BlackRock Ether ETF
BlackRock is launching a spot ether ETF, iShares Ethereum Trust. Nasdaq filed for this proposed ETF after BlackRock registered an entity in Delaware. Coinbase Custody Trust Company will serve as the custodian. The ETF will use the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate - New York Variant to track the price of Ether. Following this news, ether's price jumped above $2K and hit $2,134.69. At the time of writing, one ether was worth $2,110.07.
Programmable Payments
JPMorgan launched programmable payments on its permissioned blockchain based payments system, JPM Coin. It enables the automatic execution of payments based on preset rules. As a result, transactions are faster. It also resolves the challenge of setting aside extra funds during treasury downtime. This feature is available to JPMorgan's institutional clients.
Ark Invest Sold GBTC, Bought Block, Robinhood Shares
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest sold GBTC and bought Block, Inc. in a recent trade this week. Ark Invest sold 139,506 GBTC shares worth approximately $3.8 million. Concurrently, it purchased 113,326 shares of Block, Inc. ($5.6 million) across three funds, responding to Cash App's reported 22% rise in Q3 bitcoin profits. Ark Invest also bought a large number of Robinhood shares, totaling 1,141,046, a day after Robinhood announced its plans to expand into Europe.
Coatue Marks Down Investment in OpenSea
Coatue Management marked down its stake in OpenSea by nearly 90% in the second quarter of 2023. Coatue's move to reduce its previous $120 million investment to $13 million indicates that the NFT platform is valued at $1.4 billion or less.
Ava Labs Lay Off
Ava Labs, the primary developer of the Avalanche blockchain, has laid off 12% of its workforce. Its CEO, Emin Gün Sirer, stated that the move aimed to reallocate resources and focus on the growth of the company and the Avalanche ecosystem during challenging bear markets.
CBI Selects Liminal
India's CBI appointed digital asset custodian Liminal to manage seized digital assets. Liminal has, in the past, assisted CBI by forming a team that created multi sig and multi party computation wallets to store captured crypto safely.
Binance Self Custody Wallet
Binance launched a self custody wallet that works within its native app. As a result, users can swap tokens across multiple networks, explore decentralized applications, and earn yield on digital assets. The wallet uses MPC technology to split a user's private keys across three locations, mitigating the risk of compromise.
Arbitrum Community Vote for Staking
The Arbitrum community approved the proposal to stake ARB tokens in exchange for yield. Staking would be funded by the Arbitrum treasury and distributed over 12 months through a smart contract. The first phase of the governance vote presented a tiered system for token allocation for staking rewards, ranging from 1% to 1.75% of the total 10 billion ARB supply.
Heist Using Fake Crypto App
Using a fake Ledger Live app hosted on the Microsoft app store, hackers managed to steal 16.8 bitcoin and some funds across Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain networks. The total loss is over $770,000. The hacker carried out the heist by first receiving 38 inbound bitcoin transactions from Oct 24 to Nov 5. Then, they consolidated the loot before splitting them across several wallets to cover the trail.
ZK Tools on Sui
Developers on the Sui blockchain now have access to the entire stack of ZK tools thanks to a new partnership with data platform Space and Time. These tools intend to accelerate the growth of Web3 gaming on Sui by enabling developers to build verifiable dApps and analytics.
Kazakhstan Blocks Coinbase
The Kazakh government blocked access to Coinbase within the country, citing violations of the new digital assets law. The law prohibits cryptocurrency trading without a national license. A request from the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan led to this decision.
Ripple
Ripple launched Ripple Payments, a new payment platform for corporate clients without money transmitter licenses. It has also partnered with African fintech Onafriq to enable cross border crypto payments between Africa and other markets.
HSBC Crypto Custody Service
HSBC is launching a custody service for digital assets, including tokenized securities. HSBC is collaborating with crypto firm Metaco for this service which is set to debut in 2024 for institutional clients.
