Today in Crypto: Wirex & Novatti to Issue Cards to Australians, 280 Networks & $25BN at Risk Due to a Vulnerability, China’s ‘Surveillance Coins’ vs US ‘Freedom Coins’

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Payments news

• Crypto payments platform Wirex partnered with card issuer Novatti to issue cards directly to Australians. “The announcement has the potential to allow over 20 million people to utilise their innovative multicurrency card every day,” said the press release. Customers will benefit from higher card spend limits, the ability to earn up to 8% instant rewards, with no FX or maintenance fees, international ATM withdrawals (up to AU$400 a month for free, 2% fee thereafter), fiat-to-fiat exchanges, affordable top-ups, and access to exclusive merchant deals, it said.

Security news

• Blockchain security firm Halborn said that, after a broader review of the open-source codebase of the Dogecoin network, it “determined that [the vulnerabilities code-named Rab13s] affected over 280 other networks including Litecoin and Zcash, putting over $25 billion of digital assets at risk.” Last year, Halborn was contracted to evaluate the codebase for any security-endangering vulnerabilities, after which the Dogecoin team fixed several critical ones. That is when Rab13s was discovered.

CBDC news

• Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Christopher Giancarlo said that the US should lead the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) away from China’s “surveillance coins” and toward the USA “freedom coins.” Giancarlo and co-author Jim Harper wrote that, “for the United States to lead in the digital future of money, it must influence the development of global standards for CBDC that affirmatively protect democratic values like freedom of speech and the right to privacy and lay the foundation for a freedom coin model of CBDC.”

Investment news

• Alternative asset management firms Blackstone and Apollo Global Management expressed interest in acquiring assets of Silicon Valley Bank, the California lender seized by federal regulators last week, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
• Crypto exchange Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao denied a report that Binance was considering acquiring CoinDesk via CoinMarketCap. The talks were said to be on hold, the Blockworks report stated. “Not “on hold”. Not buying. It may be a good business. But not a fit in our geographic coverage,” Zhao tweeted.

Web3 news

• Web3 domain provider Unstoppable Domains teamed up with Polygon Labs to launch .polygon, a new domain ending (aka top-level domain, or TLD) available through Unstoppable Domains. Users across the Polygon ecosystem can create custom .polygon Web3 domains, which they can use to log into Web3 applications, send crypto and NFTs without a long wallet address, create decentralized websites, and build their Web3 identity, said the press release. In addition, .polygon domains will give users a portable identity to use across more than 750 apps, games, and metaverses, it added.

Gaming news

• Gaming fintech ZEBEDEE and mobile gaming studio Fumb Games announced that Bitcoin Miner, an idle mobile game that simulates running a crypto-mining business, has been played by over one million users. Per the press release, “the game is completely free to play and rewards users in real Bitcoin just for playing, which is proving to be a powerful recipe for onboarding new users into the world of Bitcoin and crypto.”

Sport news

• Blockchain protocol DigitalBits announced its brand and product partnership with Gresini Racing’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, a MotoGP rider. “Di Giannantonio will assist in the promotion of the DigitalBits brand and products as they collaboratively seek to drive the adoption of Web3 technology to the MotoGP fanbase, [and] will also work closely with the DigitalBits team to develop new and innovative product activations leveraging social media that meet the needs of MotoGP riders and fans,” said a press release.

NFT news

• Skills Agency, an IT company based in Bangalore, announced the launch of its new NFT application, Ownership.fyi. Based on PoO (Proof of Ownership) logic, the Ownership solution allows physical companies to easily authenticate NFT owners, said the press release. The client application was released last month on the Android play store and will soon be released on IOS Appstore, it added.