Blockchain This Week - Oct 21
Digital Assets Law, Voluntary Recycling Credits with Blockchain, Reddit Community Points, NY AG Sues Crypto Firms
Dfinity's VRC
The Dfinity Foundation is collaborating with management consultancy Roland Berger to develop a global standard to incentivize recycling activities. The Voluntary Recycling Credits (VRC) standard is inspired by the carbon credit market. It will use blockchain technology for transparent and secure tracking of recycling credits and transactions.
California Crypto Bill Becomes a Law
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a crypto licensing bill into law. It requires California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation to create a regulatory framework for crypto. The law will take effect in July 2025.
Reddit To Sunset Blockchain Based Community Points
Reddit is shutting down its blockchain based reward service Community Points on Nov 8. Reddit cited scalability limitations and regulatory concerns for its decision. The company says it is investing in other products that provide value to more Redditors.
NY AG Sues Crypto Companies
New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against three crypto firms: Gemini Trust Company, Genesis Global Capital and its affiliates, and Digital Currency Group (DCG). They are sued for allegedly defrauding investors of over $1 billion. The lawsuit also alleges that Gemini lied to investors about its investment program, Gemini Earn. Both Genesis and DCG knew about the risks involved but failed to disclose them.
Coinbase Rolls Out Perps Trading for Non US Clients
Coinbase has rolled out perpetuals trading for eligible non US retail customers via the Coinbase Advanced platform. The service offers perpetual futures contracts for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, and XRP, all of which are settled in the USDC stablecoin.
TrueUSD Third Party Security Breach
A security breach at one of TrueUSD's partners exposed the personally identifiable information of some of its clients. The breach involved TrueUSD's former service provider, TrueCoin. TrueUSD said its systems were not compromised.
Everscale Exploit
Everscale revealed earlier this week that a large number of EVER tokens had been stolen. The team had temporarily disconnected the Octus Bridge and was working with exchanges to stop the further outflow. The price of EVER has dropped more than 20% following the announcement.
Fantom Employee Loses Crypto
An employee of the Fantom Foundation lost at least $7 million crypto in an exploit. A zero day vulnerability in the Chrome browser is said to be the source of the hack. Fantom Foundation Director Andre Cronje said the affected account belonged to the employee, whereas an admin in the Fantom Telegram channel claimed the wallets belonged to Fantom Foundation.
Stars Arena Back
Avalanche based social finance app Stars Arena has relaunched without trading functionality. Trading will only resume after publishing the audit and open sourcing the contract for community review. The move comes after the app's hack on Oct 7 for approximately $2.9 million worth of AVAX tokens.
Binance Setbacks
Two months after Visa ended its partnership with Binance, the crypto exchange announced that it would stop the service of its Visa debit card in the EEA. Meanwhile, Binance has also temporarily halted accepting new UK customers following last week's FCA restriction imposed on its UK promotions approver, Rebuilding Society.
At the same time, Binance.US updated its terms of use, due to which its US customers can no longer withdraw dollars directly from the platform. They will have to convert their USD to stablecoin or other digital assets before withdrawal. The USD deposits in the user wallets are also not eligible for FDIC insurance protection.
BitGo Acquires HeightZero
Crypto custodian BitGo acquired HeightZero for an undisclosed sum. HeightZero provides software tools for wealth managers who have clients interested in having crypto and digital assets in their portfolios.
Circle's New Tools
Circle has launched two new beta tools for developers: Gas Station and Smart Contract Platform. Gas Station removes transaction fees when integrated with Circle's programmable wallets. And Smart Contract Platform simplifies smart contract importing, deployment, and management. Both products aim to streamline development for web3 services.
Polygon Protocol Council
Polygon has proposed the creation of a Polygon Protocol Council in PIP 29. The aim of the proposal is to move towards decentralized governance. The council will be responsible for approving changes to the system's contracts on Ethereum for existing and future Polygon protocols. The council will consist of 13 members, including officials from Coinbase and the Ethereum Foundation.
Lubin Sued
One of Ethereum's founders, Joseph Lubin, is being sued by more than two dozen former Consensys employees. They accuse Lubin of maneuvering valuable assets out of the company's Swiss holding company, leaving them with worthless shares. The plaintiffs claim that Lubin arranged to move the assets, including MetaMask, to a new US based company in 2020 so that he could solicit outside investment.
DTCC Acquires Securrency
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation acquired digital asset tokenization firm Securrency for $50 million. As a part of the agreement between the two, Securrency will become an owned subsidiary of DTCC. It will operate as DTCC Digital Assets.
Ripple Execs Cleared
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen have been cleared of all claims brought against them by the US SEC. In a stunning capitulation by the government, the SEC has voted to dismiss charges with prejudice.
SBF Trial Week 3
The prosecution in the criminal trial of SBF, the founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, is nearing its end. The defense will begin presenting their case on the afternoon of Oct 26. This week saw a series of expert witnesses, including an FBI agent and an accounting professor, testifying. They revealed that customer funds were used for political donations, VC investments, and other causes. Meanwhile, former FTX general counsel Can Sun said he was "shocked" to learn that there was a missing $7 billion in funds from the exchange. He also claimed the SBF told him to come up with a plausible justification for the missing funds.
Cryptoverse
Zodia Custody launched a digital asset custody platform for institutional clients in Australia. It aims to provide a secure storage for assets via bank grade cold wallets.
BNB Chain developers launched Greenfield, a decentralized data storage network that works cross chain and has data access controls, on BNB mainnet.
Grayscale Investments has filed a new registration statement with the SEC in its ongoing attempt to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a spot bitcoin ETF.
Aptos Layer 1 blockchain came back online after a network crash that lasted for over five hours and prompted a number of crypto exchanges to halt deposits and withdrawals of APT tokens.
Coinbase has chosen Ireland as its European Union hub and is on track to apply for a Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) license.
Komainu, a crypto custody joint venture of Nomura, Ledger, and CoinShares, is joining Copper's ClearLoop network. The aim is to offer regulated custody and settlement to institutional clients.
Synergists
Fidelity Digital Assets became the first enterprise client to use EY's blockchain analyzer product, Reconciler. Fidelity plans to use its analytics dashboard for risk management of on chain data.
Policy
Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchange, has obtained in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to offer a broader range of digital payment token services.
Starting in 2024, the Moscow Exchange will list tokenized real estate as digital financial assets (DFA) under Russia's regulatory framework. It received the first DFA exchange license in Aug.
Funds and Investments
OpBNB based MyShell platform raised $5.6 million in a seed funding round led by INCE Capital.
Squads Labs, the developer of Squads, the multisig protocol based on Solana, raised $5.7 million in a strategic funding round led by Placeholder VC.
DeFi protocol Elixir Protocol raised $7.5 million in a Series A round led by Hack VC. Elixir is now worth $100 million.
DeFi crypto derivatives exchange SynFutures completed a $22 million Series B funding round led by Pantera Capital.