Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have crossed into that realm of popularity where various platforms are ranked, with industry observer Comparitech launching its Worldwide NFT Heists tracker.

NFTs have sold for as much as $92 million, but their financial value is still a point of great controversy in the traditional financial, financial technology (fintech), payments and cryptocurrency industries.

Researchers at Comparitech have been tracking NFT thefts for more than two years ever since the first NFT was stolen in early 2020. More than $86 million in NFT value has been pilfered since then, according to Comparitech research.

Much like financial threats and security in general, growing attacks on NFTs boil down to bad actors attempting to attack areas where they see the most money flowing. (Case in point: In December 2021, one NFT called "The Merge" sold for an eye-popping $92 million.)

Rebecca Moody, head of data research at Comparitech, pointed out that the companys research have been tracking NFT heists since they initially came to light more than two years ago. In the past two and a half years, $86 million has been stolen from these sites, with increasing attacks this year just like cryptocurrency in general. According to Comparitech, the 10 most significant NFT heists (based on the U.S. dollar amount stolen at the time of the attack) have been:

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This tracker lists and ranks the biggest heists of NFT cryptocurrency - SC Media

Turkey was the largest cryptocurrency market in the Middle East in 2021, with the exchange volume expanding by some 1,500% y/y, according to data from Chainalysis.

Attorney Burcak Unsal, an expert in cryptocurrencies, noted that the Turkish transaction cryptocurrency volume last year was one of the biggest in the world. Statista Portal, meanwhile, presented data showing Turkey was the worlds fourth biggest cryptocurrency market in 2020 in relation to the number of users.

Forty cryptocurrency exchanges are currently operating in Turkey, the Middle Easts largest economy and home to around 85mn people. The most popular platforms are Bitcoin, Paribu, BTC Turk and Binance.

The attraction of cryptocurrencies in emerging market Turkey stems from the high volatility and plummeted valueof the Turkish lira (TRY), the local currency. Since 2020, the chronic depreciation of the lira has driven many private actors to find a more secure way to invest and save their money. The lira's exchange rate against the dollar has not been stable for a decade. Between 2013 and 2018, the national currency depreciated by 4 times against the USD. It lost 44% of its value in 2021 and year to date in 2022 it has shed more than another 25%, bringing total losses in the last three years to around 70%.

The high inflation rate in the country-an official 80% in July but more than twice that according to some independent analysis by Istanbul economistsaggravated by detrimental monetary policy pursued by the Turkish central bank and government in the drive for growth has raised the attraction of the cryptocurrency market for Turks. The central bank refuses to budge on interest rates, declining to bring in hikes despite loud calls from the market as it attempts to flip the chronic Turkish trade deficit into a surplus. Rampant inflation and a collapse lira are here to stay for consumers and investors in Turkey in these circumstances. The government, meanwhile, attempts to curb the fall of the lira by restricting access to FX for residents, often in vain.

Hard currency instability

Finally, hard currencies are subject to instability amid a global inflationary scene with surged oil and gas prices. Turkish residents who relied on the dollar and other strong foreign currencies to protect their savings have become more reluctant to rely solely on such fiat money to protect their assets and investments. Thus, cryptocurrencies become more and more popular while the national fiat money is perceived as less stable than digital assets. A similar trend is visible in South America and Africa. According to surveys, the percentage of Turkish residents using cryptocurrencies was 16% to 20% between 2020 and 2022. Turan Sert, from Paribu, the biggest cryptocurrency platform in Turkey, said that in the past it was dollarization, meaning that to avoid fluctuations in their domestic currency people kept their assets in dollars [] now the recent trend is being called cryptolization.

Unsal explained that Turkish residents have invested massively in cryptocurrencies since confidence in the lira has been on the wane for a very long time. On digital platforms, anyone can invest small amounts easily without prior technical knowledge, contrary to the stock market and in FX trading and real estate. These options are less accessible, more expensive and are submitted for state taxes.

That said, the cryptocurrency market in Turkey is not entirely safe and stable. Fluctuations, sometimes quite dramatic, are often expected, particularly when it comes to worldwide platforms, owing to restrictive measures taken simultaneously in different countries (in Russia, China, India and Qatar). Bitcoin fell to a record low recently following Chinese steps brought in against digital currencies.

Moreover, two Turkish cryptocurrency platforms closed in April 2021. The CEO of Thodex, Faruk Fatih Ozer, allegedly fled to Albania with more than two billion dollars of funds invested in his platform, with several of his alleged accomplices arrested in Turkey. A few days later, cryptocurrency platform Vebitcoin ceased its activities in Turkey and four of its employees were arrested. Investors could not access their funds placed in their digital wallets.

