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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Legal news
- John McAfee’s death last week in a Spanish prison complicates the US government’s intent to recover millions of dollars it says the software tycoon owed in taxes (USD 4.2m) and allegedly ill-gotten gains (USD 23m) from promoting cryptoassets, Bloomberg reported. “The US government will now have to weigh the prospects of a lengthy and expensive legal battle with the possibility that there may not be much money left to recoup, if they can even find it,” per the report.
Altcoins news
- US-based startup Worldcoin, co-founded by Sam Altman, the former head of the Silicon Valley business incubator Y Combinator, raised USD 25m from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and Day One Ventures, in order to develop “a new global digital currency that will launch by giving a share to every single person on earth,” Bloomberg reported. The company has also designed a device that would scan a person’s iris to construct a unique personal identifier, it said, adding that the company is currently offering volunteers other types of digital coins, mostly bitcoin (BTC), in exchange for scanning their eyes and giving feedback on the process.
- The Ethereum Classic (ETC) network will undergo a hard fork to implement the Magneto upgrade, scheduled for late July, the team announced. The upgrade will include Ethereum (ETH) Berlin upgrade features, and therefore certain Ethereum Improvement Proposals that will tackle the network’s security and gas fees.
Investments news
- Investment management firm Ark Investment Management has filed for a BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), called the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, which would trade under ARKB, according to Bloomberg. The ETF would hold BTC, providing direct exposure to the cryptoasset.
- Digital asset investment products saw a fourth consecutive week of outflows totalling USD 44m, according to digital asset management firm CoinShares. Most of the negative sentiment was focused on ETH where net outflows totaled USD 50m, the largest on record. Bitcoin saw minor outflows totaling USD 1.3m, its seventh consecutive week of outflows.
- Banking giant Morgan Stanley has purchased 28,289 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust through its Europe Opportunity Fund, a filing with the SEC shows. The purchase was worth around USD 1.3m, per the filing.
- Blockchain analytics platform Nansen has raised USD 12m in a Series A funding round led by investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Skyfall Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, imToken Ventures, and others. The funds will be used to enhance user experience, build the platform further, and increase support for blockchains and layer 2 solutions, they said.
- Financial smart contracts network Tracer DAO has raised AUD 5.9m (c. USD 4.5m) in a recent funding round, according to Financial Review.
- Blockchain-based Big Data startup IAGON has raised USD 3.4m in seed and private funding, with the round led by crypto advisory LedgerLink Labs, according to an emailed release. The funding will help the company deploy a scalable platform for harnessing the storage and processing power of a decentralized grid of computers, coordinated over a blockchain network.
Exchanges news
- Cryptoasset platform Coinbase has received a crypto custody business license from Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). This is the first such license issued in the country, according to the announcement, and BaFin has already assembled a crypto-focused team.
- Also, Coinbase said that its high-yield alternative to traditional savings accounts offers “4% APY on your USD coin.” Pre-enrollment is now open for eligible customers in the US, they said, adding that “your loaned crypto is not protected by FDIC or SIPC insurance.”
Kraken said it reduced deposit fees for more than 70 supported cryptoassets to zero. Also, the exchange said it “is preparing the ground for one of its long-term ambitions: to provide DeFi products and services from the exchange.” No other details were provided about these plans.
Regulation news
- A growing number of crypto companies are withdrawing their application for regulation with the UK Financial Conduct Authority: 64 have withdrawn theirs now, up from 51 less than a month ago, per Reuters. Only six firms have registered, with many more currently being actively assessed by the FCA.
DeFi news
- Interest rate protocol Compound Labs has announced its Compound Treasury, a service designed for non-crypto native businesses and financial institutions to access the features of the Compound (COMP) protocol. The service removes the inherent protocol-related complexity including private key management, crypto-to-fiat conversion, and interest rate volatility, the team said.
- Artificial intelligence lab for decentralized machine learning Fetch.ai (FET) has announced the launch of its DeFi Agents toolkit. Utilizing a DeFi app, users will now be able to automatically withdraw liquidity from any Uniswap V2 and PancakeSwap pool based on predefined conditions, according to the emailed release.
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