Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well in the current summer heatwave burning us all up in some regions of the world. Here in London for instance today is the officially hottest day of the year today and it’s even possible the day temperature will reach 40 degrees Centigrade which will then be hottest in history for the entire country. Of course, we can blame climate change for that and it might be right to do so. However, it seems like the whole world is changing nowadays in this post-Covid period, and it doesn’t only apply to the air temperature.

Cryptocurrency markets have been suffering for quite a few months now but last week they seem to be recovering a bit, yet still very far from the record breaking points they managed to reach last year. I will be discussing more on that in just a couple of moments, but first let me update you on the points of contact and the ways to follow MNO. That is in case you wish to be the first to know about the moment when the new giant of the HYIP industry appears on the horizon and also whether you want to receive the weekly issue of CryptoNews Digest from MNO every Monday. So please do follow me on Telegram, Twitter, or Facebook, and subscribe to the blog posts delivered directly to your email you can submit on this page. And if you wish to stay in touch with me on any possible subject then do not hesitate to email me directly at abramsonp@gmail.com, submit your query via this online form, or just chat with me live on Telegram @mnoblog

Now without any further ado let’s see what events from the last calendar week (July, 11 to July, 17, 2022) were the most interesting and worth mentioning in the today’s Weekly CryptoNews Digest. Keep reading to find out more!

The first thing I want to report on in this issue of the cryptocurrency digest is to catch up on a couple of stories already reported in recent weeks. The founders of a collapsed crypto hedge fund who reportedly amassed a fortune once worth $10 billion have gone missing, according to liquidators of the company. In a court filing on Friday, liquidators of Three Arrows Capital (also known as 3AC) said “the physical whereabouts of the debtor’s founders are currently unknown”, adding that “the founders have not yet begun to cooperate in any meaningful manner”.

Agents of the liquidators tried to visit the offices of 3AC in Singapore only to find they were empty with the doors locked and uncollected mail piling up on the floor inside. The same company went on to warn of an imminent risk that if the 3AC assets are clandestinely sold off then the chances of bankruptcy for those genuinely owed money by them are high. The two main owners of 3AC reportedly amassed a fortune before a BitCoin sell-off saw the price of digital assets plummet. The company later filed for bankruptcy in the British Virgin Islands. The fund’s demise destabilized multiple other crypto-based companies with whom 3AC had close financial ties. Last month 3AC defaulted on a $675 million loan from New York based cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital. Voyager later filed for bankruptcy themselves after suspending customer trading, deposits, and withdrawals.

Crypto exchange Blockchain.com is poised to lose as much as $270 million in loans issued to 3AC. In fact 3AC themselves even stated back in April of this year that they were committed to work through their obvious difficulties and urged account holders to “not believe everything they hear” about them. Oh, right! The value of cryptocurrency assets has fallen by 54% in the last three months which may tell you as much as you need to know about that statement.

And if you think that was bad, a staggering $4.7 billion is owed to users of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network, court filings show, as crypto holders struggle to recover their investments in the wake of the BitCoin price crash. In a court hearing open to the public in New York, Celsius revealed it had a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet. The firm blamed its demise on inflation, the war in Ukraine, and the collapse of several other crypto based funds having a sort of toxic contagion throughout the industry which in turn caused a growing industry-wide reluctance to do business with companies such as Celsius that hold crypto assets.

The company boss explained in the court report that as a result of all these factors, users began withdrawing crypto from Celsius’s platform in large amounts and at a rapid pace. Due to the drop in value of digital assets Celsius was unable to meet user withdrawals. In June Celsius suspended withdrawals, swaps, and transfers on its platform citing what it called extreme market conditions. More that $1 trillion has been wiped off the value of global crypto assets in the last three months alone according to CoinMarketCap. Celsius had 1.7 million registered account holders collectively holding $6 billion in assets between them.

