Three Arrows Founders in Hiding, Voyager’s Unknowns, Vauld’s ‘Breathing Space’ + 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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Crypto turmoil news
- Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, the founders of troubled crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) might have fled Singapore and their whereabouts are unknown, Bloomberg reported, citing a bankruptcy filing of 3AC. The filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York also stated that 3AC managed USD 3bn in digital assets as of April 2022 and requested a stay on efforts by creditors to seize its assets, per the report.
- Singapore-based troubled crypto lender Vauld said their legal counselor has filed an application in the Singapore Courts on behalf of Defi Payments Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean entity of Vauld, to seek a moratorium order under section 64 of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 to prohibit for the period of 6 months. “This is so as to give Defi Payments and the Vauld management the breathing space it requires to prepare for the intended restructuring for the benefit of all stakeholders,” the firm said, adding that the Vauld Group continues to have M&A discussions with Nexo. Per The Block, Vauld has assets worth around USD 330m and liabilities worth about USD 400m.
- US-based troubled crypto platform Voyager Digital confirmed that it’s still unknown how much crypto their clients might get back, as “the exact numbers will depend on what happens in the restructuring process and the recovery of 3AC assets.” Also, the company noted that its reorganization plan “is subject to change, negotiation with customers, and ultimately a vote.” “In Voyager’s case, customers are the primary creditors and will have an opportunity to vote on the proposed Plan of Reorganization,” they said.
- The Private Shares Fund, a fund overseen by advisory firm Liberty Street Advisors, marked down crypto lender BlockFi’s warrants as “worthless” in its fund report at the end of June, according to an analysis of data compiled by Bloomberg. All investment rounds in BlockFi are pari-passu, meaning that investors are on equal footing, the outlet reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
- Securities regulators in Texas and Alabama are expanding their investigations into troubled crypto firms Voyager Digital and Celsius Network to check whether they properly disclosed material information on their loans and the creditworthiness of the borrowers, per Bloomberg.
Regulation news
- The US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard claims that the foundation for crypto regulation should be established “now,” before the ecosystem grows so much that “it might pose risks to the stability of the broader financial system.”
- The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), an association of securities regulators from around the world, is developing policy recommendations for crypto. Two working groups, one headed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the other by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, have agreed to publish reports with recommendations for DeFi and cryptoassets by the end of 2023.
Investments news
- Digital asset manager Grayscale Investments announced the updated fund component weightings for each product. In their Digital Large Cap Fund, they said they sold certain amounts of the existing fund components in proportion to their respective weightings and removed bitcoin cash (BCH), chainlink (LINK), litecoin (LTC), polkadot (DOT), and uniswap (UNI), without adding any new tokens to it.
- Trading platform Thalex closed its Series A funding round of EUR 7.5m (USD 7.58m). The platform is partnering with crypto exchanges Bitfinex and Bitstamp to enable their customers to access the full suite of Thalex derivatives from their own user interface, they added.
- Dutch banking giant ING Bank sold crypto custody platform Pyctor to market infrastructure vendor GMEX Group for an undisclosed sum. “Pyctor was incubated in ING Neo’s Amsterdam innovation lab, in collaboration with major financial institutions and regulators. ING will continue its relationship with Pyctor; now a service offering within GMEX; and collaborate through ING’s digital assets team,” per the announcement.
Crime news
- More than ETH 1,300 (USD 1.5m) has been stolen in an attack on NFT protocol OMNI, per blockchain security firm PeckShield. The protocol claims that no customer funds were lost, only internal testing funds were affected, and that the protocol has been suspended until the investigation is completed and reviewed by external security and auditing firms.
- DeFi project Yam Finance said that they have successfully thwarted an attempted attack on their Yam DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization. An unverified contract was deployed and a governance proposal submitted via internal transactions to make it harder to notice, but the attack was noticed and the proposal has been canceled, they added.
- BIFROST, a multichain middleware platform, announced that there was an attack on the BTC address registration server of their BiFi service, where the attacker was able to borrow ETH 1,852 (USD 2.1m) with a fake deposit. They added that the BIFROST Foundation will cover all losses caused by the attack and that they will not pursue legal action if the attacker returns at least 90% of the stolen funds.
- Russia’s financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring, said it was using software to track crypto transactions and hopes to improve its capabilities, according to Reuters. Russia has already identified specific criminal cases involved in crypto, it added.
Exchanges news
- Binance continued to process trades by clients in Iran despite US sanctions and a company ban on doing business there, Reuters reported. In November 2018, Binance announced it would no longer serve Iranian traders, but seven crypto traders told the news agency they continued to use their accounts until as recently as September last year, only losing access after the exchange tightened its anti-money laundering checks a month earlier.
- OKX announced it will be the Official Training Kit Partner for English football club Manchester City from the 2022/2023 season.
- MoonXBT announced it has implemented a zero-fee policy on multiple trading pairs for the spot market indefinitely.
Bitcoin news
- Bitcoin developer Gloria Zhao has become a maintainer of Bitcoin Core, making her the first known female maintainer.
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(Updated on July 20 at 09:56 UTC to correct that Bifrost is a multichain middleware platform, not a provider of cross-chain liquidity for staked assets, as previously claimed.)
