Author: The Block

Coinbase, the first crypto exchange to issue stock publicly in the U.S., has had a rocky couple of months. Government data reveals that company insiders and early investors have been part of a significant selloff.  Per beneficial ownership data gathered by the Securities and Exchange Commission and easier to browse on Dataroma, major players sold $40,631,394 worth of COIN over the course of December. The SEC requires these disclosures of company officers and directors, as well as any shareholders who possess 10% or more of the company’s outstanding stock. In the three months to date, total sales from insiders amounted to $331,744,516. Those…

The Incentive Ecosystem Foundation, a community-led foundation of Project Serum, has raised $75 million in a new funding round. Serum is a Solana-based decentralized exchange and liquidity infrastructure platform. Tiger Global, Commonwealth Asset Management, Tagus Capital, executives at Golden Tree Asset Management, and several other investors participated in the round. This was a token funding round where investors were offered a bunch of different tokens at a discount to their market price, JHL, a contributor to Project Serum, told The Block. These tokens are Serum (SRM), Solana (SOL), Raydium (RAY), Bonfida (FIDA), Oxygen (OXY), Maps.me (MAPS), Liquid Finance (LQID), and…

MoonPay, the crypto payments firm valued at $3.4 billion, has this morning splashed 900 ether (roughly $3 million) on a rare item from the CryptoPunks collection. The pixelated punk in question — CryptoPunk #2681 — is a purple cap-wearing zombie with blue ‘clown eyes,’ all rare traits. MoonPay acquired the piece through an account linked to its ‘concierge’ service, which The Block unearthed in November. Through this setup, the startup has been industriously brokering big-ticket NFT purchases on behalf of celebrities — including the likes of Snoop Dogg, Martin Garrix, Diplo and Jimmy Fallon. So far, MoonPay has dealt primarily…

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged an Australian man for allegedly making false claims related to an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO). The US securities regulator charged Craig Sproule and his two companies, Crowd Machine and Metavine, over an ICO of the firms’ Crowd Machine Compute Tokens (CMCTs). The offering occurred from January to April of 2018. The SEC claims Sproule publicized that the ICO proceeds would go to new technology development for Metavine, enabling the firm to run its app-development software on a decentralized network. Instead, the SEC claims Sproule and Crowd Machine diverted the $5.8 million to…

Two boutique investment banking advisory practices in the crypto market have merged ahead of an expected deal-making frenzy in 2022.  Architect Partners, a Palo Alto-based M&A firm, announced on Thursday that it has, rather fittingly, merged with Emergents in a deal the firms hope will create the “go-to crypto M&A and financing advisory firm.” The newly merged company will boast 12 people post-transaction — a figure its executives believe makes it one of the largest M&A firms dedicated exclusively to crypto M&A.  Of course, there’s competition. Galaxy Digital — the crypto bank run by Mike Novogratz — has its own…

Sygnum, a regulated crypto bank and asset manager, has raised $90 million in a Series B funding round. The firm is now valued at $800 million. Sun Hung Kai & Co., a Hong Kong-listed financial services company, led Sygnum’s Series B funding. Other investors in the round included Animoca Brands, SBI Holdings, Siam Commercial Bank’s digital investment arm SCB 10X, and Canadian investment firm Meta Investments. Sygnum’s employees also participated in the Series B round, as with all its prior fundraising rounds. These employees, co-founders, board members, and management team continue to hold majority ownership of the company, said Sygnum.…

A Congressional subcommittee is preparing a hearing to examine the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin mining, three sources with knowledge of the matter have told The Block. The Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is apparently working on a roster of witnesses to account for the energy use of proof-of-work crypto validation, especially the Bitcoin network. The timing and the witness list have yet to be determined, but the hearing could take place as soon as the end of the month. A source involved in pre-hearing discussions with the subcommittee told The Block that…

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino announced Wednesday that he is moving forward with a public non-fungible token (NFT) auction of his Pulp Fiction screenplay — despite an outstanding lawsuit from the American entertainment giant Miramax, which produced the film.  Tarantino and his partner SCRT Labs, the creator of a privacy-focused blockchain, plan to auction six chapters of the Pulp Fiction script between January 17 and January 31. The NFTs in the collection will reflect a single scene from one of seven chapters in the script, as well as audio commentary from Tarantino. Individuals must pre-register for the auction in order to buy an NFT. Registration for…

Livepeer, a decentralized video streaming platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, has raised $20 million in a Series B extension round. Alan Howard and Tiger Global participated in the round, along with existing investors such as Digital Currency Group, Northzone, and Warburg Serres. There was no lead investor in this round. The Series B extension round comes just five months after Livepeer raised $20 million in Series B funding. The new round is also an equity round and brings Livepeer’s total funding to date to around $51 million, its co-founder and CEO Doug Petkanics told The Block. With additional capital in…

Metaversal, an investment firm and venture studio focused on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), announced Tuesday that it raised $50 million in Series A funding.  CoinFund, a US-based crypto-focused investment firm, and the investment partnership Foxhaven Asset led the funding round, which had additional participation from Dapper Labs, Rarible, Digital Currency Group, Collab+Currency, Franklin Templeton, Galaxy Vision Hill, Narwhal Ventures, NGC Ventures and others. Metaversal intends to use the new funding to bolster NFT-related business strategies such as acquiring digital collectibles, funding NFT-focused projects and partnering with others in the NFT industry like Rarible and Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain. CoinFund revealed its…