Reading time – 3 minutes.
According to the agency Bloomberg, since 2018, several companies have been operating in the center of Moscow that provide services for converting cryptocurrency into cash.
In principle, there is nothing illegal in this situation, if you do not take into account the fact that these firms may be associated with cybercriminals who withdraw cryptocurrency just through such enterprises.
In the digest, we will also look at the situation in the mining industry. Ether mining pools in 2021 showed more impressive performance compared to bitcoin miners. In addition, we will evaluate the plans of the Binance exchange to develop its own ecosystem in the European direction.
Moscow cashing center
In 2018, in the business center of Moscow on the 97th floor of the Vostok tower of the Federation skyscraper complex, several companies began to operate through which clients carry out transactions with digital currencies.
First of all, the business of such firms is focused on converting cryptocurrencies into fiat money, Bloomberg reports. There would be nothing criminal in the work of such enterprises if it were not for the fear that hackers are using their services. Through such companies, they cash out the stolen or received in the form of ransom cryptocurrency.
According to the agency, at least four companies in the business center of the Russian capital may be associated with criminal groups that launder money through cryptocurrencies obtained using ransomware viruses. Recently it became known that the US Treasury has imposed sanctions against the Russian crypto platform Suex. She could also work in the Vostok tower, although service representatives reject all charges and declare their readiness to defend their reputation in court. Among the suspicious companies, Bloomberg points to EggChange, CashBank, and Buy-bitcoin.pro.
Ethereum miners are breaking records
In 2021, bitcoin miners earned about $ 13.6 billion, according to a review by the analytical company Arcane Research. However, the income of the Ethereum mining pools significantly exceeded this figure.
Since January, Ethereum miners have been able to make more than $ 17 billion in profit. The main reason for such a difference in the amount of income lies in the fact that the network activity on Ethereum was higher than the number of transactions in the Bitcoin network. Accordingly, the pools earned good money on processing operations, especially since commissions reached $ 70 in May. Now they are also growing.
According to BitinfoCharts, fees on Ethereum on November 4 rose to $ 53,127, while on the BTC network, the cost of one transaction does not exceed $ 3.46. Bitcoin miners earn an average of $ 45 million daily. The income of Ethereum pools is $ 56 million per day. Analysts note that if fees on the ETH network remain high, then Ethereum will leave BTC far behind in 2021.
The activity on the ETH blockchain is boosted by the rapidly expanding markets for non-fungible NFT tokens and DeFi decentralized funding. Both ecosystems have shown stunning performance, accumulating record amounts of capital. For example, only in DeFi protocols deployed on Ethereum, the value of blocked funds exceeds $ 87.43 billion. In the daytime it reached $ 106 billion, but in the evening capitalization suddenly collapsed due to aggravated volatility. The average number of transactions processed by the ETH network is now 1.417 million.
Large-scale European project from Binance
Binance will fund an ambitious project to create a cryptocurrency ecosystem in Europe. The general director of the company Changpeng Zhao promises to allocate $ 115 million (€ 100 million) for the implementation of the planned. These funds will be used to support blockchain startups.
The ecosystem project will be launched with the participation of the French fintech association. The French Ministry of Finance has supported the desire of the leadership of Binance to promote the popularization of the cryptosphere and stimulate the activity of businesses representing this sector of the economy.
Binance Research and Development Center will appear in France. This organization will seek out talent and help promising developers. Changpeng Zhao stressed that this particular country should become the place of work for the research center, since its legislation allows it to work comfortably.
Note that at the moment, the Binance exchange confidently holds the first place in terms of trading volumes for digital assets. The average daily amount of transactions on this platform exceeds $ 37.668 billion. The second and third places are occupied by the Coinbase and KuCoin exchanges. Their users conclude deals per day for total amounts of up to $ 8.479 billion and $ 3.964 billion, respectively.
Sources: CoinTelegraph, CoinMarketCap, Twitter, Arcane Research, NewsBTC, Bloomberg, DeFiPulse, BitinfoCharts
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
