Today in Crypto: BlockFi to Liquidate Platform as Selling It Wouldn’t Generate Enough Value, Justin Sun Fires a Round of Accusations at Huobi Founder’s Brother, Digital Yuan Enters Vietnam Borde
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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Legal news
- Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi plans to liquidate its platform after concluding that selling the business to a new owner wouldn’t generate enough value for its creditors, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company said that after having engaged with potential buyers of its platform and 660,000 client accounts since January, it concluded that a sale might not generate meaningful value, and it cited recent regulatory developments as one reason that it didn’t receive value-maximizing offers from prospective buyers.
- The BlockFi Creditors Committee said that BlockFi’s claims that it was a victim of failed crypto companies FTX and Alameda Research is a “false case narrative,” and they blamed the company’s failure on poor management decisions and its restructuring agents. “In most large Chapter 11 cases, the debtor files an “informational” (also known as the “first day”) declaration with its Chapter 11 petition. The declaration attempts to explain why (from the debtor’s perspective) the company failed. This can be an ornate piece of rhetoric (even scapegoating) that ultimately proves to be untethered to the true case facts,“ said a court filing published on Monday.
- The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) responded to crypto giant Coinbase’s lawsuit against the agency, calling the exchange’s suit “baseless” and saying the digital asset industry already has rules and regulations governing it. “Coinbase’s preference for faster or different regulatory action by the commission does not entitle it to extraordinary relief from this court,” the commission’s lawyers wrote. “The petition should be denied.” Meanwhile, Berenberg Capital Markets’ Mark Palmer estimated that at least 37% of Coinbase’s first-quarter net revenue came from streams unrelated to Bitcoin, saying that “at a minimum, these revenue sources likely would be targeted by the SEC in the enforcement action that we expect the commission to file soon,” Bloomberg reported.
Altcoin news
- Tron (TRX) CEO and Huobi stakeholder Justin Sun accused the brother of Huobi founder Li Lin, Li Wei, that, when HT was initially distributed, he “received millions of HT tokens for free. Li Wei has been consistently selling off these HT tokens and cashing out. Now, the HT DAO committee is stepping in to rectify this issue.” Sun claimed that they are negotiating a refund and destruction of Li Wei’s remaining HT tokens.
CBDC news
- The Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, which borders Vietnam, will implement nine nationwide functions for the use of China’s digital yuan and will pilot eight locally unique scenarios, the South China Morning Post reported. These include using the currency at the annual China-Asean Expo in September and in business dealings within the region’s free-trade zones and in border trade, according to the Nanning branch of the People’s Bank of China.
Regulation news
- The members of the European Union Council gave the final green light on the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) legislation following a voting process on Tuesday. All 27 Finance ministers representing the EU‘s member states voted in favor of passing the bill, with 0 votes against, as well as for passing the amendments connected to the new legislation. The EU Parliament also adopted two other pieces of legislation, including regulation on information related to transfers of funds and certain cryptoassets.
Investment news
- Asymmetry Finance, a liquid staking derivatives (LSD) protocol, announced its seed round totaling $3 million in conjunction with the official launch of its platform. The raise was led by Ecco Capital, with participation from Republic Capital, GMJP, and a major LSD provider Ankr. Assymetry will use the resources to further develop its liquid staking protocol, add talent to the team, and onboard decentralized finance (DeFi) enthusiasts and institutions to its platform, it said. “Asymmetry Finance’s liquid staking derivatives protocol is a custom-built solution to the centralization of the staked Ethereum market,” the press release added.
