🔥 GPT-4 release stirs up the space

🔥 GPT-4 release stirs up the space 🙅 ChipMixer gets taken down, $46.3 million worth of crypto seized by authorities 🦧 Reimagining DeFi: from "fiat killers" to "on-chain finance"

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🔥 GPT-4 release stirs up the space

🙅 ChipMixer gets taken down, $46.3 million worth of crypto seized by authorities

🦧 Reimagining DeFi: from "fiat killers" to "on-chain finance"

GPT-4 release stirs up the space

AI tokens are pumping as the space is stoked by OpenAI’s GPT-4 release. The new version of the software allegedly can process 1,000 times more information and has improved search capabilities which now accept images and video along with text input.

The data from CoinGecko shows AI gains were far higher than the rest of the market. SingularityNET's $AGIX experienced an incredible surge of 25% in a single night, and others such as Fetch.ai's $FET, Ocean Protocol's $OCEAN and Numeraire ($NMR) gained a double digit percentage increase in value.

It's worth to note that 'Smart Money' tab from Nansen chain analytics website shows that big investors weren't interested at all in the tokens and didn't participate in the rally. This implies that the recent AI token pump is more hype-driven than anything else - meaning that the gains will be short lived, as a sustainable rise in a token’s price is usually built upon accumulation by big investors and institutions.

ChipMixer gets taken down, $46.3 million worth of crypto seized by authorities

Another crypto mixer goes down as authorities are increasingly targeting such services for their involvement in illegal activities. This time German authorities, supported by four other countries, have taken down ChipMixer and seized up to 44 million euros ($46.3 million) worth of crypto from the platform.

The seizure was coordinated by Europol and included 2009.4 bitcoins (BTC) ($47.7 million), four servers and 7 terabytes of data. This is yet another example of law enforcement agencies around the world taking action against crypto mixers and other financial services connected to anonymous crypto transactions.

Minh Quốc Nguyễn, one of ChipMixer's operators, was arrested in US on Wednesday and charged with money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and identity theft. The US authorities claim that the platform has laundered 152,000 BTC ($3.8 billion) since 2017 and was allegedly used to facilitate ransomware groups, illicit goods trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

ChipMixer's closure is the latest in a wave of law enforcement crackdowns on financial infrastructure that facilitates anonymous transactions. Expect more of the same in the coming months as governments across the world continue to take a hard stance on crypto.

Reimagining DeFi: from "fiat killers" to "on-chain finance"

The recent events involving SVB have laid bare the fragility of decentralized finance networks and how their components interact with one another. According to some experts, USDC’s depegging from the U.S. dollar was a wake-up call for the industry, as it exposed the risk of relying on centralized services and their ability to affect the value of a stablecoin.

Here's for example an opinion from Ignas, a DeFi researcher:

According to him, the banking system, government and other third-party providers remain major points of failure for DeFi networks. While USDC is seen as one of the safest collaterals for DeFi, its stability rests on trust in traditional financial institutions and their reserves. In addition to this, many DeFi products are built on Ethereum-based infrastructure which is vulnerable to censorship or other manipulations by governments. This means that while DeFi networks may offer higher yields and more customization options compared to traditional finance, they are also more liable to external events and can be shut down at any time if desired.

He proposes that instead of referring to DeFi as a disruptive technology, it should be rebranded as something he calls "on-chain finance". The purpose of this rebranding would be to emphasize the fact that it is a form of finance based on cryptography, with all transactions taking place on a blockchain, but which still relies on the same external factors as traditional finance. By doing so, it retains all the key benefits of DeFi such as self-custody wallets but reduces reliance on third-party custodians, exchanges, and gateways.

He argues that this will help bring more security and transparency to DeFi networks, making them less vulnerable to shocks from external factors. But it will not remain decentralized in its purest form, as it will be subject to some (in reality - total) degree of control from governments or other centralized entities. So in a way, he's saying that DeFi as you know it is not really possible anymore, but it can be reimagined as a more secure and transparent form of finance.

The media often likened crypto to the Wild West, yet like frontier outlaws that gradually disappeared, it appears DeFi is slowly being reined in.