Crypto Exchange WazirX Under Enforcement Directorate Lens, Robinhood Fined $30M, Ethereum Up 1%

As per a written reply by Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State for Finance said in Rajya Sabha, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is investigating two cases against WazirX under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).

"In one of the cases, investigation done so far has revealed that one Indian Crypto-exchange platform, WazirX, operated by Zanmai Labs Private Limited in India was using the walled infrastructure of Cayman Island based exchange BINANCE. Further it has been found that all crypto transactions between these 2 exchanges were not even being recorded on the blockchains and were thus cloaked in mystery," Chaudary was quoted by PTI as saying.

Meanwhile, the Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services (DFS) of New York, Adrienne Harris imposed a $30 million penalty on Robinhood Crypto, LLC (RHC) for failing to adhere to New York State rules regarding bank secrecy act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) obligations and cybersecurity laws and regulations. 

Superintendent Harris said in a press release, “As its business grew, Robinhood Crypto failed to invest the proper resources and attention to develop and maintain a culture of compliance—a failure that resulted in significant violations of the Department’s anti-money laundering and cybersecurity regulations.” 

In other news, during Ethereum’s (ETH) 92nd consensus layer call, researcher Alex Stokes raised some concerns about a possible MEV-boost failure, which could affect the way relay operators communicate with each other. Relay operators are the intermediaries between a blockchain’s block builders and its validators. However, this issue should have no impact on the timeline of Ethereum Merge, Stokes said in an interview to Coindesk.

Cryptocurrency Prices

The global crypto market capitalisation went up by 0.03 per cent to $1.06 trillion as of 8.50 am. The global crypto volume was up by 5.05 per cent to $77.33 billion, according to Coinmarketcap data.

Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s oldest cryptocurrency, was trading at $22,793.19, lower by 0.51 per cent in the last 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH) was up by 1.07 per cent to $1,608.50. 
 
Among other significant coins, Cardano (ADA) was down by 0.12 per cent at $0.4974, Algorand (ALGO) was trading with a loss of 2.65 per cent at $0.3234, Solana (SOL) was trading with a loss of 3.52 per cent at $38.69, Polkadot (DOT) fell 0.65 per cent at $7.83 and Binance Coin (BNB) was down by 1.96 per cent at $281.91.

Today’s top gainer was Cronos (CRO), which was up by 16.39 per cent at $0.1588. The top loser was Chiliz (CHZ), which was down by 12.97 per cent at $0.1337. 

Meme Coin And DeFi Prices

Dogecoin (DOGE) was down by 1.35 per cent at $0.06621. Its volume to market cap ratio stands at 0.03919. Rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) rose 0.76 per cent to $0.00001169.

Dogelon Mars (ELON) was down by 1.62 per cent to trade at $0.0000003258, Floki Inu (FLOKI) fell 1.29 per cent at $0.00001557, and Samoyed Coin (SAMO) fell 2.02 per cent at $0.01289. 

In the DeFi segment, YFI (yearn.finance) was down by 4.14 per cent at $10,611.12. Terra Classic (LUNC) was trading with a gain of 1.25 per cent at $0.00009967, Avalanche (AVAX) was up by 0.35 per cent at $22.67, Uniswap (UNI) was trading with a gain of 3.85 per cent at $8.20, and Aave (AAVE) rose 2.04 per cent at $93.53.