Scotland Yard cybercrime unit has tracked down phone scam suspects after examining cryptocurrency payments. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

Analysis of Bitcoin transactions helped British police arrest more than 100 people, according to Metropolitan Police. In the largest scam operation in the country’s history. Which was conducted by Scotland Yard, was dismantled site iSpoof and caught the suspects of telephone scams.

iSpoof allowed scammers to impersonate tax officials and banks. This included Barclays, Santander, HSBC, Lloyds and others. Phone scammers tried to trick people into giving up money or providing confidential information. For example, disposable bank account access codes. iSpoof disguised phone numbers to make it appear that scammers were calling from a trusted source. With iSpoof, scammers paid in Bitcoin.

The average loss, among those who complained of fraud, was £10,000. It is believed that in total victims of scammers lost tens of millions of pounds. Whereas iSpoof scammers made almost £3.2 million in 20 months. According to police, more than 200 thousand potential victims in Britain alone were attacked through the site. In one year, iSpoof made about 10 million scam calls around the world.

Operation to identify this criminal group was carried out by the cybercrime unit of London Police with the assistance of Europol, FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Investigators began their investigation in June 2021. They collected information from the iSpoof website, and initially the circle of suspects was 59,000 people. So they began tracking only those UK residents on Bitcoin transactions. Who spent at least £100 in Bitcoin on this site.

A wave of arrests followed in the country, and information about other suspects was passed on to law enforcement colleagues in Netherlands, Australia, France and Ireland.

What to expect from Football Fan Token during FIFA World Cup 2022. Which platforms have joined the sporting event, what happens to the coins of the national teams. And which of the competition-related assets are most attractive for investment

On November 20, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar kicked off and will run until December 18. Cryptocurrency community actively participates in the event. Many platforms are sponsoring it, and cryptocurrency exchanges are adding new fan tokens for football teams and announcing promotions related to the World Cup.

The championship is sponsored by Algorand Blockchain (ALGO), which will continue to help FIFA with developments related to digital assets after this event. World Cup 2022 is also sponsored by Crypto com, a crypto platform. Users of this exchange were able to attend matches and win official paraphernalia.

Crypto exchange Binance launched a promotion for fans called Binance Football Fever 2022. It allows you to win rewards during the Championship by completing tasks. OKX platform launched the OKX Football Festival promotion on the occasion of this event. In which platform users can win participation in NFT airdrop.

Huobi raffled off tickets to the FIFA World Cup 2022 in October, while Poloniex held the “Poloniex FIFA World Cup Carnival” with a prize pool of $100k. Platform MEXC launched a referral program that could win $4.5k, and Gate.io runs the Gate.io World Cup NFT Collection, with a pool of $10k and other prizes.

At the same time, a lot of championship-themed tokens and NFT collections have popped up online due to sports hype. Which have unclear tokenomics and unknown developers. If you want to join the digital celebration of football, it is worth carefully studying the history of each project and its financial component.

Fan tokens from football teams

In September, crypto exchanges MEXC, Gate and OKX added tokens for teams from Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Portugal ahead of FIFA World Cup 2022. The first two coins have been issued on the Bitci platform, while the second two support the Socios and Chiliz platforms.

Argentina – Argentine Football Association Fan Token (ARG)

Despite the fact that the championship has just started. And Lionel Messi’s team token has already seen a drop of 24% after Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia 1:2.

The result of the match was unexpected, as the Saudi team was considered the outsider in the group. The coin has since recovered slightly in the 24 hours since then, rising 4.2% to $5.61. Argentina’s next game is on November 26, their opponent is Mexico.

Brazil – Brazil National Football Team Fan Token (BFT)

The token had been around $1 at the start of the tournament, but dropped 10% on November 23 and is hovering around $0.69. The first match of the team will be on November 24, the Latin American team will play against Serbian team.

Spain – Spain National Football Team Fan Token (SNFT)

The first game of the Spanish national team will be on November 23. It will be played against Costa Rica. The rate of SNFT token before the match is at $0.35 and shows a daily decline of 2.2%.

Portugal – Portugal National Team Fan Token (POR)

The cryptocurrency POR is worth about $4.92 on November 23 and is up 2.9% per day. The team will play their first match against rivals from Ghana on November 24.

