FTX Taps Galaxy to Sell, Stake and Hedge Its Crypto Billions (CoinDesk)
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX wants to start selling, staking and hedging its sizable crypto holdings – and is seeking to hire Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy as an advisor to help, according to court filings made late Wednesday evening. FTX, which collapsed in November last year, wants to return funds to creditors in fiat currency rather than bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH) – but hopes careful trading can avoid denting the value of over $3 billion in crypto holdings.
Mastercard, Visa Step Back From Binance Card Partnerships (Bloomberg)
Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. stepped back from their card partnerships with Binance Holdings, distancing themselves from the cryptocurrency platform that’s under threat from regulators worldwide. Visa stopped issuing new co-branded cards with Binance in Europe as of July, a spokesperson for Binance said. Mastercard Inc., meanwhile, will end its card partnership with Binance entirely in September. Mastercard declined to give a reason for the move. Visa didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Coinbase, in Uncharted Territory as Public Company Running Blockchain, Pledges Neutrality (CoinDesk)
Crypto exchange Coinbase released a plan to pursue decentralization and neutrality for its new “Base” blockchain, just weeks after the network went live. The new framework is known as the “Base Neutrality Principles.” According to a blog post by Coinbase, the principles are meant to align with Optimism's “Law of Chains,” a framework meant to unify various chains built in keeping with the project’s vision for a “Superchain.” (Base is built with technology from Optimism’s OP Stack.)
Coinbase Is Talking With Canadian Banking Giants to Promote Crypto (CoinDesk)
U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase is in talks with Canadian banking giants, trying to convince them to support the crypto ecosystem in that nation, which the company recently entered as it grapples with regulatory uncertainty in its home country. In an interview with CoinDesk, Lucas Matheson, the director of Coinbase’s Canada operations, said that he’s been having conversations with Canada’s tier one banks. He didn’t identify them by name, but Canada’s largest banks are collectively known as the Big Five: Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
SEC Crackdown Spurs Bitstamp to Stop US Crypto Staking Service (Bloomberg)
Bitstamp, one of the oldest digital-asset exchanges, will discontinue staking services in the US amid a crackdown on the product by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The decision was made in the light of “current regulatory dynamics” in the US, Bistamp’s national Chief Executive Officer Bobby Zagotta said in a statement. The move takes effect on Sept. 25, he added.
Shopify Customers Can Now Pay In USDC Via Solana Pay (CoinDesk)
Solana Pay, the payment protocol built on the Solana blockchain, is now plugged into e-commerce giant Shopify, allowing users to pay in USD Coin (USDC), the companies announced Wednesday. With the integration, users will be able to connect Solana-centric crypto wallets, like Phantom, and settle payments on-chain with merchants using USDC. While USDC, one of the most popular dollar-linked stablecoins, is the first payment option to be enabled via the integration, other crypto assets will follow in the future, a representative of the Solana Foundation told CoinDesk.
Tornado Cash’s Storm Arrested by FBI, Semenov Added to Sanctions List (The Block)
Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm has been arrested while fellow co-founder Roman Semenov added to a list of individuals and companies subject to have their assets blocked and prohibited from doing business with U.S. persons. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, announced Wednesday that Semenov has been added to its Specially Designated Nationals list of sanctioned companies and individuals.
FTX Bankruptcy Burning Through $1.5M in Legal Costs Every Day (CoinDesk)
The dismantling of FTX is piling up as much as $1.5 million a day in bills as lawyers and other professionals pick through the ashes of the global exchange. The increasing cost was a point of contention at a bankruptcy hearing on Wednesday, with the creditors’ committee decrying the current rate of spending. “They've now moved to a pace of almost $50 million a month in fees, with literally hundreds of lawyers, financial advisors and bankers working on them practically full time,” said Kris Hansen, a lawyer from Paul Hastings representing the creditors’ committee. “Every dollar spent in the case is essentially a dollar that creditors don't receive.”
