In This Week in Crypto, we’ll explore a few new treads, starting with RenBridge, Ethereum subnet Goerli, Polygon, Ripple, BlackRock, and Hotbit.

The weekly market breakdown:

• Bitcoin BTC: Up 3%

• Ethereum ETH: Up 11.47%

• Binance Coin BNB: Up 1.55%

• Solana SOL: Up 6.8%

• Dogecoin: Up 2.6%

• Cardano ADA: Up 3.78%

• Avalanche AVAX: Up 17.49%

• Celsius CEL: Up 94.35%

Crypto News From Around the World

RenBridge Facilitate $540 Million in Criminal Activity

According to a Wednesday report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, cryptocurrency thefts have laundered $540 million through RenBridge, a cross-chain decentralized exchange (DEX).

The cross-chain bridge facilitated the laundering of $540 million since 2020,  including $153 million in ransomware proceeds. The analytics firm believes North Korean hacking groups are largely responsible for these thefts. $2.4 million out of the nearly $200 million stolen from the Nomad hack were laundered on RenBridge.

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Source: Elliptic

Unlike their centralized counterparts, decentralized exchanges do not require Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, allowing anyone to freely move and swap crypto assets anonymously

Decentralized exchanges have a legitimate purpose for the community, but Elliptic stated that these applications provide cyber criminals with an alternative to “exchange value between multiple blockchains.” 

This means that anyone can convert stolen funds from one currency to another and move it through multiple blockchains to eliminate tracing —something they can’t do on regulated exchanges. This is also known as chain-hopping.

Ethereum Subnet Goerli Successfully Merges

The Ethereum Merge, the term used to describe Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), is on track after Goerli, an ETH subnet, successfully merged as a PoS chain. 

Goerli is the latest testnet to be deployed into a PoS system; some other ETH subnets that successfully merged include Ropsten and Sepolia.

This means —at least for now— that there will be no more delays for finally merging the Ethereum blockchain, which core developers announced September 19 as a tentative date. 

dApps on Polygon Top 37,000, a 400% Increase in 2022

The popular layer-2 solution Polygon has topped 37,000 decentralized applications (dApps), representing an increase of 400% since the beginning of 2022. The protocol also stated that the number of active dApp teams clocked over 11,000 at the end of July, up from over 8,000 in March.

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Polygon highlighted that “74% of teams integrated exclusively on Polygon, while 26% deployed on both Polygon and Ethereum.” The protocol attributes this substantial increase due to the massive adoption of Polygon on Alchemy, a leading blockchain development platform for dApp developers.

Ripple to Buy Celsius Assets?

It appears that Ripple Labs, the company behind XRP, is keen on buying assets from the controversial crypto lender Celsius.

The news was first reported by Reuters after a Ripple spokesperson told the publication that: “We are interested in learning about Celsius and its assets, and whether any could be relevant to our business.” Whether Ripple plans to further acquire Celsius is unknown, as the spokesperson declined to answer that question.

Ripple isn’t the only one interested in taking Celsius’ leftovers at a reasonable discount. On June 24th, Goldman Sachs showed its interest in raising over $2 billion from investors to buy the troubled crypto lender, according to a report from CoinDesk.

BlackRock Bitcoin Private Trust

BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, recently launched a US-based private trust to track the price of Bitcoin. Though light in detail, the company said the move comes as a response to its institutional clients showing “increasing interest” in Bitcoin and digital assets in general, despite the bearish market and BTC being 60% down from ATH. 

“Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets using our technology and product capabilities,” said BlackRock in a Thursday blog post.

On August 4th, BlackRock partnered with Coinbase in a bid to offer institutional clients new access points to trade Bitcoin using Coinbase Prime —Coinbase’s advanced trading platform for institutions.

Hotbit Halts User Suspend Services Due to Criminal Investigation

The old crypto adage “not your keys, not your keys” is again a truth in the form of a bucket of cold water since another cryptocurrency exchange, Hotbit, has suspended all services due to an ongoing criminal investigation concerning a former manager of the company. 

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Hotbit didn’t disclose which jurisdiction was leading the investigation. The only information provided was that: “a former Hotbit management employee who left Hotbit in April this year was involved in a project last year (which was against Hotbit’s internal principles and of which Hotbit was unknown) that law enforcement authorities now think is suspected of violating criminal laws.”

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