Author: The Block

Crypto exchange service Kraken announced Tuesday, that it had acquired Staked, a non-custodial staking startup for an undisclosed amount. Though details of the acquisition deal were not disclosed in the announcement, Kraken said that the acquisition was “one of the largest crypto industry acquisitions to date” and would help the exchange company “develop innovative new staking products for all our clients and expand the number of proof-of-stake networks supported on our platform.” “We are excited to add Staked to our portfolio of yield products, which has seen great uptake by a growing population of crypto investors,” Jesse Powell, CEO and co-founder…

Render Network, a crypto startup that provides rendering tools to NFT and metaverse projects, has raised $30 million in a token round, its lead investor, Multicoin Capital, told The Block Tuesday. The startup did not confirm how much it has raised. Other investors in the round included Alameda Research, the Solana Foundation, Sfermion, and angel investors Vinny Lingham and Bill Lee. This is Render Network’s first fundraise since its founding in 2017. Its sister company, Otoy, has over a decade of experience in rendering services. What is rendering? Rendering is a process involved in producing digital media such as NFTs.…

Usually when an NFT project drops, the one safe space is the announcements channel — it’s the only place (except perhaps the FAQ) to look for the official website to mint the NFTs. Only in this case, it was a false friend. Ahead of the launch of the Fractal NFT drop, a bot used for the project’s Discord was hacked. This let the perpetrator send out a message in its announcements channel with a link to a fake minting website (that used an “i” instead of an “l”). Those that clicked on the link were able to spend their crypto…

Austrian investing group Bitpanda has launched its first ‘exchange-traded cryptocurrency’, according to a statement. The product — an exchange-traded note (ETN) — will track the price of bitcoin. It will be accessible via brokers and platforms such as ING and Postbank, and will be denominated in euros, meaning investors won’t need to manage private keys or open an account with Bitpanda. The ETN is fully collateralized by bitcoin, which is kept in cold storage with a regulated custodian.  “We are excited to introduce the Bitpanda Bitcoin ETC as a new way of trading and investing in crypto technology, underscoring our dedication…

Crypto exchange BitMEX is set to launch its own token and will airdrop to both its existing and new users. BitMEX is one of the oldest crypto exchanges and is currently under litigation with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Announcing the news on Tuesday, BitMEX said its BMEX token will be airdropped by February 1, 2022 in customers’ BitMEX wallets. New users with completed KYC can register to get 5 BMEX tokens and 10 Tether (USDT) stablecoins. Existing traders will get BMEX tokens as they trade. There is also a referral program for users who can refer 3…

On December 20, Elad Roisman, a Republican commissioner on the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced that he will be stepping down at the end of January. A Trump appointee, Roisman has served at the SEC since 2018, including a brief tenure as acting chairman in the months before President Biden took office and appointed Gary Gensler. Roisman’s term formally lasts until 2023. His announcement gave limited details as to his plans or reasoning, simply calling his tenure “the greatest privilege of my professional life.” The news is part of a shift in the dynamics of the agency. Roisman and colleague Hester Peirce have publicly…

A new response from crypto startup Terraform Labs hit the court docket last weekend as part of an ongoing legal spat with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  As previously reported, SEC served Terraform CEO Do Kwon with a subpoena during the Mainnet conference in New York City. Kwon would go on to file his own lawsuit against the securities watchdog, claiming the agency violated his rights to due process by improperly serving him. In the SEC’s own proceedings against Kwon, the agency is seeking a court order to compel Kwon and Terraform Labs to “comply with investigative subpoenas for documents and testimony.” The…

Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the sprawling crypto exchange, has led a $60 million investment in Multichain, a cross-chain protocol. Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, Circle Ventures, Tron Foundation, Hypersphere Ventures, Primitive Ventures, Magic Ventures and HashKey all participated in the round alongside Binance Labs, according to a press release. Formerly known as Anyswap, Multichain builds infrastructure for a range of blockchains including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Avalanche. There is more than $5 billion in total value locked (TVL) in the protocol, and it currently boasts upwards of 300,000 users. “Multichain is a…

United States-based crypto exchange FTX US signed on four more professional American sports teams through a partnership with their management company, Monumental Sports Entertainment (MSE), on Monday, according to an MSE release.  FTX US is now the exclusive crypto exchange and non-fungible token (NFT) partner for MSE and its properties – adding to FTX US’s list of brands on its sports and entertainment-focused NFT marketplace launched on August 2. The four athletic professional sports teams newly bolstering FTX US’s roster include the Washington Wizards men’s basketball team, Washington Mystics women’s basketball team, the Capital City Go-Go basketball team and the Washington Capitals hockey…

The market for stablecoins experienced breakneck growth in 2021, with the supply for dollar-backed cryptocurrencies surging by 388%, according to data compiled by The Block Research.  As indicated by The Block Research’s 2022 Digital Asset Outlook report, the aggregate supply of stablecoins has increased from $29 billion at the start of 2021 to more than $140 billion. That growth benefited a swathe of stablecoins, including tether (USDT) and USD coin (USDC), which is managed by a consortium that includes Circle and Coinbase. Several factors contributed to the surge in the outstanding supply of stablecoins, which historically have been used by high-speed…