Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Exchanges news
- Binance announced that it is launching Binance Institutional, a new platform for VIP and institutional users. Users will have access to execution and over-the-counter (OTC) services, asset management and custody, a broker program, and a liquidity program, they added.
- Crypto exchange CoinFLEX announced that they are pausing all withdrawals due to “extreme market conditions last week & continued uncertainty involving a counterparty”, but confirmed that “the counterparty is not 3 Arrows Capital or any lending firm.” They added that they are confident the situation can be repaired fully with a restoration of withdrawals.
- International risk assessment firm Moody’s said it has downgraded crypto exchange Coinbase’s Corporate Family Rating (CFR) to Ba3 from Ba2 and downgraded its guaranteed senior unsecured notes to Ba2 from Ba1, and placed both under review for further downgrades. They say that this action “reflects Coinbase’s substantially weaker revenue and cash flow generation due to the steep declines in crypto asset prices” and that it “expects the company’s profitability to remain challenged in the current environment.”
- Coinbase also stated that customers from the Netherlands transferring digital assets from their Coinbase exchange account to a wallet off the Coinbase platform may need to provide information about the transaction and recipient starting June 27 to comply with local regulations. The required additional information includes the recipient’s full name, residential address, and the purpose of the transfer.
- Coinbase further announced that customers will be able to send and receive crypto on Polygon (MATIC) and Solana (SOL) blockchain networks, starting with ether (ETH), MATIC, and USD Coin (USDC) on Polygon, and USDC on Solana. Over the next month, eligible customers will be able to use this feature, and over time, they intend to add more coins and more networks, they said.
- Co-founder and CEO of crypto exchange Bybit, Ben Zhou, launched a soft proposal for the establishment of crypto treasury BitDAO’s Layer 1 infrastructure. Zhou called for the community and interested parties to actively participate in the discussion as well as send research and development efforts in the Discourse forum or via email.
Regulation news
- Gary Gensler, the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is looking to strike agreements with other financial agencies to prevent cryptoasset operators from slipping through the cracks of the US’s fragmented regulatory structure, the Financial Times reported. Gensler was cited as saying that he was working on a “memorandum of understanding” with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
DeFi news
- Decentralized exchange THORChain announced the launch of its mainnet, which they say has been four years in the making. As a celebration, THORChain has committed a total of USD 1m in its native RUNE token to crypto exchange Binance users through a 14-days promotional campaign from June 23 to July 7.
- Decentralized staking platform Convex Finance
Investigation is still ongoing, but a quick update for the community:
– DNS for https://t.co/5rSUjMgY4u was hijacked, prompting users to approve malicious contracts for some interactions on the site.
– Funds on verified contracts are unaffected.— Convex Finance (@ConvexFinance) June 23, 2022
set up new website addresses (URLs) after the previous address was involved in an attack that misdirected users to a malicious website. The issue was remediated and is being investigated, the developers added.
Mining news
- Bitcoin (BTC) miner Aspen Creek Digital Corporation (ACDC) announced that its first bitcoin mining center, a 6MW High-Performance Computing Center, commenced operations in Colorado, USA. ACDC has also added Galaxy Digital‘s mining business as a bitcoin mining hosting client.
Investments news
- Clean computing infrastructure provider Crusoe Energy Systems announced that it acquired Easter-Owens, a manufacturer of modular data centers and specialized electrical systems, for an undisclosed amount.
- Non-fungible token (NFT) startup Cryptoys raised USD 23m in a Series A funding round led by a16z Crypto with the goal of building a blockchain-based toy company that can expose younger users to NFTs, TechCrunch reported, citing CEO Will Weinraub.
NFTs news
- Crypto platform Gate.io is introducing Fractional NFTs service and blue-chip NFT crowdfunding features on its Gate NFT platform. Fractional NFTs will allow NFT fragments to be sold, while the blue-chip NFT crowdfunding features will let users subscribe to a crowdfunding event for a certain amount and receive a fragment of an NFT proportional to that amount in return if the fundraise is successful.
- Blockchain ecosystem Klaytn has partnered with NFT marketplace OpenSea to “invest in the Asian NFT ecosystem”. The partnership will include conference collaborations, ecosystem grants, and more, they said.
Source: Cryptonews
