U.S. Sought Records on Binance CEO for Crypto Money Laundering Probe (Reuters)
"U.S. federal prosecutors asked Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, to provide extensive internal records about its anti-money laundering checks, along with communications involving its chief executive and founder Changpeng Zhao, according to a late-2020 written request seen by Reuters. The Justice Department's money laundering section asked Binance to voluntarily hand over messages from Zhao and 12 other executives and partners on matters including the exchange's detection of illegal transactions and recruitment of U.S. customers. It also sought any company records with instructions that ‘documents be destroyed, altered, or removed from Binance's files’ or ‘transferred from the United States.’"
SEC and CFTC Want Help Building New Crypto Reporting Regime for Hedge Funds (The Block)
"Regulators want help assembling a regime for private funds to report their crypto exposure. On September 1, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission put out a request for comment on proposed changes to Form PF. The SEC and CFTC are the key regulators for U.S. financial markets. Form PF is a confidential filing that hedge funds make to the SEC to report their exposure to certain assets. It originated after the 2008 financial crash, which was largely a product of opaque private funds holding junk assets — most famously, subprime mortgages."
EU's MiCA Crypto Law Text Ready Within 6 Weeks, Lead Lawmaker Says (CoinDesk)
"The text for the European Union’s landmark Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation could be ready within six weeks, leading lawmaker Stefan Berger said Thursday. Lawmakers and governments had reached agreement on the main outline of the legislation, which requires crypto asset providers to register with regulators in to offer services across the bloc, on June 30. But in the absence of a final legal text there is still considerable uncertainty on the law's finer points, such as whether the rules will apply to non-fungible tokens (NFT), which offer proof of ownership of assets such as artworks using distributed ledger technology."
Social Media Giant Snap Disbands Web3 Team Amid Mass Layoffs (CoinDesk)
"Snap (SNAP) is disbanding its Web3 team in a move to slash costs in the face of sharply reduced growth. Jake Sheinman, co-founder of Snap’s Web3 team, revealed the social media giant’s plans in a tweet announcing his departure from the company on Thursday. ‘As a result of the company restructure, decisions were made to sunset our [W]eb3 team,’ the tweet read."
Banking Platform LevelField Is Raising $50 Million, Secures First Acquisition (The Block)
"New banking platform LevelField Financial announced it has acquired Netshares Financial Services, a broker-dealer regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). LevelField is a financial services firm that aims to meld traditional banking and digital asset products into one trusted platform."
California Crypto Oversight Bill Moves Closer to Becoming Law (Bloomberg)
"A California bill that would require crypto financial-service businesses to get a special license is now closer to becoming law, with the Assembly voting to approve it Tuesday after the Senate gave it the nod a day earlier. It now heads to the desk of Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bill. If signed into law, the legislation -- called the Digital Financial Assets Law -- would introduce tighter crypto regulations and more oversight for the industry in California. The bill, which would go into effect January 2025, would require companies like digital-asset exchanges to get licensed with the state’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation."
Ex-Goldman Banker’s Crypto Startup Backed By Key Market Makers (Bloomberg)
"Market makers Flow Traders and Hudson River Trading have backed Sei Labs, a crypto startup founded by Goldman Sachs and Robinhood Markets Inc. veterans that is developing a blockchain aimed at speeding up decentralized finance transactions. The investments are part of a $5 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and GSR, New York-based Sei Labs’s founders said on Wednesday. Backers, which also include Delphi Digital and Tangent, will receive a mix of equity and future tokens from the platform."
Arbitrum Implements Its Largest Scaling Upgrade by Migrating Arbitrum One to Nitro (The Block)
"Arbitrum, one of the leaders in Layer 2 scaling, has upgraded Arbitrum One to Arbitrum Nitro. The Nitro upgrade is expected to vastly increase network speeds and reduce transaction costs. The migration upgrade will reduce transaction costs through call data compression, increased Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) compatibility, and further advancing interoperability with Ethereum Layer 1, Arbitrum said in its Medium post earlier this month. Arbitrum Nova, a separate chain focused on gaming and social, went live August 9 and is built on the Nitro stack. It is host to Reddit's community points blockchain initiative."
