Cryptocurrency News Today TheBitTimes.com

Stuart Hoegner leaves roles as Tether and Bitfinex general counsel Stuart Hoegner, the long-time general counsel of sister firms Tether and Bitfinex, appears to have left the firm. This is based on a change to his bio on X, which now reads, “Former GC @Bitfinex @Tether_to.” This ends a decade at these firms. Hoegner originally joined Bitfinex back in 2014, according to his LinkedIn account. Archives for Tether’s “About Us” page show that Hoegner was still listed as the firm’s general counsel as recently as Christmas Eve. Tether: Ten years, 100,000,000,000 USDT, and still no audit Read more: Tether’s Q3 attestations prove that it can’t quit secured loans Now the page only lists Chief Exec Paolo Ardoino, Chief Financial Officer Giancarlo Devasini, and Chief Operating Officer Claudia Lagorio.  For Bitfinex’s part, archives show that Hoegner was still listed in November but currently isn’t. Tether r...

Justin Sun has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to explain that “all exchanges in the industry have already implemented proof of reserves (PoR).” He followed up this pronouncement by further emphasizing that “there is only one explanation for why” exchanges have yet to do it — “they are unable to meet the requirements.” This reveal was somewhat surprising as Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange owned by Sun, has not implemented PoR, and as such we are forced to conclude that Poloniex is also “unable to meet the requirements.” Poloniex has a page on its website that claims to be a “Proof of Reserves,” but this page only shows how much Tron is on Poloniex, neglecting every single other asset.  Poloniex proof-of-reserves and WBTC backing missing These issues become especially interesting in light of the fact that Sun has recently focused so many of his criticisms on the newly launched cbBTC, Coinbase’s wrapped-Bitc...

BitGo announced on Friday that it’s transforming its wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) product into a new partnership with BiT Global (or maybe it’s BitGlobal. The company — formerly Bithumb — switches between the names on the English version of its website) and Justin Sun.  Having previously operated the product, BitGo will now be a “minority shareholder” in the new venture. BitGo’s WBTC WBTC is offered on several different chains, with the largest and most important being the assets on Ethereum. There are currently over 154,000 WBTC on Ethereum from this product, worth over $9 billion.  It is also offered on Base, Kava, Osmosis, and Tron, but those products are a tiny fraction of the size of the WBTC on Ethereum.  MakerDAO delegates have reacted to the news about the change by suggesting that the limits for WBTC as collateral be reduced. Mike Belshe, the founder and CEO of BitGo, jumped in to the discussion but was unable to share B...