Ron DeSantis vows to protect Bitcoin in new presidential campaign, Crypto fraud jumps by 40%

Florida Governor DeSantis vows to protect Bitcoin in 2024 presidential campaign launch

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched his presidential campaign on Twitter Wednesday, and said he will protect Bitcoin if elected president in 2024.

In the Twitter Spaces event, DeSantis said that the Biden administration will “probably end up killing [Bitcoin]” if allowed to serve another four-year term.

The statement comes as several large crypto firms are expanding operations overseas amid regulatory uncertainty.

DeSantis has also voiced opposition to creating a US Central Bank Digital Currency and proposed last month to ban them in his home state.

NOW READ: Crypto bridge Multichain in turmoil over stuck funds and arrest rumours

UK crypto fraud losses surpass £300m

UK crypto fraud losses jumped by 40% last year, climbing above £300 million for the first time, the Financial Times reported.

Citing figures from British fraud agency Action Fraud, the newspaper said the crypto scams were part of a wider fraud epidemic, which accounted for 40% of all reported crimes in England and Wales in 2022.

Over a third of the losses occurred in November, the same way that Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire FTX filed for bankruptcy.

NOW READ: Recovering scammed assets should be easier with blockchain data but it’s not

Court tears up Do Kwon’s €400,000 bail

A Montenegrin high court revoked bail for Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon on Wednesday.

The fallen crypto king and his former chief financial officer had both previously been granted a €400,000 bail earlier in May.

However, the court decision on Wednesday tore up the decision following fears that the two men are a flight risk.

They were arrested in March, accused of attempting to travel with fake documents.

NOW READ: Fallen crypto titan Do Kwon to stay in Montenegro jail after bail revoked

Coinbase partners with Vienna-based Bitpanda in overseas custody deal

Coinbase announced a partnership with Austrian crypto investment business Bitpanda on Wednesday, which will help the US-listed exchange connect with European banks, Business Insider reported.

In return, Coinbase will provide liquidity and custody services for Bitpanda, with non-US institutional being clients able to build trade infrastructure for several assets including cryptocurrencies.

The company has sought to expand outside of the US following legal actions from agencies such as the Securities Exchange Commission.

NOW READ: Lawyer for Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev sees hope in Chainalysis data at heart of Dutch case

Stablecoin market shrinks for 14th straight month

The stablecoin market has dropped to its lowest market capitalisation since September 2021 as it approaches a 14th consecutive down month, according to numbers from DefiLlama.

The total market cap of stablecoins is currently around $129 billion, down 32% from all-time highs of $189 billion in April of last year.

Stablecoins represent liquidity in crypto markets, and some analysts say that the shrinking number indicates the bear market is not over.

Sushiswap and Lido clash over $72,000 in stolen funds

Popular DeFi projects Sushiswap and Lido clashed over funds stolen in a multi-million dollar hack in their respective communities this week.

The tensions began in April, when Sushiswap was attacked and had $3.3 million stolen, with the majority of the funds being sent to a Lido vault contract.

While the majority of funds were distributed automatically to Lido users and are non-recoverable, Sushiswap is fighting for 40 ETH, worth about $72,000, that was sent to Lido’s treasury.

Lido’s governance body, LidoDAO, created a governance vote to return the funds, but the vote did not pass in Sushiswap’s favour.

A new proposal has been created, but appears to be doomed to fail as well.

Cybersecurity firm Unciphered allegedly hacks into popular Trezor T wallet

Cybersecurity firm Unciphered says they can hack into one of the most popular hardware crypto wallets, the Trezor T model, after they released a Youtube video Wednesday which apparently demonstrated a method for acquiring the device’s private seed phrase.

The company claims the method requires a hacker to be in physical possession of the device, with access to a powerful array of specialised equipment.

Nonetheless, Unciphered stated that for Trezor to fix the issue would require a full recall of the devices.

Trezor responded by emphasising the “extremely sophisticated technological knowledge and equipment” required to execute such a hack, and said it was working on a new security measure to address the issue.

More web3 news from around the web…

Shaq hit with lawsuits over Solana NFT project, FTX during NBA game — Decrypt

Crypto execs give Washington influence another go with FTX anchor around necks — CoinDesk

Apple, Android could get mobile version of web3 game Gods Unchained — The Block