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Has the FTX Exchange finally reopened withdrawals for clients?

According to on-chain data provider Nansen, the indebted FTX has finally reopened withdrawals for its clients. According to the data, one user was able to withdraw $2.6 million worth of ETH, while another was able to withdraw $1.3 million worth of USDC from the exchange.

Strangely, the data also shows that a user deposited $21,000 on the exchange to try to arbitrage odd prices on FTX and withdraw to some other niche asset.

Hearing rumors FTX reopened withdrawals and it seems to be true: one address got just over $2 million

Follow him here: https://t.co/YnE8gJPyvo pic.twitter.com/lp1Arag5vk

— Andrew T (@Blockanalia) November 10, 2022

FTX stopped withdrawals earlier this week due to liquidity issues with its sister company Alameda Research. Rival exchange Binance stepped in and signed a non-binding letter of intent to buy FTX only to pull out of the transaction 24 hours later.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said in a tweet on Thursday:

“We spent the week doing everything possible to increase liquidity”
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Brazilian Bitcoin Nonprofit Vinteum Announces Utreexo Developer Grant

Fellow Davidson Souza will continue to develop various Bitcoin projects after a Summer of Bitcoin internship, including Utreexo.

Vinteum, a Brazilian non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Bitcoin research and development, announced its second recipient of donations for protocol development, in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

Davidson Souza will receive the second Vinteum grant to continue providing wallet-enabled implementations for the Rust Utreexo library. Souza will then integrate the library with Spiral’s Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK). Additionally, Souza will develop bitcoin improvement proposals (BIPs) around implementations, assist with protocol development, and contribute to other projects such as Rust Bitcoin.

Utreexo is a Bitcoin hash accumulator initially proposed by Tadge Dryja, co-author of the Lightning Network white paper. The hash accumulator serves as an alternate database used to represent unspent transaction output (UTXO). The alternate dataset allows nodes to obtain and verify information related to UTXOs. By doing this, the information provided to nodes enables scalability benefits, decreasing the amount of storage needed by full nodes without changing anything regarding the security of the Bitcoin protocol. The process can also make running a node cheaper, speed up initial block downloads, and be used as an oracle for pools of UTXOs for different projects.

Souza initially attended some unofficial Venteum seminars that led him to participate in the Summer of Bitcoin, where he met his future mentor Calvin Kim, who is a Bitmex beneficiary. Kim began guiding Souza to port the Go Utreexo library to Rust so that anyone could validate Utreexo tests against Rust code.

“Davidson performed strongly during the Summer of Bitcoin program, demonstrating his understanding of Bitcoin at the protocol level and was productive in understanding and implementing the Utreexo algorithms,” Kim said.

Vinteum launched in August with a mission to train and fund open source developers for the Bitcoin ecosystem in Brazil. The nonprofit organization announced its first member at the launch, Bruno Garcia, who also joined the group as a founding member.

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Flipkart, the Indian commerce giant, will allow customers to buy items in the metaverse

Flipkart, the Walmart-backed Indian e-commerce giant, has launched a pilot program to let its customers experience shopping in a metaverse environment. The company announced the launch of its own metaverse, called Flipverse, in which different brands will be able to offer their own shopping experiences.

Flipkart to Launch Flipverse: A Shopping Metaverse

Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce companies based in India, has announced that it will test its own shopping experience in the metaverse. Called Flipverse, this metaverse will allow customers to experience shopping as if they were physically present in an online store through their smartphone.

According to the company, the experience wants to bring gamification and loyalty points to the shopping experience, allowing customers to accumulate supercoins and digital collectibles from different brands that are already accredited to be part of this pilot program.

To create the new platform, Flipkart partnered with eDAO, a company incubated by Polygon, to prepare the metaverse experience for launch this month. The company has already signed up several key partners, including Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, Tokyo Talkies, Campus, VIP, Ajmal Perfumes, and Himalaya, who will be able to offer their own custom booths and experiences in the Flipkart metaverse.

