Ex-SEC Chair Enters Crypto River, USD 225m Crypto Fund + 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.
Career news
- One River Asset Management, a USD 2.5bn firm whose crypto funds are backed by hedge fund titan Alan Howard, brought on former US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton as an adviser, Bloomberg reported. “I see a wide range of outcomes for digital assets that include strong government regulation, domestically and globally,” Clayton was quoted as saying. “The time frame is uncertain, but I expect there will be international coordination if not international consensus around digital assets.”
- Peter Großkopf, Chief Technical Officer and Member of the Management Board of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH, will leave the company at his own request at the end of March 2021, said an emailed press release. Having built up Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX) as the first multilateral trading venue for digital assets in Germany, Großkopf decided to return to entrepreneurial activities as the founder of a new company in the field of DeFi, they added.
Investments news
- Crypto venture firm Dragonfly Capital has launched Dragonfly Fund II, a USD 225m venture fund, to “back the next generation of crypto entrepreneurs and projects,” they said. The new fund will mainly invest in four areas: DeFi protocols; NFT projects; Ethereum (ETH) Layer 2 solutions and businesses built on top of them; and centralized financial (CeFi) infrastructure. Sequoia China backed the fund as a strategic limited partner, while other partners include OKEx, Huobi, Bybit, and Bitmain.
Adoption news
- The Miami Heat’s home court will become the FTX Arena after the 19-year, USD 135m deal was approved by Miami-Dade commissioners on Friday, clearing the way for the FTX crypto exchange to take the place of American Airlines as a leading sponsor in Florida sports, reported the Miami Herald. The plan was to put the FTX brand on the arena for the 2020-21 NBA season, which ends this summer.
- There has been a big rise in the number of people aged 20-39 making small-scale crypto investments in South Korean, reported EDaily. Citing research from the Big Data firm IGA Works, the media outlet wrote that around 60% of South Korea’s newest buyers are in their 20s and 30s, with unnamed traders quoted as stating that they prefer to invest “smaller amounts” of up to USD 100 in “bitcoin and top 10-by-market-cap altcoins” on a monthly basis.
- The Japanese football club Shibuya FC has launched a cryptoasset. In an official announcement from the Financie crowdfunding platform, the company which has teamed up with the club, which plays in the Prefectural Leagues, stated that the new token would be a “fan coin,” allowing holders to vote on club-related matters including the design of new posters, the club’s player of the season and the look of next season’s official club uniforms. The money raised will be used to fund the club’s transfer kitty and other upkeep costs.
- The chief financial officer (CFO) of payments giant Square, Amrita Ahuja, said that “there’s absolutely a case for every balance sheet to have bitcoin (BTC) on it.” Square sees BTC and cryptos as expanding access to financial services, particularly when thinking more globally, she said.
- airBaltic, a major airline in the Baltic region, said that in cooperation with BitPay, it now also accepts payments in bitcoin cash (BCH), ETH, dogecoin (DOGE), and four stablecoins. The company was already accepting BTC.
- Silvergate Capital Corporation, a US-based provider of crypto-focused financial solutions, said it picked Fidelity Digital Assets as their custodian for the SEN Leverage service, that provides access to capital through USD loans collateralized by bitcoin.
- Mogo Inc., a Canada-based digital payments and financial technology company, said it has extended its bitcoin cashback rewards program to include MogoMortgage. “Under the program, Mogo members who take out a new mortgage or refinance with Mogo can earn up to $3,100 cashback deposited in their Bitcoin and Rewards account,” they said.
Blockchain news
- Interoperable blockchain ecosystem Cosmos (ATOM) has enabled Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) transfers on the Cosmos Hub, thus enabling sovereign blockchains to transfer the value of digital assets and data between one another, they said, adding that IBC holds “huge potential” for the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token NFT spaces, as it can be used to transfer both fungible (cross-chain payments) and non-fungible tokens between chains.
- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of Excelsior Pass — a free, voluntary platform developed in partnership with American multinational technology company IBM. The platform uses “proven, secure technology,” like blockchain and encryption, to confirm an individual’s recent negative PCR or antigen test result or proof of vaccination in order to help fast-track the reopening of businesses and event venues. Each Pass will have a QR code, which participating businesses and venues can scan using a companion app to verify proof of COVID-19 negative test results or proof of vaccination.
Security tokens news
- Japan’s SBI Securities has stated that it will begin offering support for security token offerings (STOs) after receiving regulatory permission under a new piece of legislation that allows government-permitted firms to offer STO trading options to their customers. The firm is operated by SBI Holdings and said that the platform would begin offering new digitized corporate bonds to individual buyers and was working toward handling over-the-counter transactions for users for security tokens that have already been issued.
Legal news
- The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that the US District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment against Benjamin Reynolds, finding that between May 2017 and October 2017 he operated a fraudulent scheme to solicit bitcoin from members of the public – more than 1,000 customers worldwide, including at least 169 individuals residing in the US – and misappropriated the coins. The court’s order requires Reynolds to pay nearly USD 143m in restitution to defrauded customers and a civil monetary penalty of USD 429m.