France Fan Token (FRA)

The French team’s first game was on November 22. The French defeated Australia 4-1. The FRA token increased by 147% to $0.0013 during the day. Next game of team will be held on November 26, the opponent will be Denmark.

FAN token function has changed

Although Fan tokens were designed to address utilitarian issues. And to enable loyal fans to become more involved in life for their favourite teams. But today, these coins are not being used in the way the developers intended.

Paradoxically, they were originally intended for purely technical functions. Now fan tokens have instead become a kind of “shares” for clubs, according to our Crypto-Upvotes experts.

Because tokens have become priced not in terms of their value to a fan, but in terms of their success and public reputation. In this regard, the fan-token market has become a totalizator. And it has already been compromised by the ability to manipulate the price regardless of the actual success of teams.

Where to invest?

If you consider the investment component of this segment, first of all, you need to keep an eye on platforms and blockchains. Which ones are placing such tokens, not the fan tokens themselves. For example, it looks more strategic to buy a conventional Chiliz (CHZ) token than a coin from some promising sports club.

CHZ cryptocurrency was released back in the fall of 2018 on Ethereum as a control token for a fan token ecosystem that was being created. And a year later, Chiliz Chain of the Ethereum network was created to reduce commissions. This project brought most of its fan community together under the Socios.com aegis. They became the first blockchain project to start issuing tokens for sports fans.

Cryptocurrency Shiliz (CHZ) is quoted at $0.183 on November 23. Before the start of World Cup 2022 it was worth $0.26, but by the evening of November 22 it was down to $0.17. For the previous day the coin grew in price by 2.2%.

In addition to Chiliz and its Social.com platform, Turkish platform Bitci is gaining momentum. It has already issued tokens for football teams of Brazil, Peru and Spain, Turkish national basketball team and many other sports teams. Which are mostly from Turkey and Spanish-speaking countries.

Crypto exchange Huobi said it plans to increase investment in Southeast Asia, Europe and other regions to expand its user base

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global announced launching an updated branding strategy. This strategy includes changing the name to Huobi (without Global) and strengthening global development. These changes are related to the acquisition of the exchange by About Capital Buyout Fund in October 2022.

This new name consists of two Chinese characters, “火” and “必. First represents the eternal life force and its transmission to future generations in Chinese culture. The second symbol means determination to win, reflecting our desire to return to the top 3 exchanges of crypto industry.

Huobi also plans to increase investment in Southeast Asia, Europe and other regions. Which could potentially expand the platform’s user base. In addition, Huobi reported on possible strategic mergers and acquisitions. As well as plans to attract world-class talent in blockchain and virtual assets.

Huobi said it intends to establish a presence in the Caribbean region as part of its global development. It is a region with a regulatory stance favorable to crypto platforms, common law systems and the use of English.

In early November, the Chinese crypto exchange already announced that it would be moving its headquarters to the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic was the main candidate to locate this office.

Our experts note, while on CEX exchanges there is an outflow of liquidity. Other exchanges are trying to take higher places at the expense of this crisis.

Singaporeans suffered big losses from FTX collapse due to switching to it after Binance was banned in that country. MAS explained why there were restrictions on Binance and no restrictions on FTX

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued a statement explaining why crypto-exchange FTX – in advance of its collapse – was not included in the document. Which warns investors about the illegality of this company’s activities on state territory.

Singapore was the second hardest hit by the FTX crash. According to a CoinGecko report, Singapore accounted for 5% of global traffic to FTX.com. That is, on average, more than 241,000 unique users per month. Analysts attribute this to the fact that the ban of Binance exchange in 2021 in Singapore led to. That users of the exchange Binance moved to FTX.

The MAS, which serves as the country’s central bank, maintains an Investor Alert List (IAL). This list includes those companies that could be mistakenly perceived as licensed or permitted by the regulator. On September 2, 2021, Binance.com was included in this list.

In a November 21 statement, MAS explains why it treated Binance differently than FTX. And included Binance in the IAL list, while FTX did not. Despite the fact that both Binance and FTX are not licensed in Singapore. But Binance actively attracted users in Singapore and offered products in Singapore dollars. FTX did not, according to the MAS report.