Ticketmaster Taps Dapper Labs’ Flow Blockchain to Release Tickets as NFTs (The Block)
"The US ticket sales firm Ticketmaster has allowed organizers to sell live event tickets as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These tickets can be sold before, during or after events on the Dapper Labs-developed Flow blockchain, the Sports Business Journal first reported. Ticketmaster first dabbled with digital collectibles in November of 2021 when it released commemorative tickets, or tickets kept as memorabilia as opposed to access to an event, at select NFL games."
District of Columbia Suing MicroStrategy Founder Michael Saylor for Tax Fraud (CoinDesk)
"The District of Columbia is suing MicroStrategy (MSTR) founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor for allegedly never paying any income taxes in the district in the more than 10 years he has lived there, Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced in a tweet on Wednesday. In addition, Racine tweeted that his office is suing MicroStrategy 'for conspiring to help him evade taxes he legally owes on hundreds of millions of dollars he’s earned while living' in Washington."
Crypto Exchange FTX's CEO Visited White House Amid Regulatory Fight (CoinDesk)
"FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his government relations and policy team made a stop at the White House in May as lawmakers in the United States debate on whether to have the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) act as the crypto industry's primary federal market regulator. Newly released visitor logs show that Bankman-Fried, Eloria Katz, FTX’s director of government relations and policy and Mark Wetjen, an ex-CFTC commissioner who is now FTX’s head of policy, visited the White House in mid-May to meet with policy advisor Charlotte Butash and counselor Steve Ricchetti. The logs did not detail what the meetings were about."
Temasek to Lead $100 Million Funding for Crypto Landlord Animoca (Bloomberg)
"Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Pte. is joining a $100 million funding for Animoca Brands Corp., betting on one of crypto’s most prolific investment houses even after a $2 trillion market meltdown. Temasek will lead the financing through convertible bonds, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing private information. It adds to a funding round first announced by Animoca in January, they said, when the Hong Kong startup raised $359 million from backers including George Soros and the Winklevoss twins. Now valued at $6 billion, Animoca raised another $75 million in the same round earlier this summer."
BNB Chain Introduces Liquid Staking to Provide Crypto Users Access to More Income Streams (CoinDesk)
"BNB Chain, the base blockchain of crypto exchange Binance, has introduced so-called liquid staking with three leading Web3 protocols: Ankr, Stader and pStake, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk. In liquid staking, users who have staked – or locked – their tokens for some use are issued new tokens with an equivalent value. The new tokens represent ownership of the underlying ones, are fully transferable and can be unwrapped to reclaim the staked assets. In the meantime, they can be used to generate yield, thus freeing up capital and making such products attractive to users."
a16z Leads $50 Million in Funding for NFT Organization Proof Collective (The Block)
"a16z led a $50 million Series A fundraise for non-fungible token (NFT) organization Proof, a private members only collective of 1,000 dedicated NFT collectors and artists. Additional participants in the round include Collab+Currency, Flamingo DAO, SV Angel, VaynerFund and Seven Seven Six, the team said Tuesday. Alexis Ohanian’s VC firm Seven Seven Six led a $10 million funding round in April for Proof."
Crypto Lender Nexo Allocates Additional $50M for Token Buyback Initiative (CoinDesk)
"Cryptocurrency lending platform Nexo has allocated an additional $50 million to its token buyback initiative, according to a press release. The Switzerland-based lender will purchase $50 million worth of its native token over the next six months. This follows a previous buyback that saw it accumulate $100 million between November and May. The Nexo token is currently trading at $0.982 with a market cap of $549 million, and has risen 4.35% over the past 24 hours."
Facebook Joins Meta’s Instagram in Supporting NFTs (CoinDesk)
"Social media powerhouse Meta Platforms (META) said Monday that it’s now allowing users to post their non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Facebook.
What started as an Instagram-oriented NFT integration in May is now available on both Meta-owned platforms. According to Meta’s updated May 10 post, users can now connect their crypto wallets to either app and post their digital assets across both social media platforms."
