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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Politics news
- “An unprecedented group” of allies and partners – including the European Union, the United Kingdom, and NATO – are joining the United States in exposing and criticizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s malicious cyber activities, the US White House said today. “As detailed in public charging documents unsealed in October 2018 and July and September 2020, hackers with a history of working for the PRC Ministry of State Security (MSS) have engaged in ransomware attacks, cyber-enabled extortion, cryptojacking, and rank theft from victims around the world, all for financial gain,” they added.
Investments news
Digital asset investment products saw another quiet week with minimal net inflows totaling USD 2.9m last week, per Coinshares data. “After a few weeks of inflows into bitcoin (BTC) we have seen outflows for the last two weeks, with outflows last week totaling USD 10.4m,” they said, adding that “these outflows are minimal relative to the significant outflows witnessed in May and June this year.” Meanwhile, ethereum (ETH) saw its third consecutive week of inflows.
MTD – month-to-date; YTD – year-to-date; AUM – assets under management. Source: CoinShares
- According to the daily holding files from investment firm ARK Investment, they have purchased a total of 225,937 shares of payments services company Square after the latter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, confirmed that the company is building a Bitcoin-focused open developer platform for decentralized finance (DeFi).
Major digital currency asset manager Grayscale Investments and CoinDesk Indexes, a subsidiary of the CoinDesk website, announced the launch of investment product Grayscale DeFi Fund and the CoinDesk DeFi Index. Grayscale DeFi Fund provides investors with exposure to a selection of DeFi protocols through a market-capitalization weighted portfolio designed to track the CoinDesk DeFi Index.
The index consists of the following assets and weightings:
– Uniswap (UNI), 49.95%
– Aave (AAVE), 10.25%
– Compound (COMP), 8.38%
– Curve (CRV), 7.44%
– MakerDAO (MKR), 6.49%
– SushiSwap (SUSHI), 4.83%
– Synthetix (SNX), 4.43%
– Yearn Finance (YFI), 3.31%
– UMA Protocol (UMA), 2.93%
– Bancor Network Token (BNT), 2.00%
Mining news
- Bitcoin miner Iris Energy Pty is planning to raise about USD 200m in a new fundraising round before it seeks a direct listing on the Nasdaq exchange, Bloomberg reported, citing an undisclosed source. The funding might help prepare the firm for a listing as soon as this year, it added.
- The Russian Association of Crypto-economics, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain (RACIB), a collective of some 2,000 crypto and AI players, says that it is teaming up working with federal and local bodies and government-run companies as part of a concerted effort to attract crypto miners. In an official announcement, published in English, the RACIB stated that it has formed a number of public-private sector “working groups” focused on attracting miners – and was keen to highlight the fact that 1,158 MW of “new generation wind farms” had gone online thus far in 2021.
- The Black Rock Petroleum Company said it has entered into a binding agreement with crypto mining hosting company Optimum Mining Host LLC to host and operate up to one million of their BTC mining machines. The initial 24-month contract commitment is for 200,000 machines to be scheduled for deployment, plus near-term 300,000 machines and midterm 500,000 immediately contract commitments when the host capacity is ready.
CBDCs news
- Three Republican Senators urged the US Olympic Committee to forbid American athletes from using China’s new digital currency at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, citing espionage and data-security concerns, Bloomberg reported.
- China Merchants Bank has become the latest commercial bank to join the central bank’s pilot program to research and develop the digital yuan, Caixin reported, citing a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China.
Regulation news
- South Korea’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has ruled out the possibility of an extension to the September 24 deadline for all crypto exchanges to obtain operating permits from the Financial Intelligence Unit – or face closure. So far, none of the nation’s 60 exchanges have received permits and only four currently have banking partners, without which gaining a permit will be impossible. All four of these exchanges’ banking contracts expire on September 24, following recent short-term extensions. Per Dalian, the FSC angrily dismissed the possibility of extending the existing deadline, claiming that exchanges have had “time enough” to prepare for September 24.
Exchanges news
NFTs news
- Young Chinese artist Huang Heshan will showcase his NEAR Protocol (NEAR)-powered non-fungible token (NFT) at the annual Taobao Maker Festival (TMF) in China, hosted by major e-commerce platform Alibaba this July, NEAR Protocol said in a blog post.
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