Avalanche Launches $180M Incentive Program for Top DeFi Protocols
Avalanche Foundation has recently announced the launching of “Avalanche Rush”, an $180M liquidity mining incentive program for top DeFi projects. Emin Gün Sirer, Director at the Avalanche Foundation commented how the incentive program “Avalanche Rush” will be instrumental in Avalanche’s further growth.
“Avalanche Rush will be a showcase for users to see the power of Avalanche, and dive into a vibrant community at the cutting edge of decentralized finance.”
Aave and Curve, two of the leading DeFi protocols, will be part of the first phase together with BENQi, a liquidity market protocol native to Avalanche. $20M AVAX will be given to Aave while Curve will receive $7M AVAX as allocations within a period of 3 months. Additional allocations will be given for Phase 2 of the incentive program in the coming months. The foundation has previously allocated $3M for BENQi on August 19.
Sirer further commented how the entry of Aave and Curve will positively affect the Avalanche ecosystem.
“The combination of Aave, Curve, and Avalanche will create really interesting synergies that DeFi users will be excited about.”
Michael Egorov, Chief Executive Officer at Curve Finance stated Avalanche is set to unseat the Ethereum blockchain and highlighted the strong points of the blockchain network.
“As DeFi becomes more and more popular, it becomes clear that Ethereum blockchain is currently struggling to fit all the activity. Thus, it is important to expand to other chains and L2s. We find Avalanche offering an excellent opportunity with its unique decentralized consensus mechanism, high throughput and low transaction fees.”
Some funds from the Avalanche Rush will be allocated for current and future native Avalanche applications with more information on the native ecosystem incentive process to be revealed soon.
Avalanche is one of the fast-emerging blockchain networks in the crypto space today. Avalanche hopes to bring more top DeFi projects into its ecosystem with the recent launching of the Avalanche Rush.
The price of AVAX (Avalanche), the native token of Avalanche blockchain, jumped to $35.51 and has recorded a 16.36% increase in a 24-hr chart in recent data by Crypto.co.
KYC Now a Must for All Binance Users
Binance, the largest crypto exchange, has subjected all its users to a mandatory KYC effective immediately. The announcement was posted on the trading platform’s website.
“Effective immediately, all new users are required to complete Intermediate Verification to access Binance products and service offerings, including cryptocurrency deposits, trades and withdrawals.”
Existing users on the other hand with incomplete verification will be temporarily restricted to “Withdraw Only” and will be limited to withdrawal, order cancellation, position close, and redemption.
But according to Binance, the recent policy will be implemented in phases to avoid “to minimise user-experience disruption”.
As further stated in the announcement, once existing users completed the verification, they will be given full access to all Binance products and services. Binance has strongly advised its users to complete the KYC to avoid any inconvenience like delays in the verification process and restrictions on their access.
But why did Binance implement an immediate policy to its users? The announcement continues:
“Binance is announcing these measures to help support its efforts in Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). This will further enhance user protection and combat financial crime.”
The crypto exchange has been under scrutiny of regulatory bodies in different countries worldwide with Malaysia being the recent country to join the list.
OKEx Under Fire by Canadian Regulatory Body
The Ontario Securities Commission alleges that Aux Cayes FinTech Company Limited, the operator behind OKEx, has violated the Ontario securities law.
According to the statement of allegations filed by OSC, Aux Cayes has offered securities and derivatives through the OKEx platform to residents of the province and has failed to comply with registration and prospectus requirements under Ontario securities law.
Registration and disclosure are a must under the Ontario securities law. On March 29, OSC issued a warning on all crypto trading platforms operating in the region to comply with the securities law or face potential regulatory action. The deadline for compliance was on April 19. But according to the OSC, despite warnings, Aux Cayes did not respond to the Commission until the set deadline.
After a word with the Enforcement Staff, Aux Cayes implemented a new policy by blocking new accounts from Ontario residents and added Ontario to the “Restricted Locations” on the crypto exchange’s platform. But the company failed to provide the basic information on its Ontario clients including the “total number of Ontario-based accounts and aggregate holdings in those accounts”.
OSC has requested that Aux Cayes stop all crypto trading operations and be prohibited from acquiring any securities. The company now faces a possible million-dollar fine for its failure to comply with the Ontario securities law.
Other exchanges like Poloniex also came under fire with Ontario regulators for the same grounds.
More Than $1M Returned to a Drug Dealer in Sweden
In Sweden, authorities have reportedly returned $1.5M to a drug dealer.
According to reports, the Swedish government seized a total of 36 BTC (bitcoin) from the drug dealer valued at less than $150,000 at that time.
When the Swedish Enforcement Authority finally auctioned the cryptocurrency, the price had already skyrocketed and they ended up selling only 3 BTC (bitcoin) to match the fiat value of the amount to be recovered.
Prosecutor Tove Kullberg commented on the matter during an interview with a local radio station.
“It is unfortunate in many ways. It has led to consequences I was not able to foresee at the time.”
She further adds:
“The lesson to be learned from this is to keep the value in Bitcoin, that the profit from the crime should be 36 Bitcoin, regardless of what value the Bitcoin has at the time.”
Cryptocurrencies have long been associated with illegal activities like money laundering and even illegal drugs. Silk Road, the first modern dark web market founded by Ross Ulbricht in 2011 was known for selling illegal drugs using the internet and has accepted BTC (bitcoin) as payment for online transactions.
