Tether will freeze all OFAC-sanctioned crypto wallets.

The issuer of the USDT stablecoin, Tether, announced the start of a new policy of freezing wallets whose owners are under OFAC sanctions.

According to the press release, the “voluntary” initiative aims to protect the cryptocurrency ecosystem and create a safe and secure user environment around the world.

Cryptocurrency wallets included in SDN are frozen.

 

Lifinity's LFNTY pool loses $700,000.

An error in the “Immediate or Cancel” order resulted in a leak of almost $700,000 from Lifnity’s LFNTY-USDC pool.

On December 8, an arbitrage bot emptied the LFNTY-USDC Lifinity pool on the decentralized exchange (DEX). According to the Discord channel Lifinity, the unexpected reaction to the failed trade resulted in a loss of $699,090.

A core Lifinity member known as Durden explained that the bot attempted to arbitrage the route USDC > xLFNTY > LFNTY > USDC in an attempt to profit from price discrepancies between various trading pairs.

The bot initiated an Immediate-or-Cancel (IOC) market order on Serum v3, a type of order that, if executed, must be executed immediately at the current market price. Orders that cannot be fulfilled immediately will be canceled.

But instead of returning an error, as most programs do, it returned a zero-sum output.

 

Pudgy Penguins announces Web3 game 'Pudgy World' on the zkSync blockchain.

Pudgy Penguins, a popular NFT project, has announced the next stage of the project's development, a Web3 game Pudgy World powered by Ethereum's zkSync Era layer 2 network, which the company describes as an "immersive digital experience."

The announcement of Pudgy Penguins came at a time of particular success for the project. The price of its NFTs has nearly doubled in the past two weeks, according to Opensea, and the brand recently launched toys in 2,000 Walmart stores nationwide—just under half of its more than 4,000 U.S. locations.

The alpha version of Pudgy World will be open to all gamers, but Pudgy NFT owners and Pudgy Toy buyers will be able to receive unique privileges in the virtual world of the game.

 

Bonk overtook Pepe.

Bonk (BONK), a dog-themed memecoin built on the Solana blockchain, recently made headlines by overtaking Pepecoin (PEPE) to become the third-largest memecoin by market capitalization. Its extraordinary rise of 370% in a month brought its market value to $933 million, eclipsing Pepe's $616 million, according to data from CoinGecko.
 

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest is selling for $49.2 million. Coinbase.

ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, sold a lot of Coinbase shares—335,860 to be exact.

The move, totaling $49.2 million, raised some eyebrows as it is the largest sale since July. According to the latest reports, the selling was prompted by ARK's 10% cap on individual shares as Coinbase's share price surge exceeded that limit.

The move received mixed reactions, with some viewing it as a smart risk management strategy, while others questioned its timing and impact on ARK's investment performance in a volatile crypto market.

The crypto market appears to be engaged in a strategic chess game and the moves are anything but ordinary, especially under the leadership of Cathie Wood and ARK Invest.
 

Donald Trump is launching a new NFT collection.

Former US President Donald Trump has unveiled a new collection of NFTs called "Mugshot Edition". The collection is dedicated to Trump's arrest in April of this year.

 

“Mugshot” is the name of the photograph that American police take at a police station when arresting a citizen. Donald Trump decided to make a separate collection from this photo, and not only NFTs will be released, but also 2,024 physical trading cards, on which pieces of the suit in which Trump was arrested will be attached.

 

Each NFT will cost $99. Moreover, if a user buys 47 tokens in one transaction (that is, spends $4,653), he will receive dinner with the former US President, as well as a physical trading card. Those who purchase 100 cards at once will receive the opportunity to attend a “pre-holiday” cocktail reception with Trump, as well as a physical card with a piece of the tie that Trump was wearing at the time of his arrest. In addition, there will be various bonuses for NFT buyers, such as Zoom calls.
 

NFT trading volume is approaching $1 billion.

As cryptocurrency markets turn bullish, non-fungible token (NFT) trading has begun to join the wave, approaching $1 billion in volume in November, according to data released by the decentralized app tracking platform DappRadar.

 

The report highlights that the NFT industry maintained upward momentum for the second month in a row. Trading volume increased 125% in November, indicating a change in user behavior from the previous downturn in NFT trading.

 

Web3 Blast protocol reached $823 million TVL.

According to DefiLlama, the total locked value of the Web3 Blast protocol reached $823 million (TVL) just weeks after its controversial launch in mid-November, with an increase of 26.5% in the last seven days.

 

Behind Blast's rapid growth is its unique business model. The protocol provides a solution for scaling the Ethereum network and offers users who stake their funds their own profits. Staking users are promised a 4% return on ETH and a 5% return on stablecoins.