The Brazilian police have detained the likely creators of the fraudulent scheme for investing in cryptocurrencies GAS Consultoria. The operation, called “Operação Betka”, took place in Rio de Janeiro and was the fourth stage of Operation Cryptos, during which the head of GAS Consultoria, Glaidson Acácio dos Santos, was arrested last August. GAS Consultoria, headquartered in the popular resort of Cabo Frio, was founded by a former waiter and promised clients 10% or more per

The Brazilian government blockchain network is designed to help the country’s authorities increase the transparency of the movement of budget funds. The Rede Brasil de Blockchain (RBB) network project has been in development since 2018. At the Ethereum.Rio event, Gladstone Arantes, Head of Blockchain Initiatives at the Country Development Bank (BNDES), shared the technical details of the project. Arantes said that the developers have chosen a Hyperledger Besu 2.0 consensus protocol system as the base

The Ukrainian authorities have adopted a law that should regulate the circulation and use of cryptocurrencies. In February, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved the law “On Virtual Assets”, and on Wednesday, March 16, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine announced that President Volodymyr Zelensky had signed it. The law is intended to create conditions for the legal use of cryptocurrencies on the territory of Ukraine. The National Securities and Stock Market Commission of

The largest US payment system has filed an application for registration of seven new trademarks related to non-fungible tokens and Web3. Metaverse Trademark Attorney Michael Kondoudis tweeted today that one of the largest credit card companies, American Express, has filed seven new trademark applications. The corporation has registered several names and logos, including AMEX, MEMBERSHIP REWARDS and SHOP SMALL. Kondoudis said that everything indicates that the company plans to take its place in the metaverse

Former Meta employees working on the now-defunct Diem stablecoin project have raised $200 million to attract developers to Aptos, a new cryptocurrency project. Aptos was founded by Novi’s former Head of Strategic Partnerships, Mo Shaikh, and the same company’s CTO, Avery Ching. At Aptos, they hold the positions of CEO and CTO, respectively. Bloomberg reports that the Aptos development team is working on a first-level blockchain using the Move programming language created for Diem. The

A Spanish multinational bank is developing the possibility of providing loans secured by tokens of agricultural products. Banco Santander announced the creation of a system for providing loans secured by commodity tokens. The project is being developed jointly with the Argentine startup Agrotoken, which previously launched grain-backed tokens. Tokens allow manufacturers to make full-fledged transactions with goods. The bank has already carried out a test run of the system. Santander claims that this is the

Princeton University, one of the oldest universities in the US, is launching an initiative to study blockchain in depth and its impact on social institutions, as well as to find new applications of the technology. According to Bloomberg, former students at Princeton University donated about $20 million to the project, including Peter Bridger of Fortress Investment, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin, Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead, and Galaxy Digital founder Michael Novogratz. The project aims to

The Danish banking project Lunar has attracted additional investments and plans to open its own platform for the sale of cryptocurrencies and b2b payments. Lunar’s new funding round was a continuation of last year’s investment series D. Last summer, neobank Lunar attracted investments in the amount of €210 million for the development of cryptocurrency projects. A total of €345 million was raised, which allowed Lunar’s capitalization to approach €2 billion. The Danish neobank has a

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the US Department of Justice have charged four suspects with creating the JetCoin cryptocurrency pyramid and defrauding investors for a total of $44 million. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accused three US citizens: Dwayne Golden, Gregory Aggesen and Marquis Egerton, as well as Indian citizen Jatin Patel of fraud and extortion. The agency claims that they organized cryptocurrency schemes called Empowercoin and Ecoinplus, with the help of which

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