Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Investments news
- Crypto lender BlockFi processed a higher-than-usual volume of withdrawals last week, but they have since seen an 88% decrease from peak to trough in daily withdrawal requests and expect this declining trend to continue, CEO Zac Prince told Bloomberg.
- E-commerce giant eBay acquired NFT marketplace KnownOrigin for an undisclosed amount.
- Decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI) acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Genie for an undisclosed amount to integrate it into all their products, letting users buy and sell NFTs across all major marketplaces.
- Institutional crypto trading platform FalconX announced a USD 150m Series D financing round led by GIC and B Capital, valuing the company at USD 8bn. The company added that its growth strategy remains unchanged in the face of “crypto winter” and that they’re currently hiring across departments.
- Financial infrastructure provider Prime Trust raised USD 107m in its Series B funding round. The funds will be used to launch new products and increase investment in the stability and security of the Prime Trust Platform, they said.
Mining news
- The Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty, or the measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards, is set to drop around 2% today to 29.66 T. It will follow a 1.29% rise seen two weeks ago during the previous difficulty adjustment, while the all-time high stands at 31.25 T, reached in mid-May.
- More than a dozen US Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee signed a letter last week to Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael Regan urging the regulator to study the claims on climate risks from crypto mining before taking action.
- Energy company Black Hills announced that its electric utility Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power Company in Wyoming, USA, will deliver up to 45 megawatts of electric service with an option to expand service up to 75 megawatts to an unnamed crypto mining facility under its Blockchain Interruptible Service Tariff.
- Bitcoin mining firm Iris Energy increased its hashrate expectation from 3.7 EH/s to 4.3 EH/s for the year as its site in Mackenzie, Canada, will be completed ahead of schedule.
NFTs news
- Hardware wallet company Ledger announced Ledger Market, a new distribution platform for NFTs, and added that they have now launched Ledger Enterprise Create, a platform offering NFT-related capabilities for businesses.
- BitGo, a digital asset custodian, said it launched its NFT hot wallet and custody solution. It can be paired with hot wallets for the NFT industry and allows clients to interact with a variety of marketplaces, they added.
- Doodles, a web3 NFT media & entertainment brand, said it has appointed musician, producer, and 13-time Grammy Award winner, Pharrell Williams as a Member of the Board and Chief Brand Officer. Pharrell will work with Doodles to take a web3-powered approach to music, art, animation, consumer goods, and live events, they added.
Entertainment news
- Japanese film company Noma is developing a series of three feature films about the world of crypto, with the first theatrical feature film in the series, The Rhetoric Star, currently in production, according to Deadline. The second film is called Opus and will be an animated serialized movie that will document the production process of The Rhetoric Star and is due to be released in one-minute-long segments weekly until the film’s release in 2024. The third film is to be announced later in 2022.
Adoption news
- Global bank Citi partnered with tech company METACO to develop and pilot digital asset custody capabilities.
- The survivors of this crypto winter could become the technology companies of the future rivaling Amazon and eBay, the Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said, per Bloomberg. He compared the crash that has wiped more than USD 1trn off the value of bitcoin and other cryptos this year to the dotcom collapse at the start of the millennium.
Metaverse news
- Auditing firms KPMG in the US and Canada announced the opening of the first KPMG metaverse collaboration hub to allow employees, clients and communities to “connect, engage and explore opportunities for growth across industries and sectors.”
Economics news
- As expected, the annual UK inflation for May 2021 reached 9.1% compared to May 2021 (it was 9% in April), while monthly inflation was 0.7% (2.5% in April), according to the Office for National Statistics.
CBDCs news
- The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) is currently in the foundation stage of issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), The Peninsula cited QCB Governor Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al Thani as saying. He reportedly added that the central bank is working to find the right technology and platform to issue Qatar’s CBDC.
Wallets news
- Web browser Brave announced that its new update added the native token from decentralized storage provider Filecoin (FIL) to their Brave Wallet. Additionally, the release added more blockchains compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to the wallet.
DAOs news
- Ethereum (ETH) scaling platform Polygon (MATIC) announced the launch of Polygon ID, “a private and self-sovereign identity solution” powered by zero-knowledge cryptography aimed at decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). This means that now DAOs can verify attestations about their users without the need to actually collect any private information, they said.
Exchanges news
- Binance.US announced that it has removed trading fees for bitcoin to all users, new and existing, available immediately.
- Bitget announced it is slated to double its workforce to reach 1,000 headcounts in the next six months despite the current market downturn. Most of the new hires will be in the product development and customer service fields, they said.
- Digital asset services provider Hex Trust obtained provisional approval from the Government of Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority to receive a Virtual Asset MVP License. The company is opening an office in Dubai which will be used as its regional headquarters in the Middle East.
- Crypto platform Crypto.com announced that it has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore for its Major Payment Institution License to offer a range of payment services, including Digital Payment Token services, to customers in Singapore.
Security news
- Blockchain research firm Chainalysis launched a new 24/7 hotline, called the Crypto Incident Response hotline, that will provide support for organizations that have been targeted by a crypto-related cyber attack or ransomware demand. Victims will be paired with a team of investigators from Chainalysis who will trace and label the funds in Chainalysis’ program.
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