The Blockchain Bulletin, Dec 13: Australia Slams Kraken with AU$8M Fine

Heyya! Welcome back! Here is a recap of all that happened in the crypto community over the last 24 hours. The market is expecting an increase in investors with the Fear and Greed Index 78, indicating Greed. While Bitcoin dominance is at 54.71%, Ethereum is at 13.12%. The overall market cap is $3.6T, witnessing a slight dip of 0.45% over the past 24 hours.

Last day, the market saw a swift increase in the Pudgy Penguins NFT project as it crossed the $100K mark. Selling at 27.55 ETH, it surpassed Bitcoin with its value at $108,200. Notably, the Pudgy Penguins project is the second-largest NFT project. The first is CryptoPunks, which has a floor price of 39.5 ETH, worth $150K.

Adding to the excitement, the project announced the launch of its token $PENGU on the Solana blockchain. The token will reportedly have an 88.8B total supply and is stated to be a major development for the meme coin in trans-chain utilization. Although the token is being launched on Solana, the NFT project will be supported on Ethereum.

On the other hand, OKX, a crypto exchange located in Seychelles, has extended its support to Kemet Trading to improve clients’ trading technology with advanced derivatives. This will strengthen OKX members to enhance their portfolio management tools. Launched last year, Kemet had processed over $8B in trading volume, fuelled by the Order and Execution Management System (OEMS). With this partnership, OKX can enhance its institutional demand with sophisticated trading solutions.

Boosting crypto adoption, El Salvador has joined Argentina in enhancing blockchain technology and digital asset development. Also, the Central American country is in talks with 25 other countries for the adoption of crypto. Talking about the agreement, the prominent figures of both countries stated that the partnership would connect El Salvador’s regulations with Argentina’s blockchain technology, boosting cross-border cooperation in the digital asset market.

The crypto market was abuzz with activity after President-elect Donald Trump’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial, transferred about $10 million USDC for ETH. Also, the project added $1 million worth of AAVE and LINK tokens to its holdings. With these additions, the project can improve its cross-chain communication and data transmission on blockchains. Further, on December 13th, the project had additionally acquired about 37,052 LINK tokens worth $1M and 685 AAVE tokens for $246.7K.

On the political side, Brian Quintenz is stated to be the next Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A pro-crypto candidate, Quintenz is the head of the crypto division at Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z Crypto. Having a strong stand in crypto, Quintenz’s appointment is said to bring a significant change in the industry. 

Despite the market having a positive outlook, Kraken, one of the major crypto exchanges, faced regulation issues in Australia. Further, Kraken’s local operator in Australia was fined about $8 million in Australian dollars, which is about $5.1 million in USD. The Australian Federal Court slammed the fine on Bit Trade for violating ASIC’s rules by providing unlicensed services. 

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