Former Opensea Product Manager Accused of Insider Trading Sentenced to Three Months in Prison (The Block)
Nathaniel Chastain, a former head of product at OpenSea, was sentenced to three months in prison and fined $50,000 on Tuesday, according to Inner City Press. Chastain, 31, was a "first time offender" and had a "potentially promising future," a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said on Tuesday, according to Inner City Press. Chastain was convicted in May in what prosecutors called the "first ever digital asset insider trading scheme" following a trial that focused on his alleged NFT insider trading.
Binance.US Looks to Crypto Startup MoonPay as Alternative After US Banks Cut Ties (Bloomberg)
Crypto exchange Binance.US has faced a series of legal and financial challenges as regulators have increased their scrutiny of crypto companies of all kinds. Now it’s teaming up with another embattled crypto firm in an attempt to regain access to a steady flow of dollars. For more than a month, customers of the crypto exchange have been unable to either deposit or withdraw dollars, a consequence of multiple banking partners cutting ties with the platform. Enter MoonPay, a payment startup that burst into the mainstream consciousness with a series of high-profile brand partnerships focused around nonfungible tokens.
Binance’s Token Approaches More Than One-Year Low as Regulatory Pressure Mounts (Bloomberg)
BNB, the cryptocurrency at the heart of the Binance exchange ecosystem, is approaching its lowest price level in more than a year as controversy swirls around the world’s largest digital-asset trading platform. The token dropped as much as 3.6% to $203.59 on Tuesday, bringing its loss for the year to around 15%. The decline comes even with crypto bellwether Bitcoin, which accounts for about half the $1 trillion market’s value, rallying more than 50% since December. BNB has a market capitalization of around $32 billion, making it the fourth-largest crypto asset.
BIS Warns Emerging Economies of Financial Stability Risk From Crypto (The Block)
The Bank of International Settlements warned in a Tuesday report that crypto market vulnerabilities could pose financial stability risks in emerging economies. "There are serious concerns about the ability of emerging market economies to monitor cryptoasset markets and to assess the financial stability risks from cryptoassets," the report said. The report touched on liquidity, credit, operational, bank disintermediation and capital flow risks.
Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty to Latest Indictment (CoinDesk)
Sam Bankman-Fried again pleaded not guilty to fraud and money laundering charges tied to the collapse of his crypto empire, FTX, last year during a court appearance Tuesday. The FTX founder was arraigned in the Southern District of New York courthouse after a new indictment accused him of using customer funds for everything from buying personal real estate to political donations. The charges are from the original indictment filed last December, and fold a campaign finance charge into other allegations after prosecutors said they couldn't explicitly bring the charge due to treaty obligations with the Bahamas.
Crypto Exchange EDX Markets Taps Anchorage as Custody Provider (CoinDesk)
Crypto exchange EDX Markets, which is backed by Wall Street giants including Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab, tapped Anchorage Digital to provide custody for its clearinghouse business set to launch later this year, the company said Tuesday. The clearinghouse will help settle trades matched on EDX. Anchorage is the only federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S., making it the “ideal partner," EDX CEO Jamil Nazarali said in a statement.
Coinbase Takes Stake in Stablecoin Issuer Circle (Bloomberg)
Coinbase Global Inc., the biggest US crypto exchange, has taken a stake in stablecoin issuer Circle citing 'growing regulatory clarity for stablecoins in the US' and elsewhere. The companies were co-founders of the Centre Consortium that governs the USD Coin stablecoin. Centre will be dissolved. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. Coinbase and Circle’s revenue from the USD Coin stablecoin 'will continue to be shared based on the amount of USDC held on each of our platforms, and additionally we will now equally share in interest income generated from the broader distribution and usage of USDC,' Boston-based Circle said in a blog post Monday.
