Author: The Block

Umee, a protocol building interoperable tools for decentralized finance (DeFi) users, has raised an additional $32 million through a Coinlist sale of its native UMEE tokens.  Umee is building out a “cross chain DeFi hub,” which provides DeFi users with a number of interoperable tools that work across various chains and venues. The hub will house initial tools built by Umee, and additionally foster developers building on the initial offerings. It’s focused on creating tools for cross-chain interest rates, interchain leverage and multi-chain staking. Just last June it raised $6.3 million from the likes of Polychain, Coinbase and others in a seed…

The gaming-focused non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Fractal —  launched by the video game streaming platform Twitch co-founder Justin Kan and other media entrepreneurs Robin Chan, David Wurtz and Mike Angell — officially went live today. Fractal is a primary and secondary market for NFTs that have utility in games, as The Block previously reported. Game companies can mint and drop gaming NFTs for its fans, and players can sell NFTs to each other in the peer-to-peer marketplace. “NFT’s are like the new Kickstarter. A lot of gaming companies are saying, ‘Hey, this is a great way to engage our audience and…

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Thursday that senior Senate aide Corey Frayer will serve as a senior advisor on crypto-related issues. In a Thursday press release, the US securities regulator framed Frayer’s work as focused on “SEC policymaking and interagency work relating to the oversight of crypto assets.” Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Frayer had been tapped for the role. Before joining the SEC, Frayer worked as a senior staffer on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs under Sen. Sherrod Brown. Prior to that, he served as a senior advisor to Rep. Maxine Waters on the House…

Ethereum scaling project Polygon no longer has C-suite positions such as CEO and COO. Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, who was also the COO of the project, has removed that position from his job title sometime this month, according to his LinkedIn profile. When contacted, Nailwal told The Block that he recently updated his LinkedIn profile as Polygon has removed all C-suite positions. Fellow Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani had the CEO role listed on his LinkedIn profile until Wednesday, but later removed it after The Block contacted Nailwal. Why the shift? Another co-founder of Polygon, Mihailo Bjelic, told The Block that Polygon, being a decentralized…

The blockchain and crypto investor Digital Currency Group (DCG) and the international real estate firm Jamestown announced Wednesday that they’re going to recreate a significant cultural site within the virtual world platform Decentraland — One Times Square. One Times Square is a 26-story building in the middle of New York City’s Time Square. Its roof is where the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop Celebration occurs every December 31, and the building itself is owned by Jamestown. On December 31 at 11 p.m. EST, the virtual One Times Square will have its own digital New Year’s Eve Ball and will be the site…

Coinone, one of the “Big Four” crypto exchanges in South Korea, announced Wednesday that it will no longer allow withdrawals to non-verified external wallets. The change comes into effect on January 24, 2022. That means Coinone users will have to register their external wallets with the exchange, or else they will no longer be allowed to withdraw their funds held at their exchange accounts. “If you need to withdraw Coinone’s virtual assets to another virtual asset wallet from January 24, 2022, in accordance with the fulfillment of the customer verification system obligation, you must register the wallet address to be able…

At the beginning of 2021, we predicted that it would be a seminal year for crypto and made 10 bold predictions. Over the year, the majority of these predictions came true – including bitcoin hitting $50,000, stablecoins hitting $100 billion in supply, exponential growth in DeFi, an ETF being approved, and the rise of crypto IPOs and M&A. We believe 2022 will be another big year for crypto, with the overarching theme being widespread adoption – including widespread adoption of stablecoins, DAOs, fast chains, L2s, and cross-chain applications. As crypto is more widely adopted, traditional companies and investors will adapt, ushering…

Ethereum killers That used to be the fashionable term for blockchain networks vying to become legitimate competitors to the most popular smart contract platform. Talk of potential Ethereum killers dates back several years. But it wasn’t until 2021 that legitimate alternatives to Ethereum finally took the spotlight, and by then they had a new name: L1s L1 stands for layer-1. Back when the original supposed Ethereum killers— a loosely-defined class headlined by EOS and Cardano — arrived on the scene, “layer-2” blockchain scaling technologies were still mostly speculative, so there wasn’t really any need for the term layer-1. In the…

Ready Player Me, a startup letting users create a single avatar for use across virtual platforms, announced Monday that it raised $13 million in Series A funding.  Wise and Teleport co-founders Taavet+Sten led this round. Additional support came from GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, Samsung Next, NordicNinja, Konvoy Ventures, the NFT influencer Gmoney — who had collaborated with Adidas Originals for its first NFT drop — and others. To create their avatar, a user can either upload a selfie of themself or select from a list of premade avatars to customize. This single avatar can then be used across numerous apps, games and other platforms. “Avatars…

The U.S. criminal trial for BitMex’s former head of business development, Greg Dwyer, has been delayed. U.S. regulators first took aim at the crypto derivatives exchange in October 2020, when a number of charges came down on the exchange and its operators. Civil charges from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) claimed BitMEX and its executives violated CFTC rules, like anti-money laundering and know-your-customer procedures. Criminal charges from the Department of Justice claimed co-founders Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, Samuel Reed and head of business development Dwyer violated the Bank Secrecy Act. In August of 2021, the…