Author: The Block

Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police appear to be targeting crypto addresses funding the “Freedom Convoy” protests over vaccine mandates for truckers. On February 16, several reports said that the RCMP, also known as the mounties, was barring firms registered with FinTrac, Canada’s anti-money laundering authority, from transacting with 34 cryptocurrency addresses. FinTrac registration is a requirement for all money services businesses operating in Canada. A copy of the apparent alert emerged on Twitter the same day. Neither the RCMP nor FinTrac had responded to The Block’s requests for confirmation as of press time. Several compliance officials at FinTrac-registered cryptocurrency firms CoinBerry, BitBuy and CoinSmart…

NFT marketplace x2y2 has launched a vampire attack on the market leader OpenSea, airdropping millions of tokens to its user base. It follows in the footsteps of LooksRare, which did a similar launch last month, but has a different strategy that it hopes won’t end up resulting in persistent wash trading. A vampire attack is where a project hands out tokens to users of a pre-existing blockchain project. The goal is to incentivize the target audience of a similar project to try out the new project and elect to use it instead, particularly if it continues to hand out rewards on an ongoing…

Neobank Atom has raised a round of more than $100 million led by Spanish banking group BBVA and investment manager Toscafund, according to a press release. The round values the neobank at $590 million and is a significant step toward its public listing says the company.  Atom is part of a cohort of European challenger banks that emerged in the aftermath of the financial crisis. They have continued to attract investor attention with Monzo netting a $500 million raise in December at a valuation of $4.5 billion and Revolut raising $800 million at a valuation of $33 billion in July. Compared to Monzo and…

Ethereum wallet Rainbow has raised an $18 million Series A led by Seven Seven Six, the VC fund set up by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The round follows its $1.5 million seed-stage round. Much like wallets such as MetaMask, users are able to buy crypto with fiat, connect to decentralized applications (dApps) and invest in tokens. The mobile-first Rainbow says that its focus on designing for the user experience is what marks it out from the pack. ”There’s still a lot of unnecessary complexity in the web3 user experience,” said co-founder and CEO Christian Baroni in a statement. “Rainbow’s been…

PayPal has amended the terms of its merchant-focused Seller Protection program to account for transactions of more than $10,000 that involve non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The policy will become effective on March 21, according to a policy update dated February 11. The page highlights “[r]evising PayPal’s Seller Protection program to expand the list of ineligible items to include certain Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) with a transaction amount of more than $10,000 USD. A separate document outlining the full amended Seller Protection program agreement states that among the items ineligible for protection are “[a]rt, media, antiques, or collectibles, in physical or digital form, as represented by a…

Padawan DAO has lost half of its budget allocated to funding students to attend blockchain events through a risky approach to the management of the funds. The DAO was set up by a group of young people and originally financed through Richard Burton, the open-source designer at crypto wallet Balance, and other donors. Last year, Padawan DAO sponsored 75 people so they could attend two crypto conferences, with the goal of continuing to encourage students to explore the crypto space. “I’m glad we’re allocating funds to teach the young students of web3. there’s nothing more rewarding than using funds for…

Congressman Warren Davidson (R-OH) has introduced new legislation to protect self-hosted crypto wallets from government agencies. The bill, which was introduced on February 15, aims “[t]o prohibit Federal agencies from restricting the use of convertible virtual currency by a person to purchase goods or services for the person’s own use, and for other purposes.” Specifically, the bill bars agency heads from restricting the ability to “[u]se virtual currency or its equivalent for such user’s own purposes, such as to purchase real or virtual goods and services for the user’s own use; or conduct transactions through an self-hosted wallet.” Self-custody was…

Mobile users of social media platform Twitter can now add Ethereum addresses to the list of options for would-be tippers. The social media site announced the update on Wednesday. The move comes months after Twitter officially rolled out bitcoin tips via the Lightning network on mobile. The newest feature represents the deepening connection between the popular social media platform and cryptocurrency. Last month, Twitter granted users of its subscription service, Blue, the ability to verify non-fungible token (NFT) profile pictures. Yet as The Block further reported, that development notably raised questions about Twitter’s ultimate goals with respect to crypto. Read full story on The Block

A document obtained by The Block shows that 8% of the total supply of SAFE tokens — a yet-to-be-launched governance token — have been earmarked for a sale to strategic investors. The raise would therefore value the project at $1.25 billion. Safe Foundation has already secured $65 million worth of commitments from investors including 1kx, Dragonfly Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchain Capital and Zee Prime. But the sale will not close unless the Gnosis community — specifically, holders of its native token GNO — approve a proposal to spin off Gnosis Safe from Gnosis Ltd, creating a new SAFE token and an entity…

Nejc Kodrič, founder and former CEO of Bitstamp, has failed in his bid to stop the crypto exchange’s new owners from wresting away his remaining shares. In a recent filing, Judge Eason Rajah QC ruled in favour of the defendant Bitstamp Holdings NV, an investment vehicle owned by NXMH, which acquired Bitstamp in October 2018. Rajah said he would make orders requiring Kodrič to sell his remaining shares — which he had transferred to a Luxembourg-based entity named White Whale Capital — to Bitstamp Holdings NV. The ruling effectively upholds the validity of a controversial call option that was at…