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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Investment news
- The Singapore-based crypto exchange Zipmex plans to meet with potential investors and Thailand’s financial regulator to discuss a recovery plan, per Bloomberg. The company has previously sought protection from creditors after it ran into a liquidity crunch following exposure to the troubled crypto lender Babel Finance. It also stated that representatives from KordaMentha Pte Ltd have been engaged as financial advisors and proposed scheme managers to assist Zipmex through the restructuring process.
- Cboe Global Markets has announced the group of companies that intend to become investors in Cboe Digital, the new name for the crypto trading platform ErisX. The firms include B2C2, DRW, GSR, Hidden Road, IMC, Interactive Brokers, Jane Street, Jump Crypto, Optiver, Robinhood, tastytrade, and Virtu Financial.
- Elrond (EGLD), currently the 46th most valuable cryptoasset by market capitalization, will become available to more than 20 million users via the popular online payment platform Revolut, Elrond announced on its blog on Friday.
- Web3 investment firm Animoca Brands‘ Japanese subsidiary has raised USD 45 million from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) and Animoca Brands Corporation Limited valuing the company at approximately USD 500 million (pre-money), per an announcement.
- The Solana (SOL) blockchain explorer SolanaFM has raised USD 4.5m in a seed round led by Japanese financial services company SBI Group’s Digital Asset Opportunity Fund. Other investors include Spartan Group, Mirana Ventures, D1 Ventures, and Petrock Capital, an announcement said.
Regulation news
- Police in Afghanistan’s Herat province last week shut down 16 crypto exchanges and arrested employees at some of them, local Ariana News reported. “Da Afghanistan Bank (central bank) stated in a letter that digital currency trading has caused lots of problems and is scamming people, therefore they should be closed. We acted and arrested all the exchangers involved in the business and closed their shops,” Sayed Shah Sa’adat, head of the counter-crime unit of Herat police, was cited as saying.
- CoinSwitch Kuber, a major Indian crypto exchange backed by venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, has been raided by anti-money laundering agents from India’s Enforcement Directorate, per Bloomberg. The exchange is reportedly suspected of violating foreign exchange laws in the country.
- The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s financial regulator, is stepping up its scrutiny of crypto-related companies ahead of planned regulatory changes, Bloomberg reported. According to the report, the MAS has already sent questionnaires to some crypto firms registered in the city-state, seeking “highly granular information about their business activity.”
- The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed a decision on a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) application from asset management firm VanEck. The date for when the SEC must either approve or disapprove the application has now been set to October 11.
Exchange news
- FTX Ventures, the venture arm of major crypto exchange FTX, has denied a report from Bloomberg that it plans to merge with crypto trading firm Alameda Research’s venture business. “This seems like a big misrepresentation to me,” FTX CEO and Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried wrote on Twitter in response to the story.
- Crypto exchange Binance has replied to accusations from Baking Bad, a group of Tezos (XTZ) contributors, that its corporate trading account has been frozen “without any explanations.” According to Binance, the account has been “restricted as the result of a law enforcement request.” It added that Baking Bad is “well aware of” this after receiving multiple notices.
Legal news
- Alexey Pertsev, the arrested developer of cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, was formerly employed by a Russian company sanctioned for providing support to Russia’s primary security agency, Federal Security Service (FSB), according to a report from intelligence firm Kharon. Pertsev, a resident of the Netherlands, is a founder and the CEO of PepperSec, and in 2017, he was an information security specialist and developer of smart contracts for Digital Security OOO, which is a Russian entity designated by the US Treasury Department in 2018 for providing material and technological support to the FSB, claimed the report. Speaking to CoinDesk, Xenia Malik, Pertsev’s wife, denied the claims.
- Criminal defense attorneys in New York have warned that insider trading charges against a former employee at non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea represent an attempt at expanding the reach of federal fraud laws, Law360 has reported.
- Su Zhu, the co-founder of the insolvent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), has said Teneo, the crypto hedge fund’s liquidator, made “inaccurate and misleading” representations to the High Court of Singapore, per Bloomberg.
DeFi news
- Compound (COMP), a major decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol for borrowing and lending crypto, has launched a new “streamlined” version of the protocol, called Compound III. The launch follows a successful governance proposal, said the team.
- The founder of the DeFi platform Synthetix Kain Warwick has proposed capping the supply of its native SNX tokens to a fixed 300m. Per a governance proposal: “Inflation was intended to bootstrap the network, it has done this extremely effectively. Now that fee yield from atomic swaps and perps is meaningful and growing it is time to wind down inflation, the fact that we are only a few weeks away from the very memeable 300 million mark is cause enough to make this change now.”
NFT news
- Arcade and video game company Atari is launching a new NFT collaboration with artist Butcher Billy called 50 years of Atari. The collection will include 2,600 unique NFTs based on 15 original works by the artist, an announcement said.
Source: Cryptonews