In addition, Binance has received complaints about unlicensed customer referrals on its part. Binance was also investigated for possible violations of the Payment Services Act.

Regarding FTX, the regulator said there was no evidence that it attracted Singaporean users. And this platform did not offer products in Singapore dollars.

Conclusions from FTX fiasco

MAS also said that there are hundreds of such exchanges and thousands of other offshore organizations. Which accept investments. MAS does not have the ability to put them all on the IAL list. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to deal with such organizations.

According to regulator, the most important lesson from the FTX fiasco is that transactions with any cryptocurrency on any platform are dangerous.

Our experts conclude that MAS was somehow interested in FTX. Because the blocking of Binance was done and the second top exchange, as if they did not notice. In any case, we agree with them that operations with any cryptocurrency on any platform are risks.

Our Crypto-Upvotes experts have analyzed situation on cryptocurrency market. And told how Bitcoin price can change in the next few days

Last week, from November 14 to 20, trading on the crypto market was relatively quiet. Increased volatility was observed on the first day of the week. Bitcoin/USDt jumped from $15.8 th. to $17.1 th. (+8.69%). Growth in quotations was caused by the head of Binance, Changpeng Zhao. He said he will launch a fund to rebuild the industry and help promising companies. He did so to reduce the negative impact from collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

After updating the weekly high price stabilized in the range of $16 thousand – $17 thousand Investors are in no hurry to buy Bitcoin because they took a wait-and-see attitude. Because of fears of the next wave of sales on the background of new bankruptcies of companies related to the collapsed exchange FTX.

For ten days, market is in the phase of rest after a recent collapse. Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P500 Index has turned negative at 0.62. Crypto market has stopped reacting to the dynamics of dollar and stock indices. Investors are busy transferring tokens from centralized exchanges to cold wallets. They are doing this to protect their cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin price is at $16,000 waiting for a new batch of news about crypto industry. As buyers have failed to quickly get the price back above $18,500. A level of $12k is still flashing green for sellers below, signaling a lack of resistance. Because of a collapse in FTX, events could begin to unfold in a worst case scenario for Bitcoin and crypto investors. Buyers need to consolidate above $18.5k. Without consolidation, bearish sentiment will not be offset.

There is a threat of new bankruptcies, and continued collapse of crypto market

So far, the ratio of long and short positions on futures market does not have any bias. Therefore, we do not expect a sharp change in the situation in the next few days.

On-chain parameters also speak in favor of absence of preconditions for fall. There is also growing interest in cold wallets, amid outflow of capital from CEX exchanges because of scandal with FTX.

Most likely scenario is a continuation of current levels. Accordingly, expected range of BTC price is about $16-17 thousand.

Among stability risks, there is a threat of new bankruptcies followed by an avalanche of liquidations. There are no guarantees that it will not happen this week. But the probability is not high either. And statements of major players about creation of crypto-business support funds to prevent exactly such chain reactions in the market. Should add optimism and confidence in protection of crypto industry from collapse.

Of important – it is worth to highlight protocol of November meeting of the US Federal Reserve, which will be published on November 23. Bitcoin is detached from risky assets, so it may ignore investors’ reaction to the publication of these protocols.

Daily futures trading volume on DeFi platforms reached $5 billion. This is the biggest amount since Terra collapsed in May of this year. Crypto-Upvotes expert review.

DeFi platforms increased revenues amid the outflow of funds from centralized exchanges that occurred due to the collapse of FTX. On-chain data showed an increase in activity on decentralized futures trading platforms and an increase in revenue for DeFi protocols, Cointelegraph reported.

However, not all decentralized applications (DApps) and protocols show such a trend. Because some of them have financial ties to FTX and Alameda. But data on DeFi projects’ revenues show that at least three protocols have exceeded $1 million in the last seven days, including Ethereum and OpenSea Marketplace.

Decentralized futures trading platforms have increased their trading volumes to record levels. Their daily turnover reached $5 billion, the highest since the Terra token crash in May of this year.

Despite the increase in trading volume, the total value of locked-in assets (TVL) at DeFi only increased at seven networks. Gains Network, a futures trading platform on the Polygon network, showed the biggest increase. Its TVL increased 17.3% over the week. And inter-network protocol Ren saw its TVL drop by 50%. This is because Ren worked closely with Alameda. And received quarterly funding and stored its funds directly on FTX.

