Instagram Starts Testing NFTs, Roubini’s Dollar Replacement Plan, Bitcoin Inflows Return, Ethereum Outflows Slow Down + 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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NFTs news

• Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, the parent company of social networks Facebook and Instagram, announced that this week they’re starting to test digital collectibles on Instagram so creators and collectors can display their NFTs on their profiles. Zuckerberg added that similar functionality is coming to Facebook “soon”.

Tokenization news

• Prominent crypto skeptic, US economist Nouriel Roubini is working on a tokenized replacement for the US Dollar, dubbed USG, which is meant to stand against higher inflation, climate change, and civil unrest, per Bloomberg. Roubini added that the USG would first be an index, then an exchange-traded fund (ETF), and finally a security token backed by “real/[financial] assets with AML/KYC [Anti-Money Laundering / Know Your Customer] features.”

Investments news

• Digital asset investment products surprisingly saw inflows totaling USD 40m last week, per CoinShares data. “We believe [that] investors [are] taking advantage of the substantive price weakness to add to positions,” per the firm. However, they stressed that there was no spike in investment product trading activity as typically happens during extreme price weakness periods, and it’s too early to tell if this marks the end of the 4-week run of negative sentiment. Bitcoin (BTC) saw inflows of USD 45m (compared with USD 133m outflows last week), while ethereum (ETH) saw outflows of USD 12.5m or 50% less than a week earlier.
• Institutional crypto-powered management solution Compound Treasury announced it has received a B- grade from credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings. They add that “S&P’s outlook is stable, reflecting an expectation of limited loan losses on the Compound Treasury platform.”
• Asset manager Galaxy Digital announced a net comprehensive loss of USD 111.7m for the first quarter of 2022, compared to a USD 858.2m gain in the prior-year period. They stated that “[t]he decrease was primarily related to unrealized losses on digital assets and on investments in our Trading and Principal Investment businesses, partially offset by profitability in our Investment Banking and Mining businesses and lower operating expenses.”
• Blockchain gaming firm Irreverent Labs raised USD 40m to further its efforts to create a robot cock fighting NFT game called MechaFightClub, per GamesBeat.

Career news

• Crypto exchange Bitstamp announced that it has appointed JB Graftieaux, the company’s Europe CEO, as its Global CEO. Graftieaux was formerly the Managing Director of e-commerce giant eBay Europe, where he led the company’s regulatory operations for payments and served on the board of directors for several eBay entities. Graftieaux succeeds Julian Sawyer “who has decided to pursue other opportunities.”

Legal news

• The UK High Court has recognized non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as property in a case brought by Lavinia Osbourne, the founder of the informative show Women in Blockchain Talks, who claimed that two digital works from the Boss Beauties collection, an NFT-based initiative designed to “create opportunities” and raise funds for females, had been stolen from her online wallet, according to The Art Newspaper.
• Luiz Capuci Jr, the CEO of purported crypto mining and investment platform Mining Capital Coin, was indicted for allegedly orchestrating a USD 62m global investment fraud scheme, the US Department of Justice said. Capuci operated a fraudulent investment scheme and did not use investors’ funds to mine new cryptocurrency, as promised, but instead diverted the funds to crypto wallets under his control, they claimed.

Mining news

• Alborz LLC, a joint venture affiliate of Bitcoin mining company Cipher Mining and energy company WindHQ, announced that it has entered into a two-year USD 46.9m secured credit facility with crypto lender BlockFi. The loan proceeds will finance Bitmain S19J Pro mining rigs at the Alborz data center.