Crypto Briefs is your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Investment news
- Major digital asset manager Grayscale Investments said it raised USD 503.7 million in 1Q20, nearly double the previous quarterly high of USD 254.8 in 3Q19. New investors accounted for USD 160.1 million in inflows. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale Ethereum Trust both experienced record quarterly inflows of USD 388.9 million and USD 110.0 million, respectively, they added.
- South Korean blockchain game maker Wemade Tree has received a USD 3.3 million investment boost from fellow gaming company Longtu Korea, per Newsway. Wemade Tree is the blockchain gaming arm of Wemade, one of the nation’s biggest video game makers. The deal will see Longtu purchase 10% of Wemade Tree’s stock. Longtu will likely push forward with releases on Wemade Tree’s Wemix platform, and the two companies have expressed a desire to make inroads into the growing Chinese blockchain gaming market.
- Swiss blockchain-centered fintech Crypto Finance AG has completed a Series B investment round, raising around EUR 13.3 million (USD 14.45 million), bringing the total funding raised to EUR 34.2 million (USD 37.1 million), reports EU-Startups. The financing round was led by Swiss investor Rainer-Marc Frey and the Asian-based private equity fund Lingfeng Capital, while several existing and new investors joined from across Europe and Asia, including Asian-based QBN Capital. The startup will use the funds to expand its blockchain services.
Exchanges news
- South Korean exchange Bithumb is now highly likely to delist monero (XMR) in the wake of the Telegram Nth room case, whereby a distributor of graphic rape and exploitation videos is believed to have paid his admins in the popular privacy coin. Per ET News, the crypto exchange’s token auditing committee has placed XMR on a blacklist for 30 days. If the token remains on the list until the end of that period, it will automatically be removed from the platform. Bithumb had been under growing pressure to delist monero after rival platform Huobi Korea, the only other exchange in the nation then handling XMR, announced it was delisting the privacy coin earlier this month.
- Japanese crypto exchange FXCoin has announced a third-party allotment of shares to the crypto-keen SBI Group and Asahi Kahei Textile, per a press release. SBI, which also owns its own crypto trading platform (SBI VC Trade), also announced news of a Corda-powered blockchain solution to be rolled out for its forex trading platform today. FXCoin is an established player in the Japanese scene and first started trading back in 2017. However, its operations were disrupted after it became engaged in a long bid to win a regulatory permit, which was finally granted at the end of December last year.
- Canadian and bitcoin-only exchange Bull Bitcoin has introduced lower fees and higher transaction limits in the face of an unprecedented economic and unemployment crisis. According to the announcement, the exchange removed all account funding fees for e-transfer, wire transfer, direct debit and Desjardins transfer, as well as flat fees for all transactions, while all fees to buy bitcoin have been removed previously. Bill payment fees have been decreased and transaction limits increased. It also simplified KYC thresholds, removed Proof-of-Residence requirements, tightened exchange rate spread and decreased bill payment times.
Stablecoins news
- Solana, a high-performance blockchain, has partnered with Terra, a blockchain payment network. Per the announcement, the two will build a new token bridge that facilitates the transfer of Terra stablecoins into Solana’s dapp ecosystem.
Security tokens news
- Security token offerings (STO) are poised to lift off in Japan, with yet another major company joining the fast-growing Japan Security Token Association (JSTA). Following on from yesterday’s news of another new member joining, in the form of Tezos Japan, the JSTA has announced, per Gentosha, that Nihon Unisys, a Tokyo-based IT business solutions provider formerly aligned with America’s Unisys, has joined the group, whose founding members include the likes of Deloitte Japan.