The nonfungible token (NFT) sector has undergone a surge in popularity over the past year and a half as projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks captured the attention of the general public. While the idea of fetching a six-figure payday for the latest trending digital art piece has been a major factor in the attention placed on the…
The United States Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Friday that it was sanctioning cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io for its role in laundering proceeds from the hacking of Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge. North Korean state-sponsored hackers Lazarus Group have been identified as the perpetrators of the attack. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson…
For years, trading app Robinhood listed just a handful of cryptocurrencies. Over the past month, it’s brought that number to 11, and it’s now also making available two equities assets tied to the price of crypto. As of today, Robinhood users can buy and sell Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) via the app. GBTC and ETHE…
The past week in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem saw many new developments from an adoption perspective and protocol developments. The European Commission added a new chapter on DeFi, showing the growing impact of the nascent ecosystem, while a county in the United States State of Virginia wants to put its pension fund in a DeFi yield. DeFi exploits became…
Well, that didn’t take long. Three months after Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, said it was actively looking into Web3, its cloud computing unit has formed a team. Amit Zavery, a vice president at Google Cloud, told employees in an email Friday viewed by CNBC that the idea is to make the company’s cloud platform the preferred choice among developers. …
Google’s cloud unit announced on Friday the formation of an internal team that will build services for blockchain developers and those running blockchain-based applications. This comes amid an explosion of interest, activity, and adoption of crypto and Web3 tools from traditional sectors of the economy. Web3 infrastructure of the future Vice president at Google Cloud, Amit Zavery, reportedly told his…
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control today issued first-of-its-kind sanctions against a cryptocurrency mixing service, Bender.io, with links to North Korea. In a press release on Friday, OFAC said that the mixer is allegedly being used by hackers in North Korea to “support its malicious cyber activities and money-laundering of stolen virtual currency.” Crypto mixers are privacy-enhancing…
The Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis told Cointelegraph that the region has a regulatory regime in place that will enable crypto businesses to operate within its jurisdiction. During an interview at SALT’s Crypto Bahamas conference, Davis shared that The Bahamas recently published a white paper framework that will allow crypto businesses to “grow and prosper,” while letting companies understand the…
By Elke Karskens, Head of EMEA Marketing Awards season is in full swing across Europe, and this week we were delighted to win Best Digital Asset Custodian 2022 in HFM Europe Services’ annual awards. This success further underlines both our integral role within the cryptoeconomy, particularly in terms of further enabling institutional engagement, and also the incredible team that we’re…
Following the Federal Reserve’s rate hike on Wednesday, economist Peter Schiff has had a lot to say since the U.S. central bank raised the benchmark rate by half a percentage point. Schiff further believes we are in a recession and says “it will be much worse than the Great Recession that followed the 2008 Financial Crisis.” Peter Schiff Says ‘Fed…
