, announced on Monday that it had frozen 32 addresses containing more than $873,000 due to their alleged links to “terrorism and warfare” in Israel and Ukraine. The exact timing of when these accounts were blocked and the distribution of assets between Israel and Ukraine were not disclosed.Notably, US financial regulators previously alleged that money held on Binance had ties to Hamas. A lawsuit by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the United States in March claimed that senior Binance executives had knowledge of “Hamas transactions” in 2019. Binance has refuted these allegations and expressed its intent to contest the lawsuit.Commentators within the crypto space fear that opponents of the development of crypto, like US Senator Elizabeth Warren, will try to capitalize on this issue by using the opportunity to further draconian regulation.Over the past two years, Israeli authorities have seized millions of shekels from crypto accounts with suspected ties to Hamas and other militant groups in the Middle East. A recent analysis by Elliptic found that crypto wallets associated with various suspicious Middle East groups have interacted and relied on the same crypto exchange services to convert crypto into sovereign currencies.

In the Philippines, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has introduced an on-chain system utilizing the Ethereum layer-2 network Polygon to notarize and track documentation and the expenditure of public funds. The government contracted Manila-headquartered blockchain technology company BayaniChain Ventures in order to implement the system. The firm took to social media on July 31 to provide details on the DBM Blockchain Project.Photo by GuerrillaBuzz on UnsplashBuilding trust into infrastructureBayaniChain Ventures CEO Paul Soliman outlined that the new system “builds trust into the infrastructure itself.” The DBM Blockchain Project connects a DBM internal platform, the Action Document Releasing System (ADRS), which creates official budget documentation, with the Lumen Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) system created by BayaniChain.  Lumen functions as a core framework, enabling government systems to connect securely with blockchain infrastructure. Consequently, Lumen facilitates the tokenization of government documents, managing access to those documents and publishing data to a portal. A third system, Prismo Protocol, interacts with Lumen and ADRS, determining what documentation should be shared with the public and what documentation should remain accessible exclusively to DBM staff.The upshot of the interaction of these systems is that select budget documentation is published to the Polygon blockchain. Soliman stated that the system provides transparency, enabling members of the public to “see proof, not just promises” with regard to the activity of the government department. Integrating blockchain into public governanceThe Undersecretary at DBM, Maria Francesca Montes Del Rosario, took to Facebook on July 30 to confirm that the DBM blockchain initiative had gone live. She described it as the “first ever Transparency Government Blockchain for immutable and verifiable action documents.” She added: “We are using cutting edge technology like AI, blockchain, satellite imaging to enhance how we do public policy and governance.”Del Rosario was quoted by local media as stating that the technology combats the problem of AI deepfakes and fake documents. Another stakeholder in the development of the system was Exakt IT Services, a local company that specializes in assisting government organizations in the Philippines to bring about digital transformation. Exakt was awarded a contract by DBM to act as a technology partner, supporting the project with technical expertise and infrastructure in order to bring about the implementation of the blockchain solution. BayaniChain’s Soliman believes that the new system “sets a precedent for transparency and accountability in public finance.” However, the timing of the launch of the service proved to be unfortunate, as it coincided with an outage suffered by the Polygon network. The outage, which lasted for one hour, disrupted apps running on Polygon. On X, Polygon CEO and Founder Sandeep Nailwal asserted that the incident didn’t prevent the blockchain from operating or producing blocks and with that, user transactions on the network were still being processed.In better news for the blockchain network, Crypto Analyst Lennaert Snyder reported on July 31 that Polygon has reached a yearly high of $1.2 billion in total value locked (TVL), an 80% increase since March.

Jump Trades to Top of NFT MarketplaceJump.trade, which is considered to be the largest NFT marketplace in Asia, has now emerged as the leading NFT marketplace on the Polygon Network, as per a recent report published by DappRadar. This new ranking has placed Jump.trade ahead of other popular NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, Decentraland, and OKX NFT marketplace, among others.©Unsplash/Andrey MetelevJump №1 on PolygonThe firm acknowledged the achievement on social media last week, thanking its community for making the accomplishment a reality. Kameshwaran Elangovan, Co-Founder and COO of Jump.trade, expressed his delight with the recent ranking and called it “an astounding statement of our team’s hard work and the enthusiasm of our community who keep our marketplace always buzzing.”While clearly an “unlocked achievement” as the company itself put it, it’s important to note that NFT marketplace development on the Polygon network has been much more recent. The bulk of NFT marketplace trading volume still occurs on blockchains such as Ethereum with NFT marketplaces OpenSea and upstart Blur dominating and accounting for 90% of NFT trade.First P2E cricket gameIt is worth noting that Jump.trade had introduced the world’s first P2E cricket game NFT collection last year, which consisted of 55,000 NFTs from the Meta Cricket League. Interestingly, this collection had sold out within a mere nine minutes, underlining the immense popularity and demand for NFTs. Jump.trade has also formed partnerships with various renowned brands such as Pepsi and Cadbury to make NFTs more accessible and develop a metaverse ecosystem where both brands and individuals can collaborate.Global ambitionsThe company has set its sights on becoming a major global player in the gaming NFTs market and is expected to benefit from the projected growth in the NFT market. This market is estimated to be worth $231 billion by 2030, with the gaming and sports industries anticipated to be the key drivers of NFT-related products.Jump.trade is a collaboration between Indian firm Appstars Applications and Singapore’s Guardian Blockchain Labs. As an emerging tech superpower, India has a robust technical infrastructure that can enable the NFT industry to penetrate even the remote areas of the country. However, a well-structured regulatory framework will be critical for faster adoption of NFTs and digital collectibles, and ownership will play a crucial role in taking India closer to achieving its goal of an $800 billion digital economy by 2030.Flipkart Labs partnershipJump.trade is also the platform for the upcoming RADDX Racing Metaverse NFTs, and it provides opportunities for brands to leverage Web3/gaming for branding. On Wednesday, Jump.trade announced its partnership with Flipkart Labs, the blockchain and NFT offshoot of Indian e-tailer Flipkart. Both companies are collaborating on the RADDX Web3 advertising innovation.Jump.trade CEO and Co-Founder Ramkumar Subramaniam said that “brands like Flipkart getting into metaverse advertising and Web3 marketing will serve as an encouragement and a beacon for a lot of brands to follow suit.” As part of the deal, Flipkart Labs bought Digital Lands, a digital land parcel within the RADDX Racing Metaverse.