Tokenet Crypto Lending
Digital Prime Technologies launches Tokenet, an institutional digital asset lending platform, with Anchorage Digital as custodian. Tokenet features loan lifecycle management tools and segregated, on-chain vaults. It has already attracted early clients such as Xapo Bank, Hidden Road, EDX, and DV Chain.
Polygon Village 2.0
Polygon Labs launches Polygon Village 2.0 with a $90 million fund. The money would help support ecosystem development and offer grants and mentorship to projects. This launch follows the proposed Polygon 2.0 upgrade, which aims to create a network of interconnected Layer 2 chains powered by ZKPs.
Marathon's Q3 Earnings
Marathon Digital Holdings posted a net income of $64.1 million in Q3 compared to a $72.5 million net loss in the same period last year. This gain is attributed to a substantial increase in Bitcoin mining production and higher bitcoin prices. The company's revenues also surged significantly YoY, reaching $97.8 million in Q3 2023, up from $12.7 million in Q3 2022. It was driven by a 467% increase in bitcoin production and a 32% rise in average bitcoin prices during the period.
Near Launches Two Products
Near Foundation launched two new products to improve web3 development. First is a zkWASM, a ZK prover for WebAssembly blockchains. The second one is the Near Data Availability Layer for Ethereum rollups.
Cryptoverse
UBS Group is reportedly enabling wealthy clients in Hong Kong to trade crypto linked ETFs, providing access to three authorized crypto related futures ETFs.
Crypto lender Celsius exits bankruptcy with a plan approved by the judge and involves a mining firm to repay creditors.
Swiss crypto bank SEBA has secured a license from Hong Kong's financial regulator. Consequently, its subsidiary, SEBA Hong Kong, can offer crypto services to clients in Hong Kong.
South Korean blockchain Klaytn has teamed up with Indonesian conglomerate Pelayaran Korindo and CeDeFi protocol NEOPIN to explore tokenization of ship related assets.
After a failed attempt to restructure, the crypto lending firm Hodlnaut will be liquidated in Singapore by its previously appointed judicial managers.
Near Foundation partners with Eigen Labs to make Ethereum roll-up transactions cheaper, quicker, and more efficient.
Ark Invest plans to launch a new suite of ETFs with 21Shares and will list them on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
Synergists
South Korea's mobile carrier SK Telecom has teamed up with web3 companies Aptos and Atomrigs Lab to develop T wallet, its web3 wallet service.
Deutsche Börse plans to launch a regulated crypto exchange and deploy stablecoins in 2024. The bourse is assumed to be institutionally focused, similar to EDX Markets in the United States.
Funds and Investments
The smart contract platform Llama raised $6 million in seed funding from Founders Fund and Electric Capita and plans to use the funds to improve the governance of blockchain protocols.
Stablecoin startup StablIR closed a 3.3 million Euro seed round, raising money from Deribit, Maven 11, Theta Capital, Folkvang, and Blocktech.
Due, a payments startup building a blockchain based international payment platform secured $3.3 million in a seed funding round led by Semantic and Fabric Ventures.
In a multi million dollar deal, Austria based crypto tax software firm Blockpit acquired the crypto portfolio and market intelligence unit of Glassnode, Accointing, for an undisclosed sum.
Crypto analytics firm Block Scholes raised $3.3 million in an investment round from investors, including Record PLC and Investcorp. It plans to deploy the funds to expand its team and develop products.
Decentralized AI compute platform Ritual raised $25 million in a funding round led by Archetype.
Stackr Labs, a startup developing micro rollups based Ethereum scaling solutions, secured $5.5 million in a seed funding round from investors, including a16z CSS and Archetype.
Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures and SBI Holdings have jointly set up a $100 million crypto vehicle in the UAE to invest from seed to Series C funding rounds in crypto startups.
Web3 focused VC firm Faction Ventures launched a $285 million fund that will invest mainly in early stage blockchain projects raising seed or Series A rounds.