Blockchain’s profit growth comes on top of an unchanged number of daily active users. Compared to previous weeks, the daily profits of leading blockchains have increased by more than 300%. This suggests that transactions among existing users are occurring more frequently.

Despite growth in profits, only Ethereum made profits among PoS-based blockchains. Other leading networks such as Polygon, BNB Smart Chain and Optimism did not profit. Holders of these tokens suffered inflationary losses.

Our experts told us what consequences may arise due to reduced liquidity on CEX exchanges. And how it will affect cryptocurrency prices

FTX exchange collapse caused a significant outflow of funds from centralized platforms. According to analytical platform CryptoQuant, after November 6, when it became known about problems FTX. CEX exchanges users withdrew 200 thousand BTC ($3.35 billion). As well as about 2 million Ethereum ($2.4 billion) and nearly $3 billion in Stablecoin.

For example, from Binance, users withdrew 81.7 thousand bitcoins ($1.35 billion) in just six days, or more than 15% of the total amount of bitcoins on this exchange. However, the head of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, called the surge in withdrawals small and explained that this is normal during a fall in cryptocurrency market.

Where do cryptocurrency owners transfer their funds?

Ordinary investors experience panic when there are some problems on centralized exchanges and market in general. And has a great desire to hide his funds to feel more relaxed. According to him, users primarily withdraw assets to decentralized wallets.

Means in these purses can not only store, but also exchange on the decentralized exchanges (DEX). After FTX started having problems, the number of such transactions increased dramatically.

In the last 24 hours alone, trading volume on DEX exchanges has increased by 38.66%, according to data from the CoinMarketCar platform.

Currently, the leading DEX platforms are Uniswap (v3), Curve (Ethereum), and PancakeSwap (v2). According to our analysts, daily trading volume on the first of them is more than $908 million, on the second and third – $170 million and $150 million, respectively.

In addition to decentralized storage, cryptocurrency owners began to take an active interest in hardware wallets. In the past week, revenue from the sales of Trezor devices grew by 300%. And competing company Ledger also recorded a significant surge in demand for its devices.

Reduced liquidity in CEX exchanges and the whole cryptocurrency market in general, what can it lead to?

Crypto market is now driven by investors’ fear of losing their investments. Reduced liquidity of crypto market and general pessimism mean a further decline in value of cryptocurrencies.

This process has a negative impact on the crypto market, it “slows” it down. This means it is not worth waiting for the recovery yet. Growth of crypto market can be forgotten for a while, now the main thing is not to fall even deeper.

However, our experts believe that cryptocurrencies are unlikely to hold out. The crypto market has not yet realized the scale of the disaster. Lack of liquidity leads to a decrease in trading volume. And hence, the profitability of trading platforms deteriorates greatly.

Large scale capital outflows can lead to a domino effect. One company is followed by collapse of other companies that are connected by common transactions. Some cryptoprojects have already reported financial difficulties caused by the collapse of FTX.

For example, crypto exchange AAX suspended withdrawals and said it lacked liquidity to continue operations. And cryptocurrency lender BlockFi is preparing a bankruptcy filing.

The next two weeks will show how serious the situation in cryptocurrency market is. According to our analyst, new bankruptcy filings will mean a massive collapse of the whole crypto industry.

Participants of trading on CEX exchanges may find it difficult to sell some coins quickly

This could happen because the outflow of assets from such exchanges reduces the volume of liquidity on them. Most likely, popular coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Stablecoin will not be affected. But some altcoins traded in tandem with Bitcoin or ether may suffer, according to our expert. Their liquidity will be low. This means traders will prefer not to deal with such liquidity. And prices for these altcoins will go down, largely due to the lack of active trading on exchanges.

“It’s a market, it’s all interconnected. The churn is mostly in Bitcoin and Stabelcoin, and all other pairs are losing liquidity,” explains our expert.

Traders can now pay attention to native coins DEX-exchanges. In addition, our expert noted that DEX crypto wallet tokens may also show growth in price.

