SEC Seeks to Question Co-Founder of Singapore’s Terraform Labs

First ever cross-border settlement achieved for gold using e-CNYThe first ever cross-border settlement for precious metals using China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan or e-CNY, has been successfully completed.Photo by Jingming Pan on UnsplashA year of e-CNY firstsIn October, Chinese state-owned media reported that the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX) had been the venue for the first ever significant settlement of an oil contract using the e-CNY. Running along a commodities theme, on Wednesday a similar transaction was carried out once again with Shanghai being the venue, relative to the purchase of gold.A transaction valued at 100 million yuan ($14 million) was facilitated by the Bank of China’s Shanghai branch through the Shanghai Financial Exchange International Board. That’s according to reports from local Chinese media outlets.The Bank of China’s Shanghai branch, a key participant in the ongoing e-CNY pilot testing, orchestrated the transfer of e-CNY CBDC settlement received from overseas for the purchase of the gold. A spokesperson for the Bank of China highlighted the strategic significance of the transaction, stating:“The account will contribute financial strength to support Shanghai’s in-depth implementation of the free trade pilot zone promotion strategy and promote the quality and upgrading of the international trade center.”Oil, gold and iron oreThis achievement follows on from the Bank of China’s Hong Kong affiliate Bank of China (Hong Kong) (BOCHK) facilitating the import of iron ore to China through the e-CNY just last week. As part of that pilot trial, Baosteel Group, a customer of the Bank of China, purchased iron ore from Bao-Trans Enterprises.Further expanding its international partnerships, China signed a $400 million memorandum on CBDC cooperation with the United Arab Emirates on Dec. 1. The move underscores China’s commitment to fostering collaboration in the development and implementation of CBDCs on a global scale.Partnering with foreign banksThe Bank of China is actively collaborating with foreign institutions, including France’s BNP Paribas, to advance the development of the digital yuan CBDC.In July, Singaporean bank DBS Bank launched an e-CNY product for mainland China-based customers. Amid relentless moves to further the use of the digital currency, British banking giant Standard Chartered joined the advanced stages of pilot trials of the CBDC in November.Chinese President Xi Jinping, recognizing the pivotal role of CBDCs in cross-border trade, emphasized their importance during an address to the July 2023 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit. Subsequently, foreign banks have joined China’s ongoing CBDC trials, and Singapore announced its decision to allow Chinese tourists to utilize e-CNY for transactions within Singapore.In a related development, the official e-CNY app received an update on Tuesday. The latest version allows users to create an e-CNY wallet using their phone number, provides options to disable the wallet in case of phone loss and enables the resetting of passwords and private keys. Users can also link their personal bank accounts and debit cards to the e-CNY wallet for seamless in-wallet purchases.

