Investments in Bitcoin Increased, in Ethereum – Dropped + More News

Linas Kmieliauskas
Last updated: | 5 min read
Source: Adobe/andreyphoto63

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Investments news

  • Digital asset investment products saw inflows totaling USD 151m last week, the 13th consecutive week of inflows, bringing year-to-date inflows to a record USD 9bn, per CoinShares data. Bitcoin (BTC) saw the majority of inflows totaling USD 98m, compared with USD 95m a week ago, while ethereum (ETH) also saw continued inflows totaling USD 17m, but less than a week ago (USD 31m).
MTD – month-to-date; YTD – year-to-date; AUM – assets under management. Source: CoinShares
  • Digital asset institution Nexo has announced that its Board of Directors has approved a USD 100m buyback program, which authorizes the company to discretionally repurchase its native NEXO token in the open market periodically. The program will start immediately and will last for six months, after which the board will decide whether they want another buyback.
  • Scion Asset Management, founded and headed by veteran trader Michael Burry who is also known from The Big Short movie about his bets during the financial crisis, has closed positions against ARK Innovation ETF (exchange-traded fund) which offers crypto among other assets, per Bloomberg. It’s unclear how successful the wagers were, because full details of the bearish put options used by the firm were never released.
  • Liquid staking protocol from Persistence called pSTAKE has closed USD 10m in a strategic funding round, led by Three Arrows Capital, Galaxy Digital, Sequoia Capital India, and DeFiance Capital, among other investors. “[T]his round will enable us to further accelerate the growth of pSTAKE and strengthen our presence in the Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems,” said Tushar Aggarwal, CEO and Founder of Persistence.
  • Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Holding expects to be listed on a US exchange in the first quarter of next year, Bloomberg reported. The purchase of crypto custodian BitGo is also expected to close in the first three months of next year.

Regulation news

  • The Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has formalized the designation of business activities surrounding cryptoassets and named a supervisory authority, per local outlet Taiwan News. The MOEA has reportedly concluded that crypto businesses will be listed under the category of “finance, insurance and real estate” as “virtual currency platforms and trading businesses” rather than under the category of “software design services.”
  • China is warning its own state-owned enterprises to get out of cryptocurrency mining and is considering imposing punitive measures in the form of higher power prices on companies that continue to defy a government ban, Bloomberg reported. The National Development and Reform Commission plans to crack down on industrial-scale Bitcoin mining as well as any involvement by state companies in the activity, they added.
  • South Korean lawmakers are pushing against the Travel Rule that would impose, among other things, more stringent reporting requirements to crypto traders. Choi Hwa-In of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) warned that the local blockchain industry could become “severely limited” should the proposal pass.
  • Marathon Digital Holdings executives received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to produce documents and communications concerning its Hardin, Montana, data center facility, the company said in a 10Q filing on Monday. The SEC is investigating whether Marathon Digital Holdings has been in violation of federal securities law, while Marathon said it was cooperating with the investigation, without specifying the nature of the possible violations.
  • Crypto Facilities, a wholly-owned subsidiary of crypto exchange Kraken, has been granted a MLR license with the UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This license shows that the company maintains the same anti-money laundering standards as FCA-regulated banks have to meet.
  • US-based fintech company Ripple said that it is releasing a framework for crypto and digital asset regulation: ‘A Real Approach to Cryptocurrency Regulation’. The company said that the approach is designed to offer “an immediate and pragmatic way forward that accounts for the dynamic capabilities of cryptocurrency and digital assets,” and that the best public policy outcomes “can be achieved by public-private collaboration, adapting existing regulatory frameworks and fostering cryptocurrency innovation sandboxes.”

Gaming news

  • Blockchain video game developer Fracture Labs has raised USD 3.5m in a new funding round. The funds will be used to ramp up game development, as well as build out Fracture Labs’ non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace ahead of the 2022 release of their new game, Decimated.

Exchanges news

  • The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has announced a partnership with crypto exchange Bybit which makes the exchange their sponsor for all football selections. Their logo will be displayed on training shirts of the teams and on other related assets.
  • Crypto exchange ChangeNOW has returned 600,000 polygon (MATIC) tokens, stolen in the 2020 hack, to crypto exchange Eterbase. ChangeNOW had frozen the funds upon receiving them, but as Eterbase had not initiated the process to return the funds, ChangeNOW said it took the initiative and returned the stolen coins, now worth around 90 times more than at the time of the hack.

Adoption news

  • AMC Theatres will accept shiba inu (SHIB) through BitPay wallets in 60-120 days, the company’s CEO Adam Aron announced. Last week, Aron said AMC will start accepting BTC, ETH, and other cryptoassets for online payments.
  • Crypto platform Voyager Digital is launching a USD coin (USDC)-linked debit card, which will pay up to 9% in annual rewards to its customers. They add that additional features for its debit card will include no annual fees and lock-up of assets to earn rewards, while users can access their assets via ATMs.

Blockchain news

  • Enterprise blockchain platform VeChain (VET) has transitioned into proof-of-authority (PoA) 2.0, a new consensus mechanism. They added that the new algorithm supports their “ever-growing ecosystem.”

DeFi news

  • Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Injective announced the public launch of its main network alongside a USD 120m protocol incentive program named Astro for traders, market makers, and DeFi projects.

NFTs news

  • NFT-based gaming guild Yield Guild Games has announced it has partnered with and invested in eight NFT games from October 2021. The games, which were identified for their strong play-to-earn models, include Influence, CyBall, Thetan Arena, KOGs SLAM!, MOBOX, Aavegotchi, DeHorizon, and Genopets.