EU imposes restrictions on cryptocurrency transactions

New rules governing cryptocurrency transactions will come into force in the European Union on December 30, 2024. They are aimed at strengthening the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. The changes will primarily affect owners of private cryptocurrency wallets (self-hosted wallets) who make transactions in excess of €1,000.

- For transactions over €1,000, wallet owners will need to provide additional documents to verify their identity.

- Financial institutions are required to verify the data of both the sender and recipient of funds, which significantly increases the level of transparency.

 

Scam Squid Game Tokens Flood the Crypto Market

Tokens based on the Netflix series "Squid Game" have flooded the market following the release of the second season of the series. However, community members have warned that these tokens may be a scam or a scam.

On December 26, Netflix released the second installment of the popular Korean dystopian thriller “Squid Game.” The show revolves around a private competition in which players in dire financial straits risk their lives to win a large prize.

When the series hit the streaming site, new crypto tokens of the same name flooded the markets. However, while Squid Game contestants may have a chance to win a huge amount of money on the show, those who invest their money in Squid Game crypto tokens may not have the same chance.

 

TON Foundation Partners with Jupiter to Incubate New DEX Aggregator on TVM

TON Foundation has entered into a new partnership with Jupiter to incubate a new DEX aggregator on the TON Virtual Machine TVM. Together, the two companies aim to thrive in DeFi

TON Foundation and Jupiter Partnership: Incubation of a New DEX Aggregator on the VM

TON Foundation has entered into a new partnership with Jupiter to incubate a new DEX aggregator on the TON Virtual Machine (TVM)

In practice, the goal is to improve liquidity aggregation on TON thanks to Jupiter, the leading decentralized trading platform in the Spot and Perps sector.

Not only that, the idea is to then pave the way for cross-chain exchange integrations that will shape the future of decentralized finance (DeFi).

This partnership leverages Jupiter's expertise and network to create a more scalable TON DeFi ecosystem, opening up new opportunities for cross-chain trading.

 

Vitalik Buterin Donates $170K to Tornado Cash Developers' Legal Fund

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made a significant contribution to the legal defense fund for Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev.

According to a December 31 post from Juicebox Free X project Pertsev and Storm, Buterin donated 50 ETH — about $170,000 at the time of publication — to support Storm and Pertsev legal costs.

Storm said the contribution represented about 25% of the total $650,000 available to the Tornado Cash developer via JusticeDAO ahead of the trial.

 

Floki DAO Unanimously Approves ETP Funding

Floki DAO has unanimously voted to allocate liquidity from the community buyback wallet to support the launch of the Floki Exchange Traded Product (ETP).

Set to debut in Q1 2025, the ETP will trade on the SIX Swiss Exchange, Switzerland’s largest stock market, offering European investors access to the coin.

A Floki representative emphasized that the listing will help strengthen the token’s legitimacy: “This is an unprecedented step for memecoin legitimacy, and will put Floki in the same league as some of the most recognized financial products around the world.” Despite the event, Floki’s price has fallen 3.6% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap, a reminder of the volatile nature of the memecoin sector.

 

16 years ago, the Bitcoin genesis block was mined

On January 3, 2009, a person or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin mainnet by mining the genesis block with 50 BTC.

Its hash contains the headline of the article "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" in the British newspaper The Times.

Shortly before the launch, on October 31, 2008, the Bitcoin white paper was published.

The first transaction took place on January 12, 2009 - Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney. Three days before that, Bitcoin software version 0.1 was published.

Nakamoto's identity and the motives for creating Bitcoin still remain a mystery that the crypto community and beyond are trying to unravel.

 

AI-Inspired Meme Coins Capitalize Over $11 Billion

The total capitalization of “AI-inspired” meme tokens has exceeded $11 billion; daily trading volume is approaching $2.5 billion.

Segment leaders:

- ai16z: The market value of coin supply is $2.6 billion, and price growth over seven days is 184%;

- Fartcoin: $1.35 billion and 38.2%, respectively;

- Zerebro: $765 million and ~116%.

Over the past 24 hours, the total capitalization of such assets has grown by 26.7%.

 

Elon Musk’s new nickname brought the trader $634,000 in profit

On December 31, Elon Musk updated his name in X to Kekius Maximus, becoming a mascot for the creation of dozens of meme tokens. Some of them were launched two weeks ago when the billionaire first posted the phrase in the comments of Autism Capital.

One of the traders managed to make money on this, Lookonchain analysts reported.

He spent $4,360 to buy 18.15 million KM. Immediately after Elon Musk changed his nickname, the price of KM soared by about 17,000%. Now his coins are worth $638,000.

Analysts did not rule out the insider nature of the deal.

Recall that in January, a trader earned $1 million on the TROLL token after Elon Musk changed the signature on his X-account to (CTO) Chief Troll Officer.