Gemini Opening Engineering Center in IndiaUS-based crypto exchange Gemini announced on Thursday that it is in the midst of opening an engineering center in India. The company plans to open the center in Gurgaon, making it Gemini’s second largest engineering hub behind its existing base in the United States. Gemini also has offices in the United Kingdom, Singapore and Ireland.©Pexels/Studio Art SmileDeveloping next-gen user experiencesThe objective of the India-based engineering, design and operations team will be to work on the development of core platform fundamentals relative to compliance, security, payments, and data pipelines and warehousing. Furthermore, the unit is being set the goal of building new feature sets relative to the company’s NFT and digital asset marketplaces. What that team develops is intended to be used within Gemini’s overall retail and institutional product and service offering across in excess of seventy countries worldwide.In the statement published to its website, Pravit Tiwana, Gemini’s Global Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) region Chief Executive Officer (CEO) stated that the firm is actively recruiting software engineers and technical product managers and for other technical roles to staff the Gurgaon facility. Tiwana emphasizes a need for people who are “inspired to learn quickly” relative to DeFi, Web3, NFTs and DAOs.Singapore expansionTiwana himself has been newly appointed to his role and in a separate announcement Gemini founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss welcomed Tiwana on-board. The statement also reveals that in addition to establishing an engineering team presence in India, it also intends to add a business team in India and to expand its business team at its existing Singapore base with the objective of growing its institutional and retail customer base in the APAC region.The Winklevii twins said that they believe that “crypto and Web3 products will continue to have a [sic] strong growth trajectories in APAC. Crypto knows no boundaries, and that is why Gemini is a global company.”Expanding beyond the USIt’s patently obvious to anyone following developments in the crypto space over the course of recent months that the Biden administration in the United States is currently hostile to crypto. The Washington, D.C. government has used various mechanisms of state including the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury to instigate a purge against crypto companies, including those who bank crypto companies. That has seen key operators in the US crypto ecosystem looking beyond US borders right now.Earlier this week, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong signaled that the company would act and move overseas if the regulatory environment in the United States didn’t improve. Subsequently, it emerged that Coinbase had established a presence in Bermuda. It’s being speculated that this entity could be used to float an offshore exchange. Similarly, the company is understood to be seeking a crypto license in Abu Dhabi.Gemini looking to develop overseas is likely to be motivated by similar concerns. Crypto companies can see that jurisdictional arbitrage applies and if governments act to stymie such business activity, other global centers such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, India and others will seize the opportunity and nurture that business and the innovation at hand.

Socket, a cross-chain infrastructure protocol, and its interoperability bridging platform, Bungee, have restarted operations following a temporary pause prompted by an exploit that led to the apparent theft of $3.3 million.Photo by Anna Tarazevich on PexelsSecurity incidentTaking to the company’s Discord, Socket team hospitality lead Taylor Melvin clarified that it had “experienced a security incident which affected wallets with infinite approvals to Socket contracts.” The incident, which occurred on Tuesday, involved an unknown attacker draining millions worth of stablecoins and other tokens from the Bungee bridging aggregator. The attackers targeted wallets with infinite approvals to Socket contracts, exploiting authorizations for blockchain-based tools that allow applications to access tokens in a user's wallet. Security researcher "@speekaway" was the first to flag the exploit on Tuesday. The attacker's wallet, connected to the exploit, held nearly $3 million in ether (ETH) and $300,000 worth of other tokens. By 2:47 p.m. ET, the attack seemed to have ceased, with the researcher recommending users to revoke approvals for Socket to safeguard their assets. Pausing contractsIn response to the security breach, Socket announced the pause of affected contracts on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. ET. The project's team promptly identified and addressed the issue, taking swift action to mitigate the exploit's impact. @speekaway chimed back in once contracts had been paused, writing:”Think this pause fixed it, very likely no more attacks are possible. So if you are currently freaking out about revoking you can probably relax.” Normal service returnsAs Socket paused activity during the incident, preventing further propagation of the attack, developers worked to fix the issue. Early Wednesday, Socket developers announced that the problem had been resolved, and normal activities had resumed. The team also stated that plans for compensation were in progress. Cross-chain bridges, like Socket's Bungee, facilitate token transfers between different blockchains but remain susceptible to exploitation. Blockchain security and data analytics company PeckShield confirmed that at least $3.3 million had been lost, highlighting the need for enhanced security measures in the rapidly evolving blockchain ecosystem. The exploit involved the exploitation of a recently added route, which has since been disabled. The attacker targeted users who had over-approved Socket, draining funds up to the limit of their approval. This incident follows the $81 million hack of Orbit Chain, a cross-chain bridge connecting Ethereum to other networks, earlier in January. Cross-chain tools' complexity contributes to the frequency of such attacks, emphasizing the importance of understanding the security measures in place when utilizing these bridges. In a message to CoinDesk, Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, emphasized the need for users to scrutinize the security of their chosen bridge, considering the various levels of cross-chain security. With the complexities involved, users are encouraged to be vigilant and informed about the security spectrum of the bridges they employ. Socket was founded by Indian duo Rishabh Khurana and Vaibhav Chellani. In September, the company raised $5 million, with funding coming from Framework Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.