Welcome back! Today's crypto news revolved around the U.S. Treasury's blacklisting of Tornado Cash, Iran using crypto in a commercial transaction, and updates on the Nomad Bridge hack situation. Read on!
The move from the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to effectively ban the Ethereum (ETH)-powered crypto mixing service Tornado Cash has polarized the crypto community. Some think it is a sign that more sweeping regulatory measures could be on their way – while others have suggested that the OFAC’s decision to add Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals list may turn out to be a positive step.
Mike Novogratz, CEO of digital asset-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital, is doubtful that bitcoin (BTC) will push through the USD 30,000 barrier anytime soon. He expects the world’s leading coin to move within its latest price range, given that lately, there have not been any significant capital injections into the industry.
Offchain Labs, the developer behind the Arbitrum Ethereum (ETH) scaling solution, will help the social media platform Reddit move its community points system onto Ethereum’s mainnet.
Over USD 36m has so far been returned to the official fund recovery address shared by Nomad Bridge, a cross-chain messaging protocol that was drained of USD 190m worth of funds last week in what many called "the first decentralized robbery."
International tourism is on the increase in El Salvador. And the country’s leader, President Nayib Bukele, says that his policies – including bitcoin (BTC) adoption – are the chief reasons why more holiday-goers are choosing to visit the Central American nation.
Iran made its first official import order, worth USD 10m, using crypto this week, in a move that could enable it to bypass sanctions, Reuters reported. They did not name the crypto used. "By the end of September, the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts will be widely used in foreign trade with target countries," an official from the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade said.
Bob Summerwill, Executive Director of the Ethereum Classic Cooperative, published a letter addressed to a well-known miner and Ethereum (ETH) proof-of-work (PoW) supporter, Chandler Guo, arguing that an “Ethereum POW fork won't work.” He said that there are numerous obstacles standing in the way of such a fork, that it’s too late to start now as the Merge is weeks away, and that there would be no fixing what is broken in the chain later.
Thailand plans to overhaul its digital rules to grant more powers to the central bank and tighten the oversight of platforms offering crypto, according to Bloomberg. The Securities and Exchange Commission has been asked to take the lead, Finance Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith was quoted as saying.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is partnering with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre to launch a one-year research program into the case for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia, focusing on what potential economic benefits it might bring.
BitMEX's former head of business development Gregory Dwyer pled guilty on Monday to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering program at BitMEX, and aiding and abetting the same.” This crime carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Dwyer agreed to separately pay a USD 150,000 criminal fine representing pecuniary gain derived from the offense.
1inch announced that the 1inch Aggregation Protocol and the 1inch Limit Order Protocol have been deployed on the Klaytnblockchain mainnet.
Polygon (MATIC) has partnered with South Korea Games publisher and developer Neowiz — creators of the Cats & Soup game for Android and iOS — to create a new Web3 gaming platform, Intella X. The platform will distribute its native IX Token and the shares of the generated platform revenue back to the contributors of the platform ecosystem.
Crypto-focused data analytics firm Messari is in the process of raising USD 35m at a valuation of USD 300m and has pitched potential investors, The Block reported.
MetaverseGo has raised USD 4.2m in a seed round led by Galaxy Interactive with participation from Delphi Digital, Dragonfly Capital, Mechanism Capital, Yield Guild Games, and Emfarsis, among other investors.
Methane mitigation company Vespene Energy announced the close of a USD 4.3m financing round led by Polychain Capital, and joined by a number of climate-focused funds. Vespene installs micro-turbines on municipal landfills to convert waste methane into electricity to power a variety of on-site uses, the first of which will be Bitcoin (BTC) mining data-centers.
Pinata, an NFT-focused media distribution platform, has raised a total of USD 21.5m in funding, TechCrunch reported.
US Bitcoin mining firm CleanSpark has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire an active Bitcoin mining facility located in Washington, Georgia, for USD 16.2m.
Marathon Digital said that in the second quarter of 2022, they increased their bitcoin production 8% year-over-year, producing BTC 707.
Bit Digital announced that in July 2022, it earned BTC 142.5, an 111% increase compared to the prior month.
Never lose your seed phrase again! The CRYPTOTAG hardware wallet is fireproof, waterproof, and resistant to corrosion, erosion, and physical damage - it is the most durable backup seed storage solution.