A Flipkart executive stated:

The idea is to get millions of users to experience Flipverse and open the door to the future of shopping. Fifteen years ago, we were the first Indian company to launch Web 2.0-based commerce. And I feel that today we are the first company to launch Web 3.0 commerce.

Retail and the metaverse

While metaverse retail experiences have been fairly limited so far, with video from 2017 resurfacing this year showing an example of how shopping would be done in a hypothetical Walmart-themed metaverse, Flipkart and Polygon believe there is a great opportunity in the future for that. type of virtual shopping experience.

Sandeep Narwal, co-founder of Polygon, stated:

While we're just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in the metaverse, we see e-commerce as one of the defining use cases. Combining top brands with Flipkart's eCommerce expertise in a virtual environment revolutionizes online retail as we know it.

Walmart, which owns 72% of Flipkart, already made its first metaverse move into the Roblox universe in September, launching two experiences called “Walmart Land” and “Walmart’s Universe of Play.”

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MinePlex Digital and Crypto Bank Secures $100M in GEM Funding

The funds will be used in new banking technologies, including a collaboration with Mastercard and Visa for cryptocurrency transactions.

In another round of investments in the cryptocurrency space, Singapore-based crypto bank MinePlex has secured $100 million from digital asset investment firm GEM Digital Limited (GEM) with the aim of bridging the gap between the digital assets and traditional banks.

According to an announcement on Oct. 11, MinePlex will use the funds to develop new banking technologies, including a collaboration with Mastercard and Visa for transactions that accept Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and TRON (TRX). .

Uniting digital assets and traditional banking services is the great bet of MinePlex.

The platform offers fiat and crypto asset services within the same app, enabling transactions such as bill payments and crypto asset purchases.

Introducing CrossFi, MinePlex co-founder and CEO Aleksandr Mamasidikov explained to Cointelegraph:

“We created CrossFi, a new technology running on the LPoS (Liquid Proof of Stake) consensus algorithm and the innovative MinePlex blockchain, offering advantages such as simplicity, operational speed and low fees.”

According to MinePlex, its native MinePlex token (PLEX) will also be listed on the new exchanges as part of the fundraising efforts.

The company also plans to open new offices in South Africa, Australia, India and Brazil, in addition to those already established in Barcelona, ​​Dubai, Uruguay and Singapore. The company claims to have processed more than five million cards in 50 banks in Russia, Europe and Asia.

GEM is a $3.4 billion alternative investment group that has been a source of capital for other startups in the cryptocurrency space.

In September, ParallelChain Lab secured $50 million in funding from GEM following the launch of its parent XPLL token, while Sports Metaverse startup LootMogul secured a $200 million investment commitment from Gem Global Yield.

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Visa Launches Bitcoin and Crypto Debit Cards in 40 Countries in Partnership with FTX

The partnership allows FTX Exchange users in 40 countries to easily spend their bitcoins and cryptocurrencies at any merchant that accepts Visa cards.

FTX is launching bitcoin and cryptocurrency-backed debit cards in 40 countries.

The exchange has partnered with Visa and will focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Despite the bear market, Visa believes bitcoin holders still want to use BTC for payments.

Visa has partnered with one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, to launch bitcoin and cryptocurrency debit cards, according to a CNBC report.

The offer will be available to FTX users in more than 40 countries, with a focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Visa, along with its competitors in the market, continues to assert that bitcoin and cryptocurrency users still want to use their holdings as a medium of exchange, even amid a bear market downturn.

“While stocks are down, there is still a steady interest in cryptocurrencies,” said Visa Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu, according to the report.

Debit cards, which are already available in the US, simply connect to the FTX platform, allowing users to spend digital assets in their wallets without the need to withdraw assets from the exchange platform.

“We don’t have a position as a company on what the value of cryptocurrency should be, or if it’s a good thing in the long run — as long as people have things they want to buy, we want to make it easy.” said Prabhu.

Visa’s main competitor, Mastercard, has also partnered with several different companies to offer debit cards that support bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. American Express has also expressed interest in offering a similar product, though its chief executive said it likely wouldn’t be “any time soon”.