Ripple Reportedly Eyes Celsius’ Assets, New Crypto Rule from SEC, Risky Metaverse + More News
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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Investments news
- Ripple Labs is interested in potentially purchasing at least some of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network‘s assets, as the blockchain payments company looks to scale, Reuters reported, citing a spokesperson of Ripple. The spokesperson declined to say if Ripple was interested in acquiring Celsius outright, it added.
- German fintech firm Unstoppable Finance announced a EUR 12.5m (USD 12.8m) Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to launch and scale their DeFi wallet and investing platform Ultimate.
- Decentralized smart contracts platform Injective announced a USD 40m funding round led by Jump Crypto. BH Digital, the crypto arm of hedge fund manager Alan Howard, has also joined the round. The new capital will allow the team to increase utility for the native INJ token, provide liquidity to existing dapps built on Injective, and support new dapps via investments.
- Decentralized community CreatorDAO has raised USD 20m in a seed funding round led by a16z crypto and Initialized Capital, among other investors. Emerging creators can apply to CreatorDAO, where those selected will be provided with the capital, mentorship, and technology needed to make better content and grow their audience, said the announcement.
- RISC Zero, a startup that develops products utilizing zero-knowledge cryptography, announced a USD 12m Seed Round led by Bain Capital Crypto. A developer-oriented preview of their new network will be launched in Q3 2022, ahead of the launch of their blockchain, they said.
- Digital asset protection technology company Coincover said it has developed technology to protect staked assets from any kind of outage or disaster scenario, done by providing staking organizations with an encrypted backup key, said a press release shared with Cryptonews.com.
Regulation news
- The US Securities and Exchange Commission will vote to propose a rule that seeks to elevate the quality of disclosures, including crypto exposure, it receives from large private and hedge funds, per Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.
Metaverse news
- The importance of cryptoassets in the open-metaverse means that if an open and decentralized metaverse grows, existing risks from cryptoassets may scale to have systemic financial stability consequences, said a blog post written by staff at the Bank of England. “If a sizable open-metaverse materialized, households may hold a greater share of their wealth in cryptoassets to make metaverse-based payments or for investment purposes, and corporates may increasingly take payments for goods and services in cryptoassets, and sell digital assets (eg clothing NFTs) in the metaverse,” they added.
- The Sandbox, a gaming virtual world and a subsidiary of blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands, announced that has partnered with American media personality Paris Hilton and media content company and platform 11:11 Media to bring Hilton’s world to The Sandbox. The partnership will give Paris Hilton fans and the community an opportunity to connect with her in a brand-new way, said the announcement shared with Cryptonews.com.
Adoption news
- Latin America’s largest e-commerce giant Mercado Libre plans to expand its bitcoin, ethereum, and stablecoin trading feature and wallet launched in Brazil last December, El Pais reported, citing fintech vertical director Osvaldo Gimenez.
Legal news
- A complaint filed with the US District Court in Delaware and made by shareholder Donald Kocher on behalf of crypto exchange Coinbase, alleges that the company’s leadership made “false and misleading statements” in the firm’s public filings ahead of its direct listing in April 2021. Nine former and current Coinbase officers, including CEO Brian Armstrong, are accused of violating federal securities law, abusing their power, causing financial harm to the firm, and “gross mismanagement.”
- Canadian regulators are working with counterparts in the United States as multiple jurisdictions investigate the multi-billion-dollar collapse of crypto lender Celsius Network, according to the Financial Post, citing “sources with knowledge of the probes.” Among the regulators involved is Quebec’s Autorité des marchés financiers, whose investigation is partly being driven by the fact that the province’s largest pension manager, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, invested USD 150m in Celsius last October, per the report.
Ethereum news
- Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, announced that it intends to “fully and solely support the Ethereum proof-of-stake (PoS) chain post-merge.”
- Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, said it believes that in order to avoid any disruption to the Ethereum community, the transition to PoS must not be weaponized to cause confusion and harm within the ecosystem – adding that it will support PoS Ethereum only.
DeFi news
- The developers behind Blur Finance, a yield aggregator based on BNB Chain and Polygon (MATIC), seem to have abandoned the project and deleted its social media channels. More than USD 600,000 worth of tokens have disappeared, said security firm PeckShield.
Mining news
- CleanSpark said it recognized a USD 29.3m net loss for the three months ended June 30. It increased 76% compared to the same prior year period. Revenues for the quarter grew to USD 31m, an increase of 22m, or 243%, from USD 9m for the same prior year period. Per CFO Gary A. Vecchiarelli, “our decision to divest energy assets will allow us to focus our time, people, and resources on our core business.”
- Kryptovault AS is forced by soaring power prices to move north from southern Norway, moving mining operations north of the Arctic Circle, Bloomberg reported, citing Chief Executive Officer Kjetil Hove Pettersen. He reportedly said that power costs in the south are almost 160 times more than in the north.
