Crypto news
Frida Kahlo art finds permanent home in the metaverse
The family of the world-renowned painter Frida Kahlo released never before seen art and memorabilia tied to the artist into the metaverse. The content debuted in a permanent exhibition during the third-annual Metaverse Art Week in Decentraland, held on Aug. 24–28. Metaverse users are now able to experience the art, along with personal anecdotes told by close family members in a digital replica of the “Red House.” The house represents the real-life version of the Red House, owned by the family, which stands in Mexico City. The Red House in Decentraland. Source: Ezel However, in the metaverse version of the Red House, each room represents little-known parts of the artist’s life before her infamous relationship with the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Luke McFarlane, the co-founder ...
Iranian businesses get the green light to use crypto for imports
Iran’s Industry, Mines and Trade ministry has approved the use of cryptocurrency for imports into the country amid ongoing international trade sanctions. According to local news reports, trade minister Reza Fatemi Amin confirmed that detailed regulations have been approved outlining the use of cryptocurrencies for trade and supplying fuel and electricity to Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto miners in the country. Amin outlined the regulatory change at an automotive industry exhibition on Aug. 28, just a week after the country had placed a first-ever import order for vehicles, to the tune of $10 million, using cryptocurrency as a payment method. The Iranian trade ministry had previously indicated that the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts would be widely used in foreign trade by September ...
South Korean central bank eyes MiCA, says future regulations may allow ICOs again
The South Korean central bank has indicated that initial coin offerings (ICOs) will be allowed under the Digital Assets Framework Act, according to a local news report. That comprehensive legislation is expected to be introduced in 2023 and implemented the following year. The Bank of Korea (BOK) discussed ICOs in comments to a Korean translation of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) legislation released Monday. The BOK stated that the MiCA regulatory package protected users and investors without hindering innovation. “A balanced approach is needed to foster a sound market through the introduction of a crypto asset regulatory system to promote blockchain and crypto asset innovation while not hindering the development of related industries due to excessive regulation,...
Australian regulators rattle their saber as adoption