Crypto Weekly Roundup: The Year of Bitcoin in El Salvador, Sure Returns for Ronin and Outspokenness for Celsius

The Salvadoran rendezvous with Bitcoin

The South American country’s legislature passed the Bitcoin Law on June 8, 2021. Beginning in September, President Nayib Bukele tweeted about his latest crypto purchases for the country, even when Bitcoin prices peaked. then collapsed. The IMF has warned El Salvador that this decision entails financial risks that could affect consumers.

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As of Friday, El Salvador had around 2,381 BTC and was down 54.07% on its investment, according to the Nayib Tracker website.

Residents of El Salvador have also raised complaints about the state-run Chivo virtual wallet they use for bitcoin transactions. These included allegations of identity theft and missing funds. The Salvadorian government changed the technology provider of the wallet in February 2022.

The country also dismissed claims that its investments would suffer a loss. El Salvador’s Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya earlier pointed out that no bitcoin has been sold at current market prices and that El Salvador’s bitcoin investment is less than 0.5% of its budget. Plans to issue a Bitcoin bond are also on hold for the time being.

Despite market conditions, El Salvador has seen a dramatic increase in tourism in the year it embraced Bitcoin.

Ronin Safe Returns

Blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis revealed on September 8 that its crypto incident response team helped seize more than $30 million in stolen cryptocurrency from hackers associated with North Korea.

This comes six months after the March 2022 hack of the Ronin network, which saw an estimated $600 million in crypto stolen. It continues to be one of the biggest known crypto hacks on record. The stolen crypto assets were transmitted through Tornado Cash – a mixer that obscures the origin of legitimate and stolen crypto funds, and makes it harder to track illicit actors.

However, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August. Amazingly, the Lazarus hacker group then used decentralized finance (DeFi) services to launder their stolen crypto. This allowed law enforcement and crypto organizations to track down some of the stolen assets.

North Korean hacking groups like Lazarus are believed to resort to crypto hacks to evade economic and financial sanctions.

Straight talk for Celsius

The unpredictable decision by DeFi platform Celsius in June to freeze user withdrawals and transfers has sent shockwaves through the crypto industry. More than 1.7 million customers wait to hear the fate of their savings as Celsius files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States

A Sept. 7 filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York saw Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation criticize Celsius in the strongest terms.

The state regulator claimed Celsius and its CEO Alex Mashinsky had “made false and misleading statements to investors” regarding the platform’s health and legal compliance.

While Mr. Mashinsky tweeted on May 11, 2022 that Celsius had suffered no “significant loss”, the company’s preliminary financial records showed that it had incurred unrealized losses of approximately $454,074,042 between the May 2 and May 12.

Celsius customers are now waiting to hear whether an appointed examiner will formally investigate the company’s activities.