Companies

Coinbase, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, is cutting jobs and closing down most of its operations in Japan.

Cryptocurrency lender Nexo’s office in Bulgaria was raided by local authorities on Thursday over suspicion of money laundering, tax offenses, computer fraud and banking without a license.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has received regulatory approval from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority to operate as a financial institution to manage and trade in virtual currency, as part of the exchange’s continuing expansion in Europe.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, is planning to increase staff by as much as 30% this year.

National Basketball Association (NBA) team Miami Heat’s home arena will soon be renamed after a Florida judge ended the naming rights agreement between the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.com, and Miami-Dade County

The names of the crypto exchange’s 9 million customers and creditors will remain sealed from the public for at least three months.

Some 90% of user assets at WazirX, India’s largest crypto exchange by volume, are held in wallets at Binance while the remaining 10% are stored in hot and warm wallets, revealed WazirX’s proof of reserves that the company released on Wednesday.

Binance’s U.S. wing has received court approval to buy Voyager Digital’s crypto platform for US$20 million, as part of Voyager’s plan to liquidate in bankruptcy.

Top blockchain and crypto news: DCG under investigation. Lido DAO surges as Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade looms. Hong Kong burnishes crypto credentials.

Indian cryptocurrency exchanges faced a flurry of taxes on trading last year that saw volumes across most platforms drop as much as 90%, slashing income from trading fees. What’s a crypto exchange to do? Maybe sell mutual funds?

Barry Silbert of the Digital Currency Group wrote to shareholders on Tuesday to explain loans from its subsidiary Genesis Global Capital.

Binance Global, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has acknowledged flaws in its systems that allowed its BNB Smart Chain-based BUSD stablecoin to be under-collateralized by up to US$1 billion on at least three occasions, according to a Wednesday report from Bloomberg.

ConsenSys, the Ethereum software firm behind cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask, is reportedly planning to lay off at least 100 employees.

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., will be letting go of about 950 employees, or about 20% of its current workforce, as part of “a further restructuring plan,” which is expected to be “substantially complete” by the second quarter of 2023. 

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to place a US$10 billion bet in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT

India’s Decimal Point Analytics (DPA), a research and data analytics firm, has received grant funding of up to US$750,000 from The Hashgraph Association, a Switzerland-headquartered non-profit organization, to develop an asset tokenization platform on Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) network. 

Wyre Payments, a San Francisco-based crypto payments firm, will implement withdrawal limits for user accounts, it said in a Twitter statement on Jan.7.

Federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas to several U.S. hedge funds that have dealt with the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance Global Inc.

U.S. prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have started to investigate cryptocurrency-focused conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG), Bloomberg reported on Saturday, citing unnamed sources.

Ripple expects a SEC ruling on a two-year-old suit and what regulations it could bring about.

Seychelles-based crypto exchange company Huobi plans to lay off about 20% of its staff, according to a Friday report from Reuters.

Bitcoin and Ether dipped in Friday afternoon trading in Asia, with nearly all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies slipping. Dogecoin was the biggest loser, while Cardano’s ADA was the sole gainer in the top 10 cryptos.

The U.S. SEC has objected to Binance’s U.S. affiliate’s proposed US$1 billion purchase of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital’s assets.

Animoca Brands Corp. has scaled down the target amount for its Web 3.0 and metaverse investment fund to US$1 billion.

Cryptocurrency-focused conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG) is shutting down its wealth management unit called HQ, CoinDesk, a DCG-owned media outlet, reported on Friday.

Cryptocurrency bank Silvergate Capital has laid off 40% of its staff, or about 200 employees, after the collapse of FTX.com, which sparked mass withdrawals of around US$8.1 billion.

WazirX VP Rajagopal Menon sits down with Forkast to provide some insight as survival becomes a huge concern for crypto exchanges in India.

U.S. prosecutors are moving to seize the US$460 million worth of Robinhood Markets Inc., shares linked to Sam Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive officer of Bahamas-based bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.com

MoneyGram has requested the court to seal certain portions of summary judgment materials in Ripple Labs’ ongoing lawsuit against the SEC.

Welcome to The Daily Forkast – January 4, 2022 – presented by Angie Lau. As the bells rang in the new year, many said goodbye and good riddance to a year of headline grabbing failures in the blockchain space. From Ronin’s bridge hack, the collapse of Terra Luna, to the bankruptcy of FTX, 2022 was […]

Cryptocurrency payments company Wyre is reportedly shutting down operations by the end of January, amid the broader crypto market downturn following the fall of FTX

Top blockchain and crypto news: Where is Alameda Research’s money going? US tax loophole may give crypto investors a break. China’s blockchain momentum builds.

Ripple Labs Inc. expects a court decision in the first six-months of this year in the case filed against the company by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020 for allegedly selling US$1.3 billion in unregistered securities.

Binance declined to comment on reports in local media that it is in late stage talks to acquire South Korean digital asset exchange GOPAX.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed in November with billions of dollars in investor funds missing, pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud on Tuesday in New York.

