Last week, Jack Dorsey told the virtual Oslo Freedom Forum 2020 on Friday that the future of Twitter (NASDAQ: TWTR) is blockchain technology. The CEO of Twitter and Square (NYSE: SQ) stated: "Blockchain and bitcoin point to a future, point to a world, where content exists forever. We're not in the content hosting business anymore, we're in the discovery business." Dorsey envisions the nonprofit Blue Sky will create an open Twitter protocol, which users can contribute to and access data from instead of a centralized service. He noted Blue Sky is still looking to hire at least 5 positions, tasked with creating a public blockchain platform. Dorsey also stressed the importance of protecting Twitter users' identities, as a steppingstone to healthy discourse. He added that Twitter is stepping up reliance and machine-learning tools to help identify and curb non-authentic user behavior or propaganda.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
Hackers stole over $150 million of KuCoin's funds in a security breach. The Singapore-headquartered exchange stated it detected large withdrawals of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) tokens to an unknown wallet starting on Friday evening. KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu said Saturday that a hacker took the private keys to the exchange's hot wallets. Lyu noted KuCoin transferred what was left to new hot wallets and froze customer deposits and withdrawals. He claimed the exchange's cold wallets, which are not connected to the Internet, were unaffected. KuCoin also released a list of BTC, Bitcoin SV (BSV), ETH, Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), Tron (TRX), and Tether (USDT) wallet addresses where hackers sent the stolen funds. The ETH wallet address also received tokens worth over $150 million from KuCoin wallets. Several crypto exchanges including Bitfinex have blacklisted the published wallet addresses. KuCoin said it is investigating the hack with international law enforcement and stolen client money will be "covered completely" by insurance.
Ant Group launched a blockchain cross-border trading platform as it prepares for the biggest IPO in history. The Chinese fintech giant announced Friday its new trade platform called Trusple will make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to sell their goods to clients overseas. Built on the AntChain blockchain platform, Trusple automates key aspects of the payments process, like order placement and tax liabilities. And said the automation will make cross-border trades feasible for entities that would otherwise struggle with using legacy systems. Ant partnered with Standard Chartered (OTC: SCBFY), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), and BNP Paribas (OTC: BNPQY) to help "optimize" the process. Though the firm is known for its Alipay payments processor, Ant is also growing its presence in the crypto space. Chinese shipping giant Cosco has trialed AntChain to accelerate the documentation process, and Ant could be one of China's primary issuing partners for the upcoming digital yuan (RMB).
Crypto prices dipped to $340 billion this week. For the majors, all slipped into the red except Bitcoin SV and Cardano (ADA), which posted modest gains. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Advanced Internet Blocks (AIB), down 75%, Ardor (ARDR), down 24%, and Blockstack (STX), down 23%. The biggest gainers were DeFiChain (DFI), up 30%, THETA, up 30%, and Aion (AION), up 16%. Next week traders will watch if Bitcoin can break above the $11,000 level.
The author owns a small amount of BTC and LTC.