Derivatives Marketplace CME Goes Live With Euro-Denominated Bitcoin, Ether Futures (The Block)
"CME Group, a derivatives marketplace, has launched bitcoin and ether futures denominated in the euro. The offerings were first announced earlier this month and complement the existing dollar-denominated futures CME launched in 2021. 'Designed to match their U.S. dollar-denominated counterparts, Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures contracts will be sized at five bitcoin and 50 ether per contract,' CME said in a statement Monday. 'These new contracts will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Bitcoin-Euro Reference Rate and CME CF Ether-Euro Reference Rate, which serve as once-a-day reference rates of the euro-denominated price of bitcoin and ether.'"
Federal Reserve’s FedNow Real-Time Payments Set for Mid-2023 Debut (CoinDesk)
"The U.S. Federal Reserve has tightened the window for the launch of its FedNow instant payments platform to between May and July of 2023. According to a press release, FedNow will be open to financial institutions of any size, allowing them to facilitate instant payments for consumers and businesses, giving customers immediate full access to funds. The platform is currently in pilot phase with more than 120 organizations participating, including lender U.S. Bank and payment processor Alacriti Payments among them."
Mobile Gaming Firm Limit Break Raises $200 Million Across Two Rounds (The Block)
"Limit Break, a startup building web3 massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, raised $200 million over two rounds of venture funding. The chair of mobile gaming firm Mino Games, Josh Buckley and investment firms Paradigm and Standard Crypto led the rounds, Limit Break wrote in a Twitter thread. Additional participants include FTX, Coinbase and Positive Sum."
Dubai-Based Virtuzone to Accept Crypto Payments via Binance Pay (CoinDesk)
"Dubai-based business formation services provider Virtuzone has begun accepting cryptocurrency payments using Binance Pay. 'Virtuzone's decision to accept cryptocurrency payments and integrate Binance Pay into its systems raises the bar for innovation and demonstrates the way forward when it comes to setting up businesses in the UAE,' said Nadeem Ladki, executive director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Binance, in a Monday press release."
Grayscale, Disclosing SEC Queries, Says Cryptos XLM, ZEC, ZEN May be Securities (CoinDesk)
"Grayscale Investments LLC has been fielding questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the firm’s “securities law analysis” of tokens in some of its less-popular crypto trusts. The inquiry, which Grayscale disclosed in little-noticed filings made in June and mid-August, casts a shadow over the trusts’ viability at a time when the world’s largest digital asset manager is already dealing with a precipitous decline in its assets’ value due to the ongoing crypto winter."
Voyager Extends Deadline for Bids to September 6 (The Block)
"Voyager is extending the timeline for its bidding and restructuring processes, the firm said in a blog post this week. Originally, bids were to be submitted by today with a sale hearing slated for September 8. Now, the firm says it's moved the deadline to September 6 at noon EST with a sale hearing to take place on September 29. ‘Separately, since the establishment of a bid deadline for Voyager, existing and potentially new bidders have requested additional time to get information and submit their offers,’ said the firm."
Japan Looks at Corporate Crypto Tax Breaks to Entice Startups (CoinDesk)
"Japan is set to review existing corporate crypto tax rates in an effort to entice startups to remain in the country, local news outlet Yomiuri reported on Wednesday. Japan's financial services agency (FSA) and the ministry of economy, trade and industry are considering a tax reform proposal for 2023 that could exempt crypto startups that issue their own tokens from paying taxes on unrealized gains."
DeFi Platform Synthetix's Founder Proposes Capping Token Supply at 300M (CoinDesk)
"The founder of the popular decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Synthetix has proposed capping the supply of its native SNX tokens to a fixed 300 million as the protocol gains revenue from newer products. Kain Warwick, founder at Synthetix, explained in a governance proposal on Friday that the initial rationale for keeping an ever-inflationary supply for SNX had passed as the protocol was now earning ‘meaningful’ yields from its atomic swap and perpetual products."
AntPool Won’t Maintain Client Assets on Ethereum After the Merge Amid ‘Risk of Censorship' (The Block)
"AntPool, operated by mining giant Bitmain, said that it will not maintain clients’ assets on Ethereum after the blockchain moves to proof-of-stake next month in The Merge. The Merge will transition Ethereum from proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to proof-of-stake (PoS), which will remove the need for transactions to be verified by miners."