Author: The Block
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not totally on board with the Central Bank of Russia’s recent call to ban cryptocurrency in the country. In a January 26 video conference, Putin asked officials in his government to hold talks, including the central bank, on the subject of cryptocurrencies. While he acknowledged “certain risks, first and foremost to citizens of the country, given significant volatility,” he directed his agencies not to neglect the advantages that Russia has in the area. “We also have here certain competitive advantages, especially in so-called crypto-mining. I mean surplus in electricity and well-trained teams present in the country,” said…
ConsenSys, the Ethereum software company behind crypto wallet MetaMask, is poised to more than double its valuation with what will be a third fundraise in less than 12 months. The firm has held talks with potential backers about investing at a valuation of roughly $6.5 billion, according to three people close to the discussions. While the size of the latest fundraise is unclear, several sources believe the company’s post-money valuation will be close to $7 billion. ConsenSys declined to comment when reached. The company last raised funds in November 2021, when it announced a $200 million round at a valuation of $3.2…
New research from blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis finds that money laundering in crypto grew from $6.6 billion to $8.6 billion between 2020 and 2021. While centralized exchanges with weak know-your-customer controls still account for the lion’s share of wallet addresses used in illicit crypto, decentralized platforms shot up by almost 2,000% in terms of value received from illicit addresses. Source: Chainalysis “Undeniably the theme this year is the way that DeFi has become a space for criminals,” Kim Grauer, Chainalysis’ head of research, told The Block. Mostly, however, illicit money traveling through DeFi originated in DeFi hacks. Bad actors seldom…
The House of Representatives will examine the outlook for stablecoin regulation early next month. Per a January 25 announcement from Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the House Financial Services Committee will hold a virtual hearing on February 8 entitled “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ Report on Stablecoins.” No witness list is yet available. Largely spearheaded by the Treasury under Secretary Janet Yellen, the report in question came out at the beginning of November and urged Congress to restrict stablecoin issuance to insured depository institutions. Accompanying that controversial proposal was the threat of the Financial…
The crypto exchange, which entered the US market in May 2020, announced Wednesday that it raised $400 million in outside capital at a valuation of $8 billion, making it one of the most valued companies in the frothy market for private crypto companies. FTX, which shares billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried as a key stakeholder, closed its own $420 million fundraise at a $25 billion valuation late last year. It is in the process of closing another round that could value the firm above $30 billion. A wide range of investors from crypto and traditional venture participated in the round including Paradigm, Multicoin Capital,…
Dragonfly Capital, a crypto-focused venture capital firm, is raising $500 million for a new fund, according to a filing submitted with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The new fund, dubbed Dragonfly Ventures III Feeder, will join a number of newly launched investment vehicles in the space, including Paradigm’s $2.5 billion venture fund and crypto exchange FTX’s newly launched fund. Dragonfly had also launched a $225 million fund in March of 2021 that was focused on non-fungible token (NFT), Ethereum Layer 2 solutions and related businesses, decentralized finance (DeFi) and centralized finance infrastructure, The Block previously reported. The venture firm backed numerous funding…
Ryan Wyatt, who served as YouTube’s Head of Gaming for seven years, is leaving next month to become CEO of Polygon Studios. Polygon Studios is the gaming and NFT arm of Polygon, an Ethereum scaling project. In his new role, Wyatt will lead Polygon Studios across gaming, entertainment, fashion, news and sports and grow the developer ecosystem through investment, marketing and support, he wrote in a tweet. Wyatt started his career as an e-sports commentator before becoming Vice President of Programming at Major League Gaming (now owned by Activision Blizzard). Wyatt’s move Polygon Studio could hint at the company’s plans to…
Distributed ledger tech company Ripple has nabbed a $15 billion valuation after a private stock buy-back, the company said Monday. The company is repurchasing equity shares from investors in its Series C, which includes Tetragon, a company that unsuccessfully sued Ripple last year. At the time of the previous raise, Ripple’s valuation stood at $10 billion. “The buyback places Ripple’s new valuation at $15B and reflects Ripple’s strong position in the market and global company momentum – Ripple’s global business has grown exponentially and 2021 was the company’s best year to date,” the company said. The company says that its…
The Multichain bug that has led to the theft of $2 million in crypto (so far) could have been “enormous,” according to the company that disclosed the vulnerability last week. Blockchain security firm Dedaub, which disclosed the bug on January 10, has published a blog post providing more details. It said that the amount of money at risk could have been worth more than $1 billion. “Given the above, the potential practical impact (had the vulnerability been fully exploited) is arguably in the billion-dollar range. This would have been one of the largest hacks ever—given the theoretically unbounded threat, we are not getting into…
PleasrDAO, a collective of crypto luminaries, is seeking an investment of $69 million. A slide from the group’s fundraising deck, obtained by The Block, shows that it plans to add $69 million – categorized as an investment — to its treasury by February 2022. Two people briefed on the raise said PleasrDAO is aiming for a valuation of roughly $1 billion. A spokesperson for PleasrDAO declined to comment. The group — a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO — was formed in March 2021, when its members put $525,000 towards the purchase of an animated Uniswap ad in the form of a…