Meanwhile back in global news it looks as if Russia is finally feeling the affects of US/EU economic sanctions, even if it’s highly unlikely they will ever admit to this in public. What other reason could there be behind the timing of the latest anti-crypto law coming from the Kremlin? Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a national ban on using digital assets for payments. The action comes after the Russian government and Central bank have long debated what to do about cryptocurrency. Back in January, the Bank of Russia proposed an outright ban on crypto—for payments or investments. The new law doesn’t go quite that far. In February, Russia’s Finance Ministry submitted a draft of cryptocurrency regulations to the government which, like the law enacted today, allows for investing in digital assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but not using them to buy things. The law, as published on the Russian parliament website reads: “It is prohibited to transfer or accept digital financial assets as a consideration for transferred goods, performed works, rendered services, as well as in any other way that allows one to assume payment for goods (works, services) by a digital financial asset, except as otherwise provided by federal laws.”

Crypto legislation in Russia is complicated: the country’s central bank previously called for a ban on Bitcoin mining and crypto transactions, but earlier this year, the country’s Finance Ministry said it would be necessary to allow cryptocurrency technology to develop. President Putin had previously expressed enthusiasm for Bitcoin mining in January, at a time when it was still advantageous for the country to do so, when he said that Russia had “certain competitive advantages” including a “surplus of electricity and well-trained personnel available in the country” to mine the currency. That was said when it was somewhat more damaging to western economies than actually beneficial to the Russian one, plus the likes of Binance and CoinBase hadn’t yet even been aware they might soon be legally required to withdraw from the Russian market.

Meanwhile in Switzerland the domestic post office through its banking arm, PostFinance has announced plans to extend its cryptocurrency entry by rolling out a trading and custody product following increased demand from users. The service, likely to be available by 2024 at the latest, will be independent from the bank’s other cryptocurrency products becoming the first in the country. According to internal reports on the subject the company sees a need to venture into cryptocurrencies despite the ongoing winter that has resulted in assets like BitCoin losing their value by almost 70% from the all-time high of over $67,000 in November last year. The Swiss post office in recent years has identified cryptocurrencies as a strategic growth area that needs incorporation into its operations. For instance, the postal service also unveiled the world’s first cryptocurrency stamp aiming to “bridge the gap between the physical world of stamps and the digital crypto-universe”, though if I’m to be entirely honest with you here I have almost no idea what that last statement even means and I doubt very much if you walk into a post office in Switzerland anyone will do much of a job in explaining it to you in any of the country’s four official languages!

Finally for this week’s crypto news digest I have something for fans of wicked humor, bad taste, and occasionally well deserved celebrity bashing. As luck would have it I just personally watched an episode of the adult orientated animation series “South Park” (yes, I do admit to having a juvenile streak!) when by coincidence the same show turns up in the news. Widely known for among other things its merciless parodying of Hollywood and other media stars, this particular episode took aim at high profile celebrities who accepted presumably big payments for advertising cryptocurrency trading firms, something I suspect they have very little knowledge or experience of. While I thought the South Park show by itself was quite funny, the point was raised that people in absolutely no position whatsoever to suffer the financial consequences of bad advice seem more than happy to do so on account of some actor getting paid a six figure sum to read/recite a cue card telling them it’s alright.

For example, last year just before the crypto market collapsed, Oscar nominated actor Matt Damon made a TV ad on behalf of Crypto.com where he read a script written by someone with a vested financial interest in that company (and obviously not Damon himself) that compared crypto speculators to the early Arctic explorers, the first astronauts, and the Wright brothers. Well, if you listened to him and paid $67,000 for a single BitCoin then good luck in asking Matt Damon to refund your 70% loss of capital. But then again, why would he care or for that matter even remember making the ad? All he did was collect a generous payout check for an acting gig, in this case comparing a Ponzi scheme to the moon landings. It’s entirely on your shoulders if you chose to listen to it or not. The lesson is essentially the same, i.e. beware of people who will not suffer any consequences for the bad advice they are paid to pass on to others.

That’s about all I had to report in this latest Weekly CryptoNews Digest on the MNO blog. Please tune in next Monday to stay in the loop on what’s going on and keep reading below for the latest news from the HYIP industry and its brightest lights as of today.