Social Platform Friend.tech Gains 100K Users in Days Even in Depths of a Bear Market (CoinDesk)
Social platform Friend.tech, which lets holders buy "shares" of people who hold an account on X, formerly known as Twitter, and grants the buyers certain privileges, has surged to more than 100,000 addresses since its Aug. 10 launch according to a database created by Yearn Finance developer @Bantg. The database, listed briefly on GitHub and now withdrawn, apparently listed the crypto wallet addresses and linked X accounts. The growth correlates with the huge revenues made by the platform since its Aug. 10 launch, with over $25 million in fees generated, according to DefiLlama. A Dune Analytics dashboard corroborates the finding, pegging the number of unique users to at least 80,000, with 15,000 users added since Sunday.
Coin Center Urges Congress for Clearer Crypto Tax Regulation (The Block)
The crypto-focused policy nonprofit Coin Center has urged two Congress members for clearer crypto regulations, especially when it comes to taxation. In a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo, Coin Center listed certain principles it says the government should consider for blockchain regulation.
Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Sends $1M ETH to Coinbase (CoinDesk)
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin deposited 600 ether (ETH), which is around $1 million worth of the cryptocurrency, to crypto exchange Coinbase on Monday, according to data from Ethereum blockchain scanning website, etherscan. The move comes as ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization suffered a 10% decline over the last seven days, amid a broad market downturn which saw traders witness $1 billion in liquidations. Ether has recovered slightly on Monday, trading in the green over the last 24 hours at $1,700.
BNB Chain Exploiter Liquidated for $30M on Venus Protocol (CoinDesk)
An infamous wallet that had borrowed over $150 million worth of stablecoins from lending and borrowing platform Venus Protocol was liquidated for over $30 million as bnb (BNB) prices fell to $209 this morning. Over 6.89 million venus bnb (vBNB) tokens, worth $30 million, were likely manually liquidated by the BNB Chain developer team, in line with a November 2022 governance vote.
JPMorgan Says Bitcoin Miners Are Diversifying Ahead of Halving (The Block)
Bitcoin miners are exploring new business avenues ahead of the upcoming halving event that will reduce their rewards and amid increased competition from the rising hash rate, according to JPMorgan. Crypto miners are now providing high-performance computing services to the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence market, which could turn profitable for them, JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a report on Thursday. Their diversification into the AI market has at least partly been funded by selling newly or previously minted bitcoins in recent quarters, they added.
Mark Cuban, Yuga Labs Lead Backlash Over OpenSea's NFT Royalties Change (Decrypt)
Mark Cuban and Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs were among the major players speaking out Friday against NFT trading platform OpenSea, over the company’s Thursday announcement that it intends to sunset enforcement of creator royalties. “Not collecting and paying royalties on NFT sales is a HUGE mistake by OpenSea,” Cuban, the billionaire tech entrepreneur, wrote on Twitter Friday. “It diminished trust in the platform and hurts the industry.”
Tornado Cash Sanctions Affirmed by Federal Court (Decrypt)
A federal court has upheld the Treasury Department's authority to impose sanctions on the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, rejecting a legal challenge brought by Tornado Cash users. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman sided with the government on all of its claims and granted summary judgment in the case, affirming that the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) is entitled to cite Tornado Cash under sanctions statutes.
Coinbase Will Suspend USDT, DAI and RAI Trading for Canadian Users (CoinDesk)
Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) will suspend trading with USDT, DAI and RAI stablecoins for Canadian users starting at the end of this month, the company said in an email. “We regularly monitor the assets on our exchange to ensure they meet our listing standards,” the note sent to users reads. “Based on our most recent reviews, Coinbase will suspend trading in Canada for RAI Reflex Index (RAI), Dai (DAI) and Tether (USDT) on Aug. 31 around 12 pm ET.”
SEC Asks Court to Certify for Interlocutory Appeal in Ripple Labs Case (The Block)
The SEC on Friday filed a motion with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, asking it to certify for interlocutory appeal in its ongoing dispute with Ripple Labs. The latest request came just a day after the judge in the case said the regulator could proceed to file for the appeal. Ripple has until Sept. 1 to file its response to the latest SEC motion, according to the filing. The SEC had already said earlier this month that it planned to appeal the partial defeat in July that sent the XRP token surging.