Hot Crypto Exchange, NBA Plays Blockchain, Status Unknown + 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.
Exchanges news
- Top-tier exchange volumes increased 42% compared to June, to USD 334bn, now representing 60% of total spot volume, said crypto market data provider CryptoCompare. Meanwhile, lower-tier volumes decreased by 38%, to USD 224bn. Binance was the largest top-tier exchange by volume, trading USD 68.4 billion (up 68%), followed by OKEx trading USD 44bn (up 5%), Huobi Global with USD 23.5bn (up 99%), Kraken with USD 13bn (up 177%), and Coinbase with USD 10bn (up 47%).
- Genesis, a digital currency prime brokerage services provider, said it partnered with crypto exchange Luno in order to enable interest-bearing products customized for the Luno community.
Investment news
- Dapper Labs, the company developing the new Flow blockchain, said it has closed USD 12m in new funding from investors including NBA players Andre Iguodala (Miami Heat), Spencer Dinwiddie and Garrett Temple (Brooklyn Nets), JaVale McGee (Los Angeles Lakers), and Aaron Gordon (Orlando Magic). “The funding from this round will ensure Flow can scale to the size of projects appealing to fan bases as vibrant and demanding as the NBA and our other partner brands,” Roham Gharegozlou, Founder and CEO of Dapper Labs, was quoted as saying.
- Following media reports that decentralized finance project Reflexer Labs closed a USD 1.7 million seed round, the project’s CEO, Stefan Ionescu, confirmed the news on Twitter. The round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Standard Crypto, Variant Fund, and Compound Finance founder Robert Leshner.
Legal news
- Attorneys for investors who are suing the Switzerland-based software developing company Status said that they can’t reach the co-founders, Jarrad Hope and Carl Bennetts, to serve them papers, as a part of a class-action lawsuit filed in April. The suit alleges that the USD 100 million raised in its initial coin offering (ICO) through the sale of Status’ SNT token in 2017 was an unregistered securities sale. The attorney’s letter is now asking the court to allow for the papers to be served through the attorneys, email, or social media accounts, as investors are concerned that the Status co-founders may try to disappear “into the fog of internet obscurity.”
- Lynn Wright, the ex-wife of Craig Wright, claimed that she had previously owned one-third of Wright’s firm, W&K Info Defense Research, with her transferable interest moving into another Wright’s company, Craig Wright R&D, which became Tulip Trust, where a million bitcoin (BTC) – the centre of the case – are allegedly being held. Per the recent motion, the lawyers for the estate of David Kleiman, Craig Wright’s late business partner, said that Ms. Wright’s testimony means Wright’s previous claim that the Tulip Trust was a blind trust is not true, and that, due to the inconsistencies, the statement might be an attempt to defraud the attorneys and the court.
DeFi news
- Santiment research, via its ranking system called Sanbase, found that Maker (MKR), Synthetix (SNX), Band Protocol (BAND), and Augur (REP) are the top decentralized finance platforms in terms of developer activity in July. Per the report, the top ERC20 projects were Gnosis (GNO), Status (SNT), and Aragon (ANT).
- Band Protocol (BAND) gained 40% since yesterday, as the news of its listing on Coinbase Pro came out. Its price is currently (15:37 UTC) USD 7.57, having appreciated nearly 83% in a week and 487% in a month.
Blockchain news
- Vladivostok’s commercial port (Vladivostok Commercial Sea Port) has agreed to adopt the TradeLens blockchain platform, reported the Maritime News of Russia. The platform has been masterminded by shipping behemoth Maersk and tech giant IBM. The port said it will use the technology to expiate the unloading and loading of cargo at the port as well as ship docking and mooring. The port added that the solution would let it reduce the amount of time it takes to process documents reports from carriers.
- Local government authorities said that the first-ever cross-border trade deal has been conducted on the newly built blockchain-powered platform of China’s Liaoning Province. Per Xinhua, a Huludao-based Bank of China branch successfully provided a local firm named Liaoning Shixing Pharmaceutical & Chemical with USD 330,000 in financing support for an export-based deal to an unnamed overseas buyer.
Mining news
- Bitmain delayed shipment of its AntMiner mining machines. Per the announcement, because of “external interference over the company’s management,” the customers who were originally supposed to get their equipment in June and July will have to wait until September and October.
- The government of Kazakhstan is planning to impose a flat-rate crypto mining tax of 15%, per Forbes Kazakhstan. The proposal is the brainchild of the nation’s Ministry of the Economy, which said it plans to use the funds accumulated through the tax to pay for COVID-19-fighting countermeasures.
Crypto adoption news
- Grayscale Investments, a digital currency asset manager and sponsor of Grayscale Ethereum Trust, has announced that it has publicly filed a Registration Statement on Form 10 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on behalf of Grayscale Ethereum Trust. According to the press release, if approved, this would designate Grayscale Ethereum Trust as a SEC reporting company and as the second digital currency investment vehicle to get that status following Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, while accredited investors who purchased shares in Grayscale Ethereum Trust’s private placement would have an earlier liquidity opportunity.
- London based digital asset infrastructure provider Copper has expanded the ClearLoop digital asset trading framework to include collateral management for crypto derivatives, thus enabling crypto derivatives to be traded over the counter (OTC), said the emailed press release. The new collateral management suite was developed specifically for the institutional marketplace, with GSR, a digital asset trading firm, and a Copper client, serving as a key advisor in the product design process.