NEWS FROM THE HYIP INDUSTRY

ROBOTICSONLINE – LATEST NEWS FROM CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND ROBOTICS INDUSTRY

Chances are that if you had even the slightest interest in following the HYIP industry over the last three years you’ll have heard of RoboticsOnline (reviewed here). And why wouldn’t you? The program has established itself as a true leader of the industry clearly setting the highest standards for less experienced HYIP admins around and showing what a talented and hard-working admin can achieve for his program and its happy members over time. Sadly, there are not many such admins left in the HYIP industry by now, and it’s a pity because we really need more such programs as RoboticsOnline if the industry is ever to return to the former glories we saw a few years ago.

Unfortunately there are so many fast scams around at the moment that a newbie investor would lose his hard-earned cash if he is seduced by the get rich-quick schemes. Thanks to RoboticsOnline though a reasonable investor can enjoy about 5% profit on expiry of a fixed-term 12 business day deposit which can start from a $50 minimum and invested via BitCoin, LiteCoin, Ethereum and, most recently, USD Tether ERC-20. The total ROI will be 4% to 5% and will depend on the RoboticsOnline‘s performance that can differ depending on the company’s profitability in the cryptocurrency and robotics fields. Those two options are where RoboticsOnline allegedly makes money from and that is where the latest news is posted on their official Telegram channel. All the latest news from RoboticsOnline from the last seven days can be found below:

“Stout Agtech Offers Smart Cultivation
The Stout AgTech autonomous cultivator uses machine vision and AI to identify and cultivate crop and weeds. The innovative implement uses articulated “blades” to cut the undesired plants from their root systems.
The Stout Smart Cultivator is a solution to the mechanical cultivation needs of modern farming operations, especially for organic farmers.”

“Crypto Recovery Might Be On Its Way
JPMorgan has noted that the ongoing crypto crisis or deleveraging has hit an advanced stage.
The crypto market cap came down from a former high of $3 trillion to less than a trillion. The strategists firmly believe the worst has passed and the industry might very well be on its way to recovery.”

“CEO Of Hong Kong Securities Regulator
The UK Financial Conduct Authority is tapping into Hong Kong’s securities market regulator for a new chair. Ashley Alder, the CEO of the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, is set to become the new chair of the FCA.
Alder will occupy this position in January 2023, and he will be taking over from the current interim FCA Chair, Richard Lloyd.
Lloyd assumed the position of interim chair in May after Charles Randell left.”

“Delivery Robot Maker Starship Technologies
Starship Technologies, a pioneer in the outdoor robot delivery market, laid off 11% of its global workforce.
The company has engineering headquarters in Estonia, and business headquarters in San Francisco have been negatively impacted by the downward shifts in the global economy.
According to Digi Geenius, an Estonian news outlet, Starship also laid off a number of employees in March 2020, which is when the COVID-19 pandemic started to impact the world.
The delivery robots have been facing terrific international competition.”

“Investor Files Lawsuit Accusing Solana Labs
An investor in the SOL token has filed a class-action lawsuit against Solana Labs and other key parties within the Solana ecosystem. The lawsuit filed on July 1 in California, claims Solana’s native token SOL in an unregistered security.
This lawsuit comes amid increased concerns from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that most cryptocurrencies in the market are securities.”

“Price Of Mining GPUs Decline Amid Fall
Amid the fall of bitcoin prices, the prices of graphic cards, or GPUs, have also dropped, which is expected to help cryptocurrency miners offset operational costs amid the bear market.
Bitcoin mining sites have recorded declined revenues of more than 79.6% during the past nine months.
Despite the mining revenues hitting an ATH towards the end of last year, miners were still feeling the pinch of the increased prices of graphic processing units (GPUs) because of the supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Bacteria For Blastoff
Biofuel scientists used an oddball molecule made by bacteria to develop a new class of sustainable biofuels powerful enough to launch rockets.
The candidate molecules have a greater projected energy density than any petroleum product, including the leading aviation and rocket fuels, JetA and RP-1.”

That’s everything for this week, guys. Please keep your votes coming in the TalkBack poll here and stay active on the MNO ShoutBox even though the latest slowdown in the HYIP industry might be affecting your investment activities. I’m always here to help and I hope to talk to you again in a few days on MNO – For Money Lovers!