Blockchain & Digital Assets

January 23, 2022 @ 10:31 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Bahrain-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Rain Financial has secured $110 million in capital via a Series B round. Rain Financial reports that its investment round has been co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins along with contributions from Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, MEVP, Cadenza Ventures, and CMT… Read More

January 23, 2022 @ 5:30 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Pledge Finance, the platform for long-term, fixed-rate cryptocurrency-based loans, is pleased to confirm a partnership with zkLink, a provider of secure cross-chain token swaps “powered by zero-knowledge proofs.” As mentioned in an update shared with CI, the partnership will allow Pledge to “integrate with more… Read More

January 23, 2022 @ 4:34 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Agoric, the JavaScript-native smart contract platform, has closed its public token sale, having sold more than $50M of BLD tokens in “less than two hours,” according to an update shared with CI. As noted in the announcement, the 48,000+ new account holders, soon to be… Read More

January 23, 2022 @ 3:48 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

As cryptocurrency grows in popularity and adoption, ensuring businesses and platforms maintain a robust compliance infrastructure is becoming really important to the nascent industry. With Wyre’s compliance infrastructure, the team is pleased to confirm the addition of three new hires to “continue to boost our… Read More

January 23, 2022 @ 3:45 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Diogo Mónica (Co-founder and President at Anchorage Digital) and Nathan McCauley (Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital) wrote in a blog post that an OCC veteran is joining America’s first federally-chartered digital asset bank. After a solid year where Anchorage Digital experienced a significant 175%… Read More

January 23, 2022 @ 1:07 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Metaverse, a relatively new concept and a term used to describe a shared, immersive digital ecosystem supported by the use of VR and augmented reality (AR) technologies, has quickly become one of the fastest-growing trends in the digital economy. It’s notably a nascent industry… Read More

January 22, 2022 @ 7:16 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

BENKER, developed by BEM Europe UAB, claims to be one of Europe’s first officially licensed blockchain neobanks. Obtaining approval from the Bank of Lithuania on January 13, 2022 to serve as an Electronic Money Institution, BENKER is reportedly one the first financial services providers in… Read More

January 22, 2022 @ 2:15 pm By JD Alois  |  

This past week, the US Federal Reserve issued a discussion document on the possibility of a central bank digital currency or CBDC. Like many central banks around the world, the Fed is considering if a digital dollar will be a positive step or a negative… Read More

January 22, 2022 @ 2:01 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Protocol Labs and Faber are collaborating to help with supporting the development of the next-gen of the Internet. The partnership combines Faber’s experience as early-stage deep tech VC and Protocol Labs’ Web3 expertise to “help entrepreneurs create the building blocks of successful new companies in… Read More

January 22, 2022 @ 1:56 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

New York City’s new Mayor Eric Adams has been criticized for using of his public office in an attempt to promote the cryptocurrency sector. An upstate New York environmental group, called Seneca Lake Guardian, has stated that creating and managing virtual currency tends to consume… Read More

January 22, 2022 @ 8:28 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Luxury brand Hermès has reportedly decided to sue an artist for selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of Birkin bags. The lawsuit has been filed after the artist earned $42,000 for a virtual rendering of the high-fashion accessory in December of last year. Hermès submitted its complaint… Read More

January 21, 2022 @ 5:05 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Nahmii, a layer two scaling protocol for the Ethereum blockchain, this week announced a startup accelerator designed to bolster the Nahmii developer community and ecosystem. SkunkDAO is a Web3 incubator that allows Nahmii’s developer community to convert their ideas into real-world form and function projects…. Read More

January 21, 2022 @ 12:58 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Mastercard users will soon be able to use their plastic to buy NFTs on Coinbase’s upcoming NFT marketplace, the two companies announced this week. Coinbase had announced Coinbase NFT in October of 2021. “Our mission at Coinbase is to increase economic freedom in the world,”… Read More

January 21, 2022 @ 10:42 am By JD Alois  |  

Bitcoin is tanking. Around the beginning of the year, Bitcoin was trading at over $50,000. Today, BTC has lost a dramatic amount of value trading at under $40,000. While Bitcoin is not alone in its decline (Ethereum has crashed too), BTC is the most popular… Read More

January 21, 2022 @ 8:29 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Meta’s (NASDAQ: FB) two leading social media networks, Facebook and Instagram, are reportedly looking to enter the fast-evolving non-fungible token (NFT) sector. The tech giant will be focusing on making it seamless for Facebook and Instagram users to issue, trade and showcase their NFTs. As… Read More

January 21, 2022 @ 12:27 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital asset firm Gemini noted on January 19, 2022, that they’re acquiring Omniex, a trading tech platform that offers order, execution, and portfolio management system solutions for institutional cryptocurrency trading. As mentioned in a blog post, the acquisition enables Gemini to “publicly launch Gemini Prime,… Read More

January 20, 2022 @ 11:27 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

METACO, the provider of security-critical software and infrastructure to the digital asset ecosystem, has announced that Union Bank of the Philippines is implementing its digital asset management services. As noted in an update shared with CI, UnionBank is deploying services on IBM Cloud, in order to… Read More

January 20, 2022 @ 9:12 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has settled with tZERO ATS for transgressing certain rules. An ATS, or alternative trading system, is similar to an exchange as approved operators may facilitate trading of securities. According to the SEC, tZERO ATS must cease and desist from committing… Read More

January 20, 2022 @ 8:43 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Qi (formerly Stark Payments), a company that enables businesses to accept virtual currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and others as a regular payment, has raised 66% (£231,497) of its £350,000 target from 160 investors (at the time of writing) through its crowdfunding campaign carried out via… Read More

January 20, 2022 @ 8:41 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Cardano, a rival cryptocurrency to Ethereum, is likely to hit all-time highs of $2 before the end of 2022, predicts deVere Group CEO Nigel Green. The bullish guess comes as Cardano (ADA), the fifth-largest crypto, has jumped by almost 50 per cent in seven days… Read More