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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Exchanges news
- Crypto broker Voyager Digital reduced its daily withdrawal limit to USD 10,000 from USD 25,000 after detailing its exposure to struggling hedge fund Three Arrows Capital earlier this week. The update to the withdrawal limit was made at 23:00 UTC on Wednesday, according to the website.
- Uphold, a UK-based platform offering crypto trading and digital asset debit cards, is closing its Venezuela operation due to “the increasing complexity of complying with US sanctions,” the company said. Trading services in the country will be available until July 31, and accounts will be fully restricted as of September 30.
- Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced that a panel of the Capital Markets Tribunal approved a settlement agreement between the OSC and crypto exchange Bybit for failing to comply with Ontario securities law. Additionally, the panel ordered monetary sanctions and a permanent market participation ban against crypto exchange KuCoin for the same reason.
- Decentralized exchange dYdX announced dYdX V4, a new version of the protocol that will be developed as a standalone Cosmos (ATOM)-based blockchain, and which marks the full decentralization of the dYdX protocol. They added that they’re planning to open-source the version by the end of this year and will release more information over the next year.
NFTs news
- Binance announced a multi-year NFT partnership with Portuguese footballing legend Cristiano Ronaldo, through which the platform will launch a global promotion aiming to give Ronaldo’s fans an introduction to web3 and an entry point into NFTs. Binance and Ronaldo will be creating a series of NFT collections for sale exclusively on the Binance NFT platform, with the first to be released later this year.
- Online shopping giant Shopify is launching NFT-gated storefronts as a new feature for brands looking to make their stores more exclusive. The shop is currently in beta, and only those with existing NFT collections are eligible to apply for early access.
- Luxury brand Gucci inaugurated the gallery Vault Art Space in a partnership with NFT marketplace SuperRare. The debut exhibit, The Next 100 Years of Gucci, features a selection of NFT artworks, each a collectible fragment of Gucci’s heritage, which will be showcased and auctioned off directly on Vault’s website in three drops between June 23rd and July 29th.
- Decentralized lending and staking protocol Parallel Finance announced the launch of their Omni NFT Money Market on Ethereum (ETH), which is meant to provide lending and borrowing services for various assets on the Ethereum blockchain.
- The US National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA), the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Hockey League Alumni Association (NHLAA), and NFT platform Sweet announced a multiyear partnership naming Sweet the Official NFT Digital Collectibles Marketplace and an Official NFT partner of the NHL, NHLPA, and NHLAA. With a planned launch at the start of the 2022-23 NHL season, the stand-alone NHL platform will showcase NFTs related to the history of the sport.
Blockchains news
- The Avalanche Bridge, which enables transfers of assets between the Ethereum and Avalanche (AVAX) blockchain networks, has announced the BTC Bridge, which offers support for bridging native bitcoin (BTC) to Avalanche using the Avalanche Bridge. They also warn that BTC bridging with Avalanche Bridge is not supported with MetaMask or any other wallet.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is engaging with nearly a dozen lenders in the country to run a blockchain-based pilot project centered on trade financing and aimed at preventing loan frauds, per the Economic Times.
Regulation news
- Singapore will be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on bad behavior in the crypto industry, according to Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), per the Financial Times. To the allegation that the watchdog wasn’t friendly, he said, “My response has been: friendly for what? Friendly for a real economy or friendly for some unreal economy?”
- Two US senators, Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis, and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, are seeking feedback on new bipartisan crypto legislation that calls for a set of standards to determine if a digital asset is a commodity or security, and other stablecoin provisions, as well as tasks the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with more authority to regulate coins. The full content of the bill is available on the hosting platform GitHub.
Legal news
- Chen Boliang, a former senior manager at crypto exchange Huobi, is being prosecuted in Hong Kong after accusations that he made USD 5m by secretly trading against a company account he controlled, per the Financial Times. He allegedly set up a Huobi retail account in his father’s name and gave it a USD 20m credit line from the exchange, then proceeded to trade against a Huobi corporate account he also controlled, which netted him the profits.
- Crypto mining company Compass has sued its facility provider, Dynamics 2K, in Delaware Chancery Court, arguing that the hosting company is “holding equipment hostage” and hasn’t been maintaining the facilities properly, per Law360. They say that the hosting company has not let them access one of their Maine facilities and may even be using the on-site equipment for its own purposes.
Gaming news
- Gaming blockchain Oasys announced a strategic partnership with blockchain technology company ConsenSys to build a better network infrastructure for blockchain-based gaming. As part of the partnership, ConsenSys will provide infrastructure support as the Oasys network expands, while Oasys will encourage new gamers to use the Consensys-owned MataMask wallet as the preferred wallet solution, they said.
Taxes news
- India’s Finance Ministry issued guidelines to clarify the reporting mechanism for the 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) provision, stating that the government must be notified of a transaction within 30 days from the end of the month in which the transaction is made and any sum deducted must be paid to the government within the same time frame. TDS is a liability imposed on the exchanges that deposit taxes on behalf of sellers on their platform.
Mining news
- Bitcoin miner Bit Digital mined BTC 194.48 and ETH 189.26 in the first quarter of 2022, bringing in USD 8.6m in revenue, which is down from USD 43.95m in revenue for the same time in 2021, according to its unaudited quarterly earnings report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also noted a USD 10.18m net comprehensive loss for Q1 2022, compared with a USD 35.79m profit for the same period last year.
- Blockchain and crypto company DMG Blockchain Solutions announced the launch of Terra Pool, a renewable energy bitcoin mining pool, which is the result of a partnership between DMG and crypto miner Argo Blockchain.
