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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Investment news
- Nomura, one of Japan’s biggest investment banks, is launching a new venture capital unit to invest in the crypto space. It named its new digital assets business Laser Digital and incorporated the holding company, Laser Digital Holdings AG in Switzerland, said the press release. The first product to launch will be Laser Venture Capital, which will invest in companies in the digital ecosystem, focusing on decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized finance (CeFi), web3, and blockchain infrastructure.
- C Ventures, a venture capital firm started by Hong Kong real estate tycoon and billionaire Adrian Cheng, aims to raise a $200 million fund to invest in the crypto space, according to Bloomberg. It plans to invest in blockchain assets, credit, and private equity over the next 18 months, betting prices of private companies and digital assets are bottoming out.
- Headquarters, a finance dashboard for Web3 teams to manage their financial operations and reporting, announced that it secured $5M in a pre-seed round co-led by Crypto.com Capital, Forge Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures, along Web3 funds including Saison Capital, Coinhako, Longhash Ventures, Ocular, Sky9 Capital, and DWF Labs. The company plans to change the highly manual way Web3 teams manage their finances, said an announcement.
- British bitcoin trading desk CoinCorner has partnered with Seed Group, a company owned by Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum’s family office. Per the announcement, Seed Group will help CoinCorner expand its operations in the emirates and the wider Middle East, while the fintech company will focus on establishing a user-friendly platform for UAE residents to buy, sell, send, receive, and store bitcoin (BTC), besides offering local businesses solutions to deal in crypto.
- Digital assets and blockchain technologies company Metallicus unveiled its Metal Pay API, a fully customizable and compliant solution that enables any financial services or consumer-facing business to cater to their customers’ interest in cryptoassets, said the announcement. The application programming interface (API) is an extension of the established Metal Pay infrastructure that will enable partners to supplement their core business product offerings to drive new growth opportunities and competitive advantage, they said.
Adoption news
- Colorado, USA, residents can now pay state taxes with cryptoassets, Axios reported. Individual income tax, business income tax, sales and use tax, withholding tax, severance tax and excise fuel tax are eligible, it said.
Blockchain news
- The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) today announced the release of the Antelope Leap 3.1 consensus update and its “independence.” The team stated that the update servers the network’s ties to Block.one and Bullish.
Regulation news
- Regulators in Indonesia are introducing a new rule requiring domestic crypto exchanges to be mostly led by its citizens, Bloomberg reported. At least two-thirds of directors and commissioners on crypto bourses must be Indonesians residing in the country, officials from the trade ministry and commodity futures trading regulatory agency said at a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta on Tuesday.
CBDC news
- The Central Bank of Iran will start a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot on Thursday, according to the country’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture. The aim of designing the crypto-rial is to turn banknotes into a programmable entity, it added.
Exchange news
- Coinbase announced today that Coinbase Cloud has launched a platform for web3 developers, giving developers “free and instant blockchain API [application programming interface] access with Node by Coinbase Cloud.” Node, formerly known as Query & Transact, has been serving dedicated, paid nodes to enterprises for read/write access to 25+ blockchains since 2020, it added.
- Binance and FTX are leading the bid to acquire assets of troubled crypto lender Voyager Digital, per the Wall Street Journal. Both made bids near $50 million, while Binance’s is slightly higher of the two, it said.
- Bitget announced exclusive bonuses, including a prize pool of $300,000 and a reward pool of 1 million BGB, to complement its recent launch of Zero Fee trading on spot markets.
Legal news
- Stablecoin issuer Tether has been ordered by a US Judge to produce financial records relating to the backing of USDT, including “general ledgers, balance sheets, income statements, cash-flow statements, and profit and loss statements”. The company must also share details about its accounts at exchanges Bitfinex, Poloniex, and Bittrex. “The documents Plaintiffs seek are undoubtedly important, as they relate to the backing of USDT,” wrote the judge.
- During bankruptcy proceedings in Canada, $2 million worth of assets, including five luxury cars, have been seized from 23-year-old Aiden Pleterski, the self-described “crypto king”, the CBC reported. This still falls far short of what his investors say they’re owed, with creditors claiming that at least $35 million have been provided to Pleterski and his company AP Private Equity Limited for crypto and foreign exchange investments. Roughly 140 investors who handed over a collective $20 million responded to a call-out for information from a fraud recovery law firm investigating Pleterski, it added.
Payments news
- London-based fintech firm Revolut announced that it has expanded its crypto offering to launch 29 new tokens for US users, via a new partnership with Apex Crypto, a subsidiary of Apex Fintech Solutions Inc. under the Apex Digital Assets business line. Customers can now buy and sell a total of 36 cryptocurrencies directly within the Revolut app using available fiat currency.
- Payroll specialist Deel announced that its users can now link their accounts to Coinbase to get their paycheck in crypto. Coinbase has a feature that automatically converts your paycheck into crypto, which can be turned on and off at any point. Users can also deposit as little or as much of their paycheck as they want, it said.
- AgriDex, an end-to-end supply chain platform and marketplace for the global food and agriculture industry, has announced the launch of the Fiat-on-Chain (FoC) payment technology. Starting from September 23, FoC will be available for purchase on AgriDex’s website in three currencies: GBP, EUR, and USD. First announced in August, FoC says it has already secured more than $1 billion in deposit and transaction interest.
Charity news
- Princess Charlene of Monaco’s foundation launched a non-fungible token (NFT) collection for the first time to raise funds for the ‘feed2gether‘ initiative to feed hungry children in South Africa. Per an announcement, feed2gether is a program developed with the goal of helping children aged 3 to 5. With the auction of this NFT collection, the foundation and feed2gether aim to raise $3 million. The fifteen-piece NFT collection features paintings of countless children, each with a watermark of Princess Charlene’s face.
DeFi news
- Navigate, the community platform where users contribute data and fuel the creation of decentralized applications (dapps), has opened its first Data Vault on the Navigate Platform. The vault enables drone users to upload their data and receive rewards in the form of Navigate’s native utility token, NVG8. This data will power the platform’s initial application, Navigate Maps. Additional Data Vaults will be launched by Navigate in future months to allow users to upload other forms of data sets, said an announcement.