In what cases is borrowed liquidity useful in DeFi. And also what dangers it brings. And how to borrow for a user who owns Bitcoins. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Rapid falls and rises in quotations are characteristic of cryptocurrency sector. Part of the high volatility is due to the large share of borrowed capital involved in transactions. Nevertheless, convenient borrowed liquidity is also one of strong points and features of DeFi finance.

Virtually every blockchain ecosystem has its own decentralized finance loan protocol. And the largest blockchains even have several. Such protocols work roughly the same way: by freezing their coins in a smart contract, users can release liquidity. When they receive credit in desired cryptocurrency or stabelcoins, interest accrues on deposit and borrowing. And for using a platform, a bonus is given as tokens to vote on future protocol development. Stablecoin borrowing usually comes at an impressively low interest rate of 1% to 2% per year.

Annual interest rates for coin deposits to the protocol or borrowing are identical for most large and time-tested platforms. Therefore, users can choose a product based solely on the overall usability of a particular blockchain and its software solutions. Thus, if a user, for example, frequently makes coin exchanges on Solana. And on the same blockchain plays some kind of P2E game, then the loan protocol as well, if needed. It will be more convenient for him to choose on the same blockchain.

DeFi borrowing is very easy and fast

This is an extremely convenient and fast process, which speeds up the already rapid movement of liquidity within the cryptocurrency sector.

When the market falls, traders using DeFi loans are forced to close their positions quickly. Because there is a danger of liquidation of collateral, thereby further accelerating the fall. When the market rises, it is also easy for traders to continue to create new buying volume. As the value of collateral assets rises, it makes it possible to increase the size of loans.

Similarly, borrowing protocols have already been used many times in market manipulations to collapse the rate of coins.

Is borrowing a unique advantage of crypto-assets or a dangerous trap?

The practice of borrowing against property or other valuables has been known since ancient times and is still widely used today. However, cryptocurrencies stand out among all other types of assets because of the incredible ease of obtaining borrowed liquidity. And complete freedom of its movement.

Owners of classic stocks in brokerage accounts might object. Because most brokerage platforms also provide credit leverage. Which is based on the capital available to this user. This is true, but there are two key differences that drastically distinguish web2 and web3.

For web2, the annual interest rate on borrowed brokerage funds will be significantly higher. And you will only be able to use the funds conveniently within the original platform. In the case of DeFi, borrowed funds are instantly deposited into the user’s wallet. And immediately can be used and transferred to third-party wallets and services without any restrictions.

When is borrowed liquidity useful?

The most valuable use of DeFi borrowing will be for those wishing to preserve the growth potential of their assets. Since its launch, crypto sector has been in a correction most of the time. Conversely, only briefly at its price peaks. Such moments are easy to miss if you sell an asset when you need dollar liquidity. And hope to buy it again later. And a rapid rise can happen in a few weeks or even days.

Borrowed liquidity can also be particularly useful for emerging market users with small deposits. Who strive to increase their crypto-assets portfolio step by step, if possible. For such category of users, the use of DeFi-protocols allows not to part with crypto-assets during an unfavorable market phase.

Of course, such tools carry a lot of dangers for inexperienced users. It is critical to keep statistics of all borrowings made. As well as to monitor your open positions. Which is based on the ratio of borrowed liquidity to the provided collateral. The safest ratio is no more than 1/3.

We recommend using only the least volatile of the coins, such as ETH or BTC, as collateral. Volatility of BTC has been steadily declining this year, and amid geopolitical instability has fallen below many fiat currencies and even the S&P500 index.

I have Bitcoin, how do I get liquidity and what are these risks?

The crypto sector’s flagship blockchain does not support smart contracts by default. Therefore, the first action for BTC holders on its main network would be to transfer Bitcoin to another network. One that supports DeFi-interactions. It is possible to move to another network in a decentralized way, using one of the bridges. Or by using a centralized exchange. In this case, the user will need to bring your BTCs to exchange, sell them, withdraw amount in main asset of destination network (for example, for Matic it will be Matic). And then exchange the asset back to the “wrapped” BTC on the new blockchain using any of DEX. At the same time, leaving some asset to the network itself to pay subsequent commissions.

