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
- Crypto custody service provider BitGo said it intends to hold investment manager Galaxy Digital “legally responsible” over the latter’s decision to pull out of the acquisition deal. In a blog post published this Monday, BitGo said Galaxy Digital was in breach of contract, as it did not pay the “USD 100 million reverse break fee it had promised back in March 2022.” The merger was scheduled to expire on December 31, 2022.
- Crypto lending platform Hodlnaut, which suspended withdrawals last week citing market volatility, has filed for protection against creditors in Singapore. Confirming the news in a blog post, the company said it filed the application to be placed under judicial management and thus avoid any potential lawsuits from its creditors, as it looks to solve its liquidity crisis.
Exchange news
- Brazilian brokerage powerhouse XP launched a crypto trading platform, as reported by local media. The XTAGE platform was launched in partnership with Nasdaq, and it will initially offer customers the opportunity to buy, sell, trade, and hold bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH). The company has more than 3.5m users.
Payments news
- Crypto company Ripple announced the launch of a new joint project with Japanese payment provider SBI Remit to streamline Japan-Thailand money transfers and allow 47,000 Thais living in Japan to instantly send money back home using RippleNet technology. This is done in cooperation with Siam Commercial Bank.
Investment news
- Prime Blockchain and 10X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp II have agreed not to conclude the USD 1.25bn-heavy merger deal, Reuters reported this Monday. The latter was a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), set up solely to acquire Prime Blockchain and take it public.
- Open-source blockchain protocol for permissionless decentralized identification .bit raised USD 13 million to build its identity protocol, the company confirmed in a press release. The Series A round was led by CMB International, with participation from HashKey Capital, QingSong Fund, GSR Ventures, GGV Capital, and SNZ.
Mining news
- Greenidge Generation is dropping its plans to expand its Bitcoin mining operations into Texas, USA, instead focusing on South Carolina and New York, the company announced in a press release. In the same announcement, the company said it recorded USD 107.9 million in net losses during the second quarter of the year.
NFT news
- Yuga Labs, the entity behind some of the most popular nonfungible token (NFT) collections, released the CryptoPunks and Meebits holders the IP license to their NFTs, said an announcement. With these rights to their Punk and/or Meebit, holders will be able to use their NFTs for commercial and personal projects such as TV shows, food trucks, clothing, and more, they explained.
- Huanhe, an NFT platform built by Chinese telecoms powerhouse Tencent, will no longer offer new releases to the public, Reuters reported. While current owners will still be able to hold, display, or request a refund for their possessions, there will be no new additions. The move comes due to increasing regulatory scrutiny in the country, the agency claims.
- State-owned Latvian air carrier airBaltic announced that it concluded its City Collection by successfully issuing the fourteenth NFT issue on the OpenSea marketplace – a digital art piece with the country’s capital Rīga. The new NFT is available for a fixed price of ETH 0.1.
- Truth in Advertising, a non-profit consumer protection organization, has called out 19 celebrities for promoting NFTs. Justin Bieber, Madonna, Floyd Mayweather, and many others, have been called out for failing to “clearly and conspicuously disclose the promoter’s material in connection to the endorsed NFT company”, as well as for omitting other information regarding the risks of investing in such speculative digital assets, they said.
DeFi news
- Ethereum-based lending and borrowing platforms Iron Bank, Yearn Finance, and Homora joined layer-2 network Optimism, said an announcement shared with Cryptonews.com. This is done to strengthen the cross-chain interoperability, scalability, and reliability of decentralized finance (DeFi), while users will be able to collateralize their crypto assets on Optimism to borrow against, they added.
- The 1inch Network announced an integration with Aurora, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that runs on the third-generation L1 protocol NEAR, said the announcement shared with Cryptonews.com. “This integration will enable [DeFi platform] 1inch users to take advantage of Ethereum’s user-friendliness at much higher speeds achieved thanks to NEAR technologies,” Sergej Kunz, 1inch Network co-founder, is quoted as saying.
Blockchain news
- New Zealand’s public blockchain and decentralized applications platform CENNZnet was employed by Power’d Digital, a team working on sports tokens and collectibles, to deliver the Formula 1 Heineken Australian Grand Prix’s 2022 AusGP Access program, said the press release shared with Cryptonews.com. Fans had the opportunity to purchase token packs, and Nicole Upchurch, CEO at CENNZnet, said that “although this powerful technology sat behind the fan tokens, from the fan perspective they simply interacted, transacted, traded and purchased with an easy-to-use website (or phone app). […] This represents a shift of power to the fans, and hints at the future of fandom.”
Career news
- Former commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFT), Dawn Stump, is now an advisor to crypto risk monitoring firm Solidus Labs, Solidus confirmed.