USD 100M Multicoin, S&P Crypto, BTC & ETH in the Air at Sotheby’s + 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.
Investments news
- Multicoin Capital said it has raised a new USD 100m venture fund to back entrepreneurs building companies (equity), and protocols (tokens) in and around the crypto space. “We have been investing out of this vehicle for several months already,” they added.
- Standard and Poor’s, the firm behind the key S&P 500 index of leading American stock market-listed shares, has launched three indices for crypto markets in a sign of growing mainstream adoption. The firm said that its indices would cover the bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) markets – with a third index, the S&P Cryptocurrency MegaCap Index, “designed to track the performance of [BTC and ETH] weighted by market cap.” The firm will use figures compiled by Lukka, a crypto data provider that it has previously made strategic investments in.
- A group of investors made up of Arrington XRP Capital, Blocktower Capital, Spartan Group, and Skynet Trading have invested a total of USD 11.5m in SCRT, the native token of the Secret Network blockchain. Michael Arrington, Founder of Arrington Capital, said, “Secret is the first blockchain ecosystem to prioritize privacy. Financial privacy is critical to individual freedom, and Arrington Capital has long been committed to financial privacy and censorship resistance.”
- Australian mining company Iris Energy Pty is considering going public, Bloomberg reported, citing unspecified sources. Listing in the US could raise them between USD 300m and USD 500m, but the company might also decide to list on the Australian Securities Exchange. Reportedly, they have been approached by several special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), and if they decide to go ahead with any of them, this would be the first such deal in Australia.
- Swiss bank SEBA said it is expanding their DeFi offering with three new cryptoassets. The new coins — synthetix (SNX), uniswap (UNI), and yearn finance (YFI)—now bring the number of cryptoassets offered by the bank to a total of nine, all of which come with services like investment solutions, custody, and trading.
Adoptions news
- Sotheby’s said it partnered with Coinbase and will accept BTC and ETH as a payment for a physical artwork for the first time. On 12 May, bidding for Love is in the Air, the iconic protest image by Banksy, estimated at USD 3/5 million, will be conducted in USD, but now the buyer will also have the option to pay the hammer price with crypto, they added.
- Newer Argentinian crypto buyers tend to buy BTC or fiat USD-pegged stablecoins, according to experts quoted in a report from Ambito. The media outlet noted that “at least” a million new crypto users had entered the market in the country in the past few months, and quoted a number of South American crypto exchange heads as stating that entry-level users tended to plump for BTC buys as a “store of value,” with other seeking to safeguard their savings against the ravages of hyperinflation by investing is stablecoins like dai (DAI), USD coin (USDC) or tether (USDT). One executive stated that ETH was also increasingly winning over new enthusiasts with some looking upon it as a “safe store of value.”
Exchanges news
- Bitstamp has announced they’re expanding in the US market. They intend to expand their institutional custody options and add a regulated derivatives offering in a team effort with traditional financial companies like Nasdaq and Silvergate. Additionally, the exchange will onboard new talent and launch a new marketing campaign to further increase their reach in the US.
- After delays, Coinbase has finally listed the ERC-20 iteration of tether (USDT). The coin will be available in all Coinbase-supported areas except New York State. It is also supported on Coinbase Pro.
- Bybit is launching its own cloud mining service in May, according to an emailed statement. Users will be able to use this mining-as-a-service (MaaS) product to mine ETH, with the price point starting at USD 100 with plans that span 7, 21, or 42 days.
Regulation news
- Thailand is the latest country to attempt to stamp out anonymity in crypto transactions – and will seek to force new crypto exchange customers to come to offices in person to verify their identity before they can open accounts on trading platforms. Per the Bangkok Post, the Anti-Money Laundering Office (known locally as Amlo) has announced that Thailand-based exchanges will have to verify their customers’ identities using “a ‘dip-chip’ machine that requires clients to be physically present.” The machine will scan chips embedded in official ID cards. Exchanges will also reportedly have to automatically report all transactions worth over USD 57,700 under AML protocols, and must “set up a database for inspections by regulators.”
- It the end of March, the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance has formed a research team to look into cryptocurrencies, ASEAN Briefing reported yesterday, adding that an estimated million of citizens of the country are already using crypto.
Career news
- Ripple said that Rosa “Rosie” Gumataotao Rios, 43rd Treasurer of the United States, joined the Ripple Board of Directors while Kristina Campbell, former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of PayNearMe, became their new CFO.
Decentralization news
- The Maker Foundation returned MKR 84,000 from the Development Fund to MakerDAO in a step further towards their own obsolescence, as part of their gradual decentralization effort. The Foundation did not place any stipulations on the amount—MKR holders will be able to decide what to do with that, in the spirit of decentralization.
NFTs news
- The team that burned and tokenized an original Banksy piece, said it has raised USD 3m to launch Burnt Finance, a decentralized auction protocol built on Solana (SOL) to enable “fast and seamless auctions.” Backed by Injective Protocol its investors include Multicoin, DeFiance, Alameda, Mechanism, Vessel Capital, Hashkey, Spartan, and other investors.
