Weekly Digest: Russian Military Operations in Ukraine, OpenSea Launches Investigation

What happened to crypto market this week

The price of Bitcoin dropped to $35,000 sharply after Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Donbass. In a video message, Ukrainian president Volodymir Zelensky announced the country had put martial law into effect. The Russian military is targeting Ukraine's military infrastructure, aviation, air defense facilities and military airfields.

NFT marketplace OpenSea launched an investigation due to "rumors of an exploit" related to its smart contracts. The company reported that it is a phishing attack, so no vulnerability had been found in the platform. Last Friday, February 18, the OpenSea smart contract was rebooted. The goal of this move was to remove old offers to sell NFTs from the platform and to fix a vulnerability that allowed the purchase of some tokens at prices many months old, even if they were not displayed in the marketplace interface.

Nigeria's central bank digital currency (CBDC) dubbed eNaira may cause new money-laundering/financing of terrorism (ML/FT) risks, the International Monetary Fund warned in a recent report. Although the CBDC brings financial inclusion and reduces informality, Nigeria's digital currency may also pose "disintermediation risks" as digital wallets may be considered by citizens as "safer and more convenient than commercial bank deposits," the IMF noted.

China from now on will jail those who found guilty of raising funds by selling cryptocurrencies as its supreme court amended its interpretation of the criminal law. According to a statement published on the court's website, those who commit a fraudulent fundraising crime will be punished by imprisonment for a term of three to seven years. China will also sanction those who break the rules with a fine from $15,000 up to $700,000. The amendment will come into force on March 1.