Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Investments news
- Grayscale Ethereum Trust is now a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting company, announced Managing Director at major crypto asset management firm Grayscale, Michael Sonnenshein. Per the press release, the Trust is the second digital currency investment vehicle to become an SEC reporting company, following Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in January, 2020. Furthermore, accredited investors now get an earlier liquidity opportunity, as the statutory holding period of shares purchased through the private placement will be reduced from 12 months to 6 months.
- Fintech institution First Digital Trust (FDT) has announced a USD 3m convertible note funding round on fintech and digital asset equity online investment platform BnkToTheFuture to fulfill, they said in an emailed press release. FDT aims to raise USD 1m on the platform, while additional private investors are expected to complete the round. It added that the convertible note round will enable qualifying investors to contribute as little as USD 1,000 to advancing the infrastructure that provides multi-asset trust and custody via its Open Finance solutions.
Legal news
- John McAfee, is having “a fascinating time” in the Spanish prison while awaiting extradition to the US. According to his alleged message relayed in a tweet by his wife, Janice McAfee, his prison experience is “like the Hilton without turn down service,” though the place is filled with murderers and drug dealers, “but mostly nice people.” His account contains several more alleged updates from prison. Last week, McAfee was arrested in Spain on charges of illegally promoting initial coin offerings (ICOs) and evading his tax obligations.
- A group of investors, calling themselves EMN Investigation, is crowdfunding capital to finance a lawsuit against yearn.finance (YFI) founder Andre Cronje, project supporter Kirby, and developer Banteg over the EMN scandal on behalf of the victims. Per the announcement, crowdfunding will end on November 9, while 100% of the donations would be used to finance the lawsuit. 50% of the supply of a fork of YFI will be dropped to donators, and the other 50% of the supply will be airdropped to the victims of the EMN scandal, they said. The EMN protocol was hacked at the end of September, with the hacker stealing USD 15m, and then transferring USD 8m back to Crone.
CBDCs news
- China’s digital yuan testing has stepped up another gear – with the central People’s Bank of China giving away digital yuan handouts in the city of Shenzhen. Per state-run media outlet People’s Daily, the bank has sent around USD 1.5m worth of tokens out to residents in “red envelopes.” In a sort of lucky draw event, some envelopes contain nothing but information about the new digital currency – but 50,000 others will receive around USD 30 worth of digital CNY tokens. “Designated merchants” in the city’s Luohu District will be authorized to accept digital yuan payments.
- The Bank of Japan will start experiments next spring on a digital yen to consider various requirements and fundamental principles for doing so in the future, Reuters reported, citing Haruhiko Kuroda, the Governor of the central bank.
Exchanges news
- 100x, the operator of crypto exchange BitMEX, has hired Malcolm Wright as chief compliance officer for the group, following the recent charges, and reshuffling of its executives. According to the announcement, Wright is a veteran with an extensive background in compliance and anti-money laundering (AML), and is knowledgeable in the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations for Virtual Asset Service Providers. He also sits on a number of international committees and currently chairs the Advisory Council and AML (anti-money laundering) Working Group at Global Digital Finance, it added.
- The Winklevoss brothers’ Gemini exchange has made another move in the British crypto market – striking a partnership deal with the UK’s BCB Group, a crypto payment services provider. Gemini stated that the deal would allow its UK-based customers to make GBP “deposits into and withdrawals out of their accounts instantly” using via Faster Payments, CHAPS, and SWIFT transfers.
Security tokens news
- Japan-based securities giant SBI is set to launch its security token offering (STO) business operations in earnest. Per Moneyzine, SBI’s new pro-gaming subsidiary, SBI eSports, will “implement a third-party allotment of capital using an STO” at the end of October, with the holding company SBI Holdings acting as the underwriter. The company said that the “digital shares issued” at the time of the STO launch “will be issued and managed using” a blockchain platform created by BOOSTRY, the blockchain technology arm of Tokyo-based financial services firm Nomura. SBI has been eager to begin STO operations after the government officially approved security token-powered business in a decree back in May this year.
Blockchain news
- bloXroute Labs, a technology startup and the builder of a Blockchain Distribution Network (BDN) to enable blockchains to scale, said that the results of their month-long test show that if the nodes of infrastructure for building dapps on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain Infura and blockchain developer platform Alchemy connect to the BDN, they can send transactions up to 600ms faster, according to the press release. It added that “this speed enhancement translates into real money” for decentralized finance (DeFi) traders who use a node as a service provider, arguing that “speed can make trading strategies more lucrative.”
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