Deribit Bitcoin Options Exchange Introduces Forced Verification Before Year End

Deribit, the operator of the largest bitcoin options market, will require all users to be verified by the end of this year. The Block writes about it with reference to the CEO of Deribit John Jansen.

“New customers will soon have to follow these standards, while existing customers will have enough time,” he said. Deribit currently offers two levels of identification. At zero, all you need to do is fill in basic data, including name, date of birth, address, and email. Such users can withdraw up to 1 BTC and 50 ETH. At the first level, for unlimited withdrawal of funds, you must confirm your personal data and residence address with the relevant documents. These requirements will soon apply to all users.

Also today, rival exchange BitMEX announced that all users must be verified in order to continue using the platform after November 5th. Previously it was assumed that they will be able to do this until February. Earlier this month, BitMEX was harassed by the US authorities, which, among other things, accused it of insufficient anti-money laundering measures. Deribit is taking additional precautions, although it doesn't cater to American users, according to The Block.

Kik Agrees to $ 5 Million Fine in SEC's $ 100 Million ICO Proceedings

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and messenger developer Kik have submitted a joint proposal to resolve the ongoing dispute. Under the terms of the agreement, Kik must pay a $ 5 million fine for organizing an illegal ICO campaign, during which he managed to raise $ 100 million for the development of his cryptocurrency project Kin.

Earlier, the judge supported the SEC's position on this case. Now he also has to approve the proposal of the participants in the trial.

The SEC filed a lawsuit against Kik in May 2019. The regulator argued that the ICO Kin was an illegal sale of securities as it was not registered. Kik, for its part, has vowed to defeat the SEC in court, thus protecting the interests of the entire cryptocurrency industry. However, the lengthy litigation with the regulator was too expensive. The company subsequently laid off 80% of its employees and organized a $ 5 million fund to protect the interests of crypto startups affected by the SEC.

In addition, under the terms of the agreement, in the future, Kik must notify the SEC of its intentions 45 days in advance if it intends to make any transactions with the reserves in the Kin vault. In September, Kik's legal spokesman said the SEC should have worked out clear rules for the cryptocurrency industry rather than issuing "conflicting statements."

10,000 bitcoins left OKEx before withdrawal moratorium

Last Friday, October 16, the administration of the OKEx cryptocurrency exchange confirmed the suspension of withdrawal operations. At the same time, representatives of the trading platform denied rumors that the moratorium was in one way or another related to a violation of anti-money laundering legislation.

According to the Glassnode platform, 10,000 bitcoins left the exchange before withdrawals were suspended. Analysts found out that the cryptocurrency was withdrawn from the trading floor approximately 48 hours before the confirmation of the moratorium.

Bitcoins totaling up to $ 113 million left the OKEx exchange in two batches. Experts emphasized that there are currently about 200,000 BTC in the platform's wallets, totaling up to $ 2.3 billion. Thus, more than 1% of the total amount of bitcoins is traded on the exchange.

The Whale Alert service yesterday recorded the transfer of 5,000 BTC to the Binance exchange, which puzzled many traders, since the withdrawal moratorium has not yet been lifted. Some social media observers have suggested that a coin withdrawal option is available for selected OKEx customers. Perhaps there is an agreement between the OKEx and Binance platforms under which emergency cryptocurrency transfers are possible.

Uniswap's first proposal failed due to doubts about the organizer's motives

The first voting in the Uniswap decentralized exchange system has ended. As a result, it was decided not to support the controversial Dharma landing protocol proposal. Currently, interested participants must have at least 1% of UNI tokens (10 million), including delegation, to make a proposal, and a quorum of 4% of tokens (40 million) is required to approve it.

Given the fact that with the current UNI distribution, a very small number of system participants have the required number of tokens, Dharma proposed to reduce the requirements to 0.3% and 3%, respectively. However, their proposal drew criticism in the community due to concerns that individual participants in the system could cooperate and, in fact, take control of a decentralized exchange.

At the end of the vote, 39,596,759 votes had been cast in support of the Dharma proposal, mainly by the organizer itself, but the required threshold of 40 million tokens had not been reached. As a result, the offer was rejected. Most likely, UNI holders simply abstained from voting, given the controversy surrounding it, and did not allow the changes to be approved. According to the authors of the Rekt blog, Dharma did the wrong thing by including two changes in one sentence. They insist that the change in quorum requirements be formalized in one proposal, and the change in the requirements for the number of tokens for the proposal in another.

Doubts about the first vote were also caused by the fact that only votes obtained before a certain block could be used in it. In other words, such conditions were favorable for the organizer of the vote and limited the expression of the will of other holders of votes who received them after the established block. In general, community members agree that the current governance model needs improvement, but any further changes should now be formalized as new voting proposals.