Celsius Mulls Another Option for Its Clients, Central Bank Fines Binance + More News
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
- Troubled crypto lender Celsius (CEL) said it will give its customers an option of staying “long crypto” or receiving a discounted cash settlement. It is also considering “asset sales and third-party investment opportunities” to raise capital, according to a presentation ahead of Monday’s bankruptcy court hearing.
- Investment in venture capital-backed crypto companies slowed during the first half of 2022, from a record USD 12.5bn invested during last year’s first half to about USD 9.3bn invested through the first six months of this year, according to Crunchbase. Deal flow, however, increased as 534 deals were announced in H1 this year, compared to only 456 in H1 last year, they added.
- WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s crypto venture Flowcarbon has delayed the launch of its products along with slowing operations due to market conditions, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing co-founder Dana Gibber. She added that the company has decided to wait for markets to stabilize before launching products.
- Crypto yield offering Meow announced that it closed on USD 22m in Series A financing led by Tiger Global. The funds will be used to support the company’s growth with new hires and enhanced product features, they said.
Exchanges news
- The Dutch Central Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, fined crypto exchange Binance a EUR 3.325m (USD 3.37m) fine for continuing to offer services to Dutch citizens without required registration.
- Coinbase announced that it has secured approval from Italian regulators, the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori, to provide ongoing crypto services to its residents. They added that they are “in the process of strengthening [their] presence across Europe and have registrations or license applications in progress in several major markets in compliance with local regulations.”
- Crypto trading platform Bit2Me announced plans to onboard fellow platform 2gether’s 100,000 crypto investors, who were recently blocked from trading due to the exchange’s inability to operate amid unfavorable market conditions. Users had to pay a EUR 20 commission on 2gether as the platform shut down its free trading services, citing its inability to justify its related operational costs, but this amount will now be refunded to them by Bit2Me.
- Coinbase is falling out of the list of the world’s top 10 digital-asset exchanges by volume as the markets battle crypto winter – the latest data for this month shows the firm is now the 14th largest exchange, down from the 4th-biggest in late 2021, according to Bloomberg, citing institutional brokerage firm Mizuho Securities USA LLC. The exchange had a 2.9% average market share among the top 30 exchanges globally so far this month, down from 3.6% average in the second quarter of this year and 5.3% in the first quarter, Mizuho said.
- Bybit announced a partnership with trading solutions provider Actant to provide trading tools for professional traders.
Regulation news
- Paraguay’s Senate approved a bill regulating crypto mining and trading that must now be submitted to the executive branch, which has the power to approve or veto it. The National Electricity Administration will be in charge of enabling the energy supply, and the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money or Asset Laundering will supervise the whole investment process carried out by crypto companies.
- UK Treasury disclosures for the first quarter of 2022, published on the UK government website, show that then economic secretary John Glen had meetings in February and March with crypto firms, including Binance, Paxos (PAX), Coinbase, and Circle, with an intention to “discuss cryptoassets.” Glen also met with venture capital firms a16z and Kingsway Capital, as well as point of sale software provider Epos Now, for the same purpose.
Gaming news
- Metaverse gaming platform Otherside, developed by Yuga Labs, the team behind the NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club, launched a tech demo, inviting 4,300 players for a first-look and tour – all of whom are owners of “Otherdeeds,” deeds to plots of digital land within the platform. Otherside’s developers announced that only Otherdeed owners and “selected third-party developers” will be permitted to participate in the game during its first phase.
