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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Mining news
- Crypto platform Choice and Compass Mining, a marketplace for Bitcoin (BTC) miners, said that their US-based clients can now mine bitcoins directly to their individual retirement accounts (IRAs) “without ever triggering a taxable event.” “By mining in a Choice account, Compass miners can avoid income taxes on their mining revenue in the short term or indefinitely, depending on the type of IRA they use,” the marketplace said. The Choice extended platform powers over 125,000 retirement accounts, with assets under custody of over USD 18bn across more than 20,000 assets, per the announcement.
- Holding company Greenidge Generation Holdings, the parent company of crypto mining facility provider Greenidge Generation, said it will be investing profits from its carbon-neutral Bitcoin mining operation in Upstate New York to expedite the closure of an existing, forty-year-old coal ash landfill in the Finger Lakes region and create a new solar farm at the site. The company intends to work with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to cap and close the landfill and relinquish its existing permit to operate the site, they said.
Investments news
- Trading app Robinhood has announced it has secured a USD 32bn valuation via its initial public offering (IPO) and is set to debut on the Nasdaq exchange today, July 29. Its Class A common stock was valued at USD 38 per share, and they intend to use the raised funds for working capital, capital expenditures, funding its anticipated tax obligation, and expanding hiring efforts.
- Venture capital company Binance Labs announced a strategic investment in non-fungible token (NFT) creative and production company NFKings. Intellectual properties and brands of NFKings will feature their NFTs on the exchange’s NFT platform.
- Play-to-earn metaverse Yield Guild Games has raised USD 12.5m through its token sale, in which the entire allocation was sold in 31 seconds, the team announced. Following the sale, the team will launch the YGG DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) next, which will first distribute the sold tokens to the community.
- Decentralized livestreaming platform Livepeer (LPT) has raised USD 20m in a Series B funding round led by investment company DCG, according to VentureBeat.
- Crypto exchange platform CoinDCX is in discussions to close a new financing round of USD 100m – USD 120m, The Economic Times reported, citing undisclosed sources. The round will reportedly be led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group, and they will be joined by existing investors like Polychain Capital and Coinbase Ventures.
- Animoca Brands said it has acquired 100% of indie game developer Blowfish Studios for an upfront consideration of USD 6.6m plus payments of up to USD 19.2m conditional on certain employment and performance targets. Blowfish is the developer of Siegecraft® and the publisher of the upcoming Winter Ember, among others.
Exchanges news
- Crypto platform OKCoin has announced that it has secured “In Principle” approval from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and formal registration from the Netherlands Central Bank (DNB). These two licenses will allow it to offer easier access to cryptoassets to its European customers, they said.
- Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) has accused 12 crypto exchanges of operating illegally, El Economista reported. The names of the exchanges were not disclosed, but the UIF head stated that combating money laundering through cryptoassets is a top priority for the watchdog.
- The cryptoasset exchange app FTX: Blockfolio has announced it has rebranded to FTX, with the name change applying automatically across the board. The app’s trading is integrated via exchanges FTX.COM and FTX.US, depending on the user’s location.
Regulation news
- Crypto platform BlockFi stated that the New Jersey Bureau of Securities has postponed their order to cease opening new interest-bearing accounts (BIA) until September 2, from its previous deadline of July 22. The platform has reiterated that the call to prevent the creation of new BIA accounts does not affect their existing BIA customers.
Politics news
- Cryptocurrencies should be written into a major Japan-US trade agreement from 2019, by adding a separate annex to the existing agreement, or redefine the interpretation of that agreement to include regulation of cryptocurrency, stated think tank RAND’s senior policy analyst Sale Lilly and senior political scientist Scott Harold. They added that while the agreement only covers the US-Japanese relationship, it is also a pacesetter, making it especially important for the crypto space.
Crime news
- A South Korean crypto trader was robbed of more than HKD 3m (USD 128,500) in cash at knifepoint when he went to meet a BTC seller in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reported. Detectives from the Yau Tsim district crime squad are investigating, but they have yet to locate the suspects.
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