This case increased suspicion of the Turkish state in terms of cryptocurrencies traded on its territory. The government seems to fear that cryptocurrencies will decrease the value of, and confidence in, the fiat national currency. Officials started to adopt a negative stance towards the market, even while Turks were increasingly using the option for savings or investments.

The growing suspicion was apparent when the Turkish central bank implemented a Regulation on Prohibiting Payments with Crypto-Assets on April 16, 2021, to ban the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment for goods and services in Turkey. According to this law, the Turkish platforms are not allowed to propose any system for transferring cryptocurrencies into a fiat currency. However, the law does not impose a complete ban on cryptocurrencies in Turkey. Chairman of the Turkish central bank, Sahap Kavcioglu stated that the legislation was necessary to implement a balanced system for digital money.

On May 1, 2021, amendments were implemented via a presidential decree to the Regulation on Measures on the Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism. Cryptocurrency providers must report their activities to the Turkish Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) and provide customer identification. The law was adopted to avoid the use of digital money as a means of transaction in criminal or terrorist activities due to a lack of state control. Suspicious activities must be reported directly by the digital providers to MASAK regardless of the transaction amount and for all transactions of more than TRY75,000 (around $4,200).

National branches

In May, Turkish authorities were said to be working on a draft bill implementing more control on the cryptocurrency market and platforms. According to Turkish press reports, the law would target the securing of cryptocurrencies in the banking sector. The National Capital Market Board would issue permits for platforms to operate in the country. According to this law, a platform would need capital of $6.1mn to run their business. Foreign platforms would have to set up national branches that could be taxed in Turkey.

Analysts complained that the legislation would neither be favourable to the Turkish economy nor to the security of digital users. According to Unsal, the cryptocurrency market should be subject to controls under comprehensive legislation and Turkey was too late with its implementation; the proposed moves would not foster the development of Turkish investments.

Another market observer, Bora Erdama, said Turkey's cryptocurrency market has a very high potential at the international level: If Turkey becomes a good bridge in the crypto-assets ecosystem, there will be significant capital inflows into the country, never mind the worry of money flowing out of the country. Istanbul and Turkey will become a centre of attraction for the crypto-asset ecosystem." Protectionist measures adopted by the government could jeopardise this development, Erdamar said, adding that the decree implemented on April 16, 2021, preventing the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, brought about the end of ventures for many start-up entrepreneurs.

Cryptocurrency expert Vedat Guven concluded that this step to prevent such use could dampen projects based on blockchain technologies in Turkey. Guven said cryptocurrency platforms were crucial in the development of this technology.

The Turkish government, meanwhile, tried to propose alternatives, controlled by the state, for the unregulated cryptocurrency market. The government talked of plans to shortly launch a national digital currency, the Digital Turkish Lira Cooperation Platform, regulated by the Turkish Central Bank. The national digital currency was to mitigate risks for investors in the digital market. The central bank would propose digital wallets and transfers based on blockchain technology.

Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last year affirmed during a national youth meeting that he was leading a war against private cryptocurrencies. He said he would instead foster the development of the national digital currency. According to cryptocurrency expert Artem Deev, many countries were creating a national cryptocurrency to ensure control of private exchanges, perceived as competitors, and escape from regulation.

Deev added that the trend, seen in China and Russia, for instance, could provide a strategy to weaken the private cryptocurrency market in Turkey, clearing the way for to present state-sponsored digital assets as legitimate financial assets.

However, even given the negative events and publicity that have surrounded the private sphere cryptocurrency market in the past year, the use of the market is expected to continue to grow among the Turkish population. According to Sima Baktas, a Turkish expert in cryptocurrencies: Even mainstream TV channels talk about crypto now, and even when they show very bad news about crypto, Turkish people get more into crypto, because it appears they dont care about that bad news showing crypto as some kind of unreliable sector.

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Home of the humbled lira, Turkey's the biggest cryptocurrency market in the Middle East - bne IntelliNews

Recently, the European Parliament and the European Commission have provisionally agreed on the regulation project aimed at the cryptocurrency market called Markets in Crypto-Asset Regulation (MiCA). We can already notice certain principles by which respective authorities worldwide will highly likely regulate the crypto asset projects. MiCA is the first forthcoming international regulation in the largest single market on the planet aimed at cryptocurrency businesses.

