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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Regulation news
- The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would take the leading role in overseeing bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) and the platforms where they are traded under a new bill from Senators Debbie Stabenow and John Boozman, The Washington Post reported. Oversight of the remaining cryptoassets would be divided between the CFTC and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), though the process for making those determinations is not yet clear, it added.
Security news
- Blockchain security company PeckShield said it has detected some USD 9m returned into the cross-chain messaging protocol Nomad’s Funds Recovery Address, following yesterday’s attack, including ETH 100, USDC 3.78m, USDT 2m, WETH 200, DAI 150,000, etc.
- North Korean scammers are plagiarizing online resumes and pretending to be from other countries to get remote work at US crypto firms to aid illicit money-raising efforts for the government, according to security researchers at Mandiant Inc., reported Bloomberg.
Exchanges news
- Troubled crypto exchange Zipmex announced that it has started releasing “unaffected digital assets” solana (SOL), cardano (ADA), and XRP to users’ wallets, “after having stabilized the situation” following the Celsius– and Babel Finance-related issues. SOL was released on Tuesday, while XRP and ADA are planned for Thursday and the following Tuesday, respectively.
Wallets news
- MEW (MyEtherWallet) has announced the launch of its cross-chain browser extension, Enkrypt, built with the support of the Web3 Foundation, which will support transactions across Ethereum and Polkadot (DOT) ecosystems. At launch, Enkrypt will provide cross-chain access with the Polkadot ecosystem through integrations with parachains Acala and Moonbeam, along with all of their accompanying canary networks. More parachains- and Ethereum virtual machine (EVM)-compatible chains will be added in the coming weeks, with ongoing support for native tokens, the team said.
NFTs news
- The NFTs.com domain name was acquired for USD 15m, according to DomainInvesting, citing a press release shared by a representative from Escrow.com. The deal was brokered by Domainer.com and GoDaddy, while the sale was facilitated by Escrow.com. The buyer and seller of NFTs.com are not publicly known at this time.
- NFT marketplace Magic Eden announced that it will be adding and integrating Ethereum NFTs into the platform. Since its launch in September 2021, Magic Eden has seen over 90% of secondary trading volume and USD 2bn in total trade volume for transactions on Solana NFTs, their first supported blockchain, they said.
Investments news
- Paystand, a US-based blockchain-enabled B2B (business-to-business) payments platform, has acquired Latin America-focused accounts payable startup Yaydoo, Axios reported. Combined, the two companies serve 500,000 customers and have processed more than USD 5bn in payment volumes.
- Simon Seojoon Kim, South Korea’s well-known crypto investor and an early backer of Terra, said he hasn’t lost faith in the sector and plans to raise a third venture capital fund in the first half of next year, per Bloomberg. VC firm Hashed, where Kim is the CEO, has deployed more than half of the KRW 240bn (USD 180m) fund it raised in December, and will start raising a new vehicle as soon as the rest is used up, Kim is cited as saying.
- MarqVision, a developer of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform, announced that it has raised USD 20m in Series A funding, as its investors recognize “the enormous issues created by the counterfeiting and theft of digital assets.” MarqVision will use the funds to advance product development beyond its brand protection platform to create a new IP operating system that also allows companies to create, manage, protect and monetize IP rights – all in one place, they said.
Mining news
- Riot Blockchain said it produced BTC 318 in July, a decrease of approximately 28% as compared to July 2021. As energy demand in ERCOT (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas) reached all-time highs this past month, the company said it voluntarily curtailed its energy consumption in order to ensure that more power would be available in Texas.
- Singapore-based Bitcoin miner SAI.TECH has halted its plans to expand into Kazakhstan, according to an SEC filing. The plans included a second phase of 90MW power supply cooperation in Kazakhstan, which was a part of a 2021 agreement with Better Tech Limited. The company said that it had received concerns from its power partners and hosting customers regarding its operation stability and cost uncertainties as they relate to the developments in Kazakhstan during the first half of 2022, while Phase II had already been delayed due to the national riots in the country.
Career news
- Trading app Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that the company is reducing its headcount by approximately 23%. Employees from all functions will be impacted, while the changes are particularly concentrated in the operations, marketing, and program management functions, he said.
- Crypto services provider BitGo announced the promotion of Chen Fang to Chief Operating Officer and the appointment of Victor Tsou to Vice President of Engineering. Fang and Tsou will be responsible for driving BitGo’s operational strategy and execution and will both report to Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo.
