Haven1 news

After months of anticipation, the Haven1 snapshot took place today. We are excited to reward our loyal community members when we launch the public mainnet and can’t wait for the next chapter it will bring.

This week, we dropped alpha from the recent Consensus Hong Kong event, as CoinDesk’s flagship show landed in Asia, in a country that is becoming a world leader in digital assets.

We also teased the upcoming announcement of a new validator for Haven1—stay tuned for more on that very soon!

As always, you can keep an eye on our blog and follow our account on X for the latest news.

Regulation and compliance

1. US establishes Bitcoin reserve

President Trump signed an Executive Order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the US government. The reserves will be populated with Bitcoin that’s already in the hands of the federal government through seizures, etc. That’s estimated at around 200,000 Bitcoin—that’s around $17.5 billion in current prices.

The reserve is just Bitcoin, for now at least, and it doesn’t involve any new purchases. That could change in the future. Trump himself mentioned Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and Ripple, but that proved inaccurate for now.

First comes an audit on exactly what cryptocurrencies the US government owns. David Sacks, Trump’s crypto advisor, estimates the government has lost out on nearly $17 billion by selling seized Bitcoin for lower prices.

2. New York moves to criminalize crypto rug pulls

The proposed legislation promises to outlaw crypto fraud with punishments of up to $25 million for developers or companies that take part in rug-pulls, access private keys without authorization or fail to disclose financial interests.

“Under the proposed law, developers selling more than 10% of a virtual token’s total supply within five years of the last sale could face prosecution for rug pulls, with exceptions for smaller NFT projects,” Crypto Briefing reports.

This is precisely the type of legislation that is needed and we stand fully behind it. Our mission statement is to bring the benefits of DeFi and crypto to the world whilst removing rug pulls, scams and other malicious activity that causes users to lose millions of dollars on a near-daily basis.

3. Tether freezes $27M in stablecoins linked to Russian exchange

The stablecoin provider acted to freeze the USDT after the European Union sanctioned Garantex last month as part of sanctions on Russia in response to the war on Ukraine. The move forced the exchange to pause operations.

4. Vietnam moves to regulate crypto

Following on the heels of the US SEC working to develop a clear regulatory framework for digital assets, Vietnam is the latest country to work on regulating crypto. That’s significant since the country is one of the most mainstream in terms of crypto adoption based on numbers. Chainalysis ranked it fifth worldwide based on the total value of fiat currency flowing into crypto, and top dog when it comes to grassroots adoption.

DeFi 2.0

‍1. Japan set to launch first licensed stablecoin

A subsidiary of SBI, once affiliated with SoftBank, has become the first Japanese company to be licensed to issue a stablecoin in the country.

Japan has taken a heavy touch to regulation with stablecoins among the last pieces of crypto on the list. With its own regulated stablecoins, opportunities for DeFi, lending and other crypto-based finance will emerge to give Japan-based users new ways to use their digital assets.

Blockchain infrastructure

1. Redstone launches token

Blockchain oracle provider Redstone launched its native token on Ethereum. The network has a staking model to allow both data providers and token holders to participate in securing the network.

2. Cronos proposes controversial token unfreezing

Cronos, the blockchain affiliated with Crypto.com, announced a controversial proposal to unfreeze 70 billion of its CRO token which would be put into a reserve and used for activity including ETFs. The tokens are worth more than $50 billion based on current prices and were burned back in 2021.

Security

1. Safe publishes findings from Bybit hack

Safe, the secure protocol used by Bybit and other major crypto companies, published the findings of its investigation into the hack of Bybit, which saw a record $1.5 billion stolen by North Korea-affiliated attackers. At this early stage, the attack compromised a key developer’s laptop which was then used to manipulate settings to access Bybit’s security and transaction settings.

The Haven1 take

It’s never a dull week in the world of crypto.

It was another significant week for US-based news with the Trump administration announcing the US strategic Bitcoin reserve and the state of New York proposing a law to criminalize rug-pulls. Encouraging institutional involvement in crypto and banishing malicious activities are part of the core manifesto behind Haven1—and explain why we are building our ecosystem.

Before the weekend, here’s a surprise interview between Tucker Carlson and disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried which dropped this week. You may or may not want to watch it depending on your history using the exchange.

Keep an eye out for news from the White House’s crypto summit, which takes place later today (Friday) US time.

Weekly Crypto Recap: The US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve becomes official!