Despite the many pros and little studied new ways of using borrowed liquidity. Its use remains extremely dangerous and involves risks every step of the way. Smart contract hacks, credit protocol oracle failures. Which can lead to accidental liquidations. Or the excitement and gambling addiction from feeling the possibility of getting “free funds” . This is just a short list of dangers awaiting users.

Binance also plans to take a lead in setting global industry standards in wake of bankruptcy of FTX. Crypto-Upvotes expert review.

The Binance exchange will create a relief fund for crypto projects that are strong at the core but face a liquidity crisis, head Changpeng Zhao wrote on his Twitter page. According to him, this fund will be created to reduce negative impact of the FTX collapse on industry.

Head of Binance urged other participants of cryptoindustry to join this project as well. Tron blockchain founder Justin Sun was the first to respond, telling Binance that Tron, as well as Huobi Global and Poloniex exchanges, would support this project. A little later, developers of Ethereum Pow responded to this call.

In addition, Binance plans to take a lead in setting global standards in this industry. Zhao said this, speaking at a conference in Indonesia, according to Blomberg. Binance’s chief executive said there was a need for greater transparency in industry and close cooperation with regulators around the world.

Our Crypto-Upvotes experts told us what dynamics to expect from Bitcoin and digital currency market in short term

On November 14, Bitcoin exchange rate is about $16.5 thousand. During the last week, it fell by more than 20%. Our experts have analyzed this situation on crypto market and told what kind of dynamics to expect in next week.

Any negative news will bring down crypto market

The second week of November reversed all the achievements of buyers since mid-September. The collapse of the crypto market occurred due to the fiasco of negotiations between the head of Binance Changpeng Zhao and the head of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried.

Changpeng Zhao caused a liquidity crisis at the FTX exchange on Monday with his announcement that he would sell FTT tokens. As it turned out, most of the assets of FTX-affiliated company Alameda ($14.6 billion) were FTT tokens.

The Binance CEO wiped out a huge competitor in a matter of days. There is an opinion that he intentionally made public statements about selling FTT. The collapse in crypto market was partly localized by U.S. statistics on Thursday. Slowing inflation in the U.S. collapsed the dollar and boosted demand for risky assets. Traders sold off the U.S. currency on expectations of a slowdown in the U.S. Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hike cycle. The BTC/USDt pair jumped 16% to $18,200.

Although Dollar Index continued to fall on Friday, cryptocurrency halted its rise. Sam Benkman-Fried undermined confidence in the crypto industry. Investors fear the collapse of other cryptocurrencies that have had liquidity problems because of FTX. We just don’t know about it yet. Alameda may be “dumping” its portfolio on the market to take advantage of a price rebound.

The inflation report temporarily diverted investors’ attention away from FTX problems. Although situation in market remains tense. After a collapse and rebound, Bitcoin/USDt is trading at $16,400 in the range of $15,600-$18,200. Shock has passed, but buyer activity is very low. Without new negative news, the continuation of the correction above $18.5k remains. In such conditions, it will be a feat for the buyers. According to our experts, the risks of Bitcoin decline to $12,000 are over 70%. The market is low-liquid, so any bad news on the collapse of some other exchange with its token will collapse crypto market within a day.

Prospects for Bitcoin to rise to $20,000 in coming week

Unfortunately, our experts do not see prerequisites for Bitcoin recovery even up to $20K. All that positive impulse, which the market got after the data about growth of consumption prices in the USA. But crisis around FTX, which is still in its acute phase and just started to develop, didn’t let BTC grow and it fell below $17K again.

This week market will wait for developments around FTX. And the details of the debts of Alameda and FTX. As well as possible solutions to the problem of repayment of debts to clients. Regulators will definitely take action, because many companies related to the American market, Galaxy Digital and Circle, have been affected.

It’s not yet completely clear how catastrophic the collapse of Alameda would be for those companies that Sam Bankman-Fried was actively rescuing in recent months. Rumors have surfaced about Alameda’s liabilities of up to $50 billion. This could be a real counterpart to a collapse of Lehman Brothers for crypto market.

Our forecast for BTC this week is that it might fall to $14-15K and it will hardly go lower because, judging by Order Book, there are huge buy orders. So even if Bitcoin falls below that level, it will be bought back immediately.