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas has rejected “material misstatements” made by FTX’s newly-appointed CEO, John J. Ray III

Yosuke Matsuda, the president of Square Enix, has reaffirmed the gaming company’s commitment to blockchain technology.

Barry Silbert, the CEO of Digital Currency Group rejected claims that the company borrowed US$1.6 billion from its Genesis Global Capital.

It takes a village to raise a child, and Bitcoin is no different — we must support its growth but also set firm boundaries, writes Justin d’Anethan of Amber Group.

In the post-FTX world, crypto exchanges must offer stronger protection for investors’ assets, writes Colin Brooks, chairman of the advisory board of Hex Trust.

OKB, the utility token of OKX, jumped by up to 15% during Asia trading hours on Monday. OKT, the native token of the OKX Chain, was up 13%.

On-chain data showed that Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-bankrupt FTX exchange, sent around 570 Ether worth US$684,000 to a Seychelles-based exchange and Ren Protocol’s Bitcoin bridge on Wednesday

The Securities Commission of the Bahamas is temporarily holding US$3.5 billion of digital assets seized from FTX Digital Markets

FTX liquidators may be behind the latest transactions from Alameda Research wallets, but someone else may have sent the first set of cryptocurrencies to decentralized exchanges.

Bitcoin and Ether dropped slightly during Asian trading hours on Thursday afternoon, with XRP leading losses across the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried took funds from his trading firm, Alameda Research, to buy stock of trading app Robinhood, court documents revealed Tuesday.

Several wallets associated with Alameda Research, the trading arm bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.com, came to life on Wednesday, swapping various tokens. 

Former customers of FTX have filed a class action lawsuit against the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange and its top executives, including Sam Bankman-Fried, to seek priority rights to repayment before any non-customer creditors.  

Kraken announced on Wednesday that it will “cease its operations” in Japan and deregister from the Financial Services Agency.

From Terra and FTX crises to Ethereum’s triumphant Merge and China’s inventive NFT industry, Forkast reviews a rollercoaster year and its consequences.

After a year of new all-time highs for major cryptocurrencies in 2021, 2022 was a challenging year for Web3. Industry experts tell Forkast what crypto has in store for 2023 and beyond.

While the collapse of FTX may invite more scrutiny for centralized exchanges, Binance’s Patrick Hillmann believes it could benefit the industry through more decentralization.

Caroline Ellison, former chief executive of trading firm Alameda Research, told a federal judge last week that she agreed with executives of FTX, including former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, to mislead lenders and customers on how much Alameda was borrowing from the now-bankrupt exchange.

ICBA vice-president Brian Laverdure believes that community banks are unfazed by FTX’s collapse, but remain split on cryptocurrencies.

This year’s cascade of crypto collapses should be a wake-up call to regulators, says the Independent Community Bankers of America’s Brian Laverdure.

Hong Kong’s commercial crime investigation bureau on Friday arrested two local men for suspected involvement in digital asset fraud on Atom Asset Exchange (AAX)

Bitcoin slipped and Ether inched up in Asian trading on Friday afternoon, with Dogecoin leading gains across the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading Ltd. has asked a bankruptcy court to keep US$450 million worth of Robinhood shares frozen, as three parties battle for the true ownership of the assets. 

A lot of the troubles for India exchanges in 2022 will run into next year as they shed staff and run down reserves to stay afloat, and not all are expected to make it.

Bankman-Fried won an upgrade from his Bahamas prison cell after posting bail following his extradition to the U.S. on Wednesday, where he faces charges for what prosecutors called “fraud of epic proportions.”

The federal judge in the ongoing lawsuit between the SEC and Ripple has granted a joint motion from all parties to extend the deadline for the Daubert Motions that would exclude certain expert testimonies.

Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, two integral members of the Sam Bankman-Fried now collapsed cryptocurrency businesses, are cooperating with prosecutors.

A year of scandals in the crypto industry has led to questions about the viability of regulation.

Top blockchain and crypto news: US senators push for crypto KYC. SBF faces the music in US courts. Alibaba Cloud to launch blockchain node.

The new restructuring team of FTX has reportedly located over US$1 billion in cash assets that are held in U.S. financial institutions.

BlockFi, an early victim of the financial contagion caused by the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, said it wants to return assets locked up in its bankruptcy proceedings.

Bitcoin prices rose Wednesday morning in Asia amid a week of volatile price movements in end-of-year trading.

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, has signed documents in the Bahamas for extradition and is scheduled to the U.S. on Wednesday.

A S.Korean court has approved prosecutors’ request to freeze assets of US$93.3 million belonging to seven former associates of Terraform Labs.

Visa is researching ways to introduce recurring, automatic payments for self-custodial Ethereum wallets.

Bitcoin and Ether gained in Asian trading on Tuesday afternoon, with Dogecoin leading declines across the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptos

With highly anticipated blockchain games set to hit the shelves in 2023, Animoca Brand’s Yat Siu sees the next opportunity to onboard the generation of crypto users.