The European Union (EU) is ready to become a global pioneer to set the standards of a comprehensive crypto regulation that many other jurisdictions may integrate into their own crypto legislation or at least use MiCA as a reference. The planned stablecoins regulation in the United States (US) is postponed. However, there is a high chance that the US regulation may derive certain principles from the MiCA to at least partly harmonize such an international industry as crypto. That is why it is essential to understand the logic of how European lawmakers want to treat crypto businesses.

Today we can already notice and highlight the critical trends by which the international regulation of cryptocurrency is very likely to occur.

1. Crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) will be regulated similarly to financial institutions. Recognizing cryptocurrency providers as a particular type of financial institution will entail several specialized requirements that businesses must adopt. Such conditions will include:

2.Cryptocurrencies will be divided into four types with different rules applying to a specific token type:

3.Stablecoins will be regulated similar to electronic money, with the requirement for the issuers to hold a certain amount of their own capital, segregate customers funds and comply with rules of reserve capital investment (it will be allowed to allocate such capital only into highly liquid and low-risk assets). There is also a high probability that lawmakers may introduce a maximum cap on the volume of daily transactions using stablecoins (as MiCA already does), since such tokens may very well pose a threat to national currencies. Such features of stablecoins as low transaction fees, round-the-clock network availability, and absence of bank-like financial monitoring on incoming and outgoing transactions, are all significant advantages over using traditional fiat money operated via highly regulated financial institutions. This is a risk some national governments already understand, so they started to work on their own digital currencies known asCentral Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). We will see how this rivalry will unfold; however, it is almost certain that in the future, there will be regulatory pressure put on stablecoins, making them less flexible and liquid.

4.Security tokens will be traded on specialized exchanges and fall under similar laws applicable to the offering of securities, including prospectus document requirements and disclosure of corporate information. Most likely that specialized securitization funds will act as issuing entities for security tokens.

5.Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) sectors will become subject to the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) rules. For now, it is not yet quite clear how in practice these rules will apply to such innovative spheres of the crypto industry. Nevertheless, European lawmakers have already expressed their intent to apply AML/CFT rules to DAO and DeFi that are controlled directly or indirectly, including through smart contracts or voting protocols. Similar financial monitoring rules may as well apply to the NFTs as, in most cases, they are indeed traceable on the blockchain, technically allowing for their origin and trades to be monitored.

6.Anonymous cryptocurrency will be considered a high-risk asset, which will be difficult to use and convert, as regulated cryptocurrency platforms will be likely banned from offering and trading it.

7.Crypto travel rule that requires the cryptocurrency transfer service provider to disclose the cryptocurrency sender's identity to the cryptocurrency receiver's service provider, will become a norm almost in every jurisdiction. Only peer-to-peer transactions from one unhosted wallet (the crypto wallet over which its user maintains complete control) to another unhosted wallet will remain relatively private means of transacting crypto tokens.

As can already be seen from the proposed methods of crypto regulation in the EU, the legislative momentum has been given with quite an understood tone of the proposed rules. National governments will require a certain level of customer interest protection from cryptocurrency service providers, responsible issuance of crypto tokens (including its effects on the environment from mining mechanisms), and analogous governance for tokenized securities as for the traditional form of this financial instrument. Having control over stablecoins, which pose threat to a governmental monopoly to control the movement of national currencies, is also one of the essential aspects of the regulatory objectives. AML/CFT rules will be comprehensively applicable, including decentralized products. The crypto travel rule will make it harder for people and companies to interact privately with cryptocurrencies.

All of the above constitute a natural legal adoption of innovative technologies that is required for the industry to make it safer for customers and more controlled for the governments. The cryptocurrency industry may significantly benefit from its widespread regulation as it will make it less risky and thus more attractive for investment by large institutions and later adopters. An alternative path for the cryptocurrency industry would be a total government ban, prohibition of mining, transaction, service provision, and any other activity in the industry. However, since this industry has already managed to grow quite successfully, for the national governments it already seems almost impossible to stifle it in the bud. Therefore, for legislators worldwide, the task is to regulate the cryptocurrency industry rather than fight it.

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Perspectives of Global Cryptocurrency Regulation - Finextra

Users of the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX are actively looking for new ways to deposit their cryptos to other exchanges. This comes days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said it had frozen bank balances of Rs 64.67 crore belonging to WazirX.

I dont wish to take any further risks, said Nishant Bhalerao, 28, a Mumbai based crypto investor who has deactivated his account on WazirX and is eyeing other crypto exchanges for trading.

According to the ED, Chinese loan lending companies that were shut down in India diverted their funds through crypto exchanges, and the maximum amount of funds was diverted to the WazirX exchange. Since then, the trading volume at WazirX has plunged. On August 6, the trading volume was $8.11 million, which plunged to $4.64 million on August 7 and tanked to $3.06 million on August 11, a drop of 90 per cent, as per crypto analytics platform Nomics.

A source close to WazirX told indianexpress.com that withdrawals at WazirX were high as the news of ED probing WazirX surfaced, but it is slowly now tapering off.

Ritesh Kalvellu, 28, a Pune-based HR and a crypto investor created an account on CoinDCX after the Twitter spat between WazirX CEO Nishchal Shetty and Binance CEO Changepeng Zhao caused confusion about the true owner of the platform. How can I trust WazirX anymore? If there is a dispute between the ownership itself, how is it possible for us to put our hard-earned savings on the platform, asked Kalvellu.

Zhao made it clear that it does not own WazirX, as there was no transfer of shares. However, Shetty said that Zanmai Labs, the entity that owns WazirX has a license from Binance to operate INR-crypto pairs. Further, he said that Binance operates crypto to crypto pairs, and processes crypto withdrawal for the company.

Another crypto trader, Aneesh Matthews, 34, said he transferred all of his crypto assets to hot wallets (offline crypto wallets). Every day a new platform is either being targeted by authorities or being shut by crypto companies. I wont be trading my assets for a while, but will keep it safe.

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WazirX users eye other Indian cryptocurrency exchanges after ED probe - The Indian Express

Cryptocurrency adoption across the globe has been moving slower than most would like, but there is no doubt that there has been a lot being done so far. It started with El Salvadors adoption of bitcoin as a legal tender, and it has spiraled from there. One thing that is yet to be done is a cryptocurrency backed by a nation. While other countries have gone the path of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the Central African Republic has introduced an innovative monetary system to the world.

Sango is a Layer 2 solution that is built on top of the bitcoin blockchain. When they say Sango is bitcoin-backed, it doesnt mean just backed by BTC coins, but that the entire system is built atop the largest decentralized network in the world. The Sango sidechain is also backed by the Central African Republic, making it the first and only cryptocurrency ecosystem to be backed by a nation.

The CAR, like other nations, has moved further in its drive to adopt digital assets as citizens of the world move in that direction. Sango will power a new digital monetary system that is being developed by the country by taking all of the good bits of the bitcoin network and improving on areas where the network falls short. This sort of infrastructure is only possible through using blockchain technology.

By being a sidechain, Sango can bypass the network congestion that bogs down the bitcoin network by distributing the load across a second layer. This helps Sango to improve scalability, offer more privacy, and enhance programmability using smart contracts. It will enable users to make faster payments, as well as cross-border remittances.

Faustin-Archange Touadra, the President of the Central African Republic, has put forward that SANGO Coin will be the currency of the next generation. It is no surprise that the president has made such a bold statement, given the capabilities and applications of the SANGO Coin.

SANGO Coin transcends just being used as a means of payment. Yes, it can be used to carry out fast and efficient transactions, but the SANGO Coin utilities far exceed anyones expectations. Being backed by bitcoin, it already has a strong foundation coming into the cryptocurrency market.

Investing in SANGO Coin also opens the doors to the Central African Republics natural resources, which are currently valued at more than $3 trillion. Individuals can also apply for citizenship through investment by buying SANGO Coins, as well as applying for e-residency for individuals and corporations who wish to exist as digital entities in the country.

Throughout history, there have been times when something new has overthrown the existing system. This can come in the form of new ways to invest or a new currency that overtakes the existing one. Sango actually provides both.

Bitcoin is already a known and accepted store of value, so the SANGO Coin benefits from this establishment too. Since Sango will be pegged to bitcoin, users will also be able to transact with wrapped bitcoin (s-BTC) in the Sango ecosystem.

The infrastructure that makes up the Sango ecosystem has been designed to serve the needs of governmental structures in a way bitcoin was not built to do. This is why building on the bitcoin blockchain but creating a new cryptocurrency was the best path for CAR.

The utility of the SANGO Coin has already earned it accolades from prominent bitcoin evangelists such as MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor and Binance CEO Changing Zhao. Other African countries are now also looking to CARs system in hopes of implementing a similar one.

SANGO Coins are currently available for sale on the website at a discounted $0.10 per coin.

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Global Adoption Of Cryptocurrency The First Cryptocurrency Backed By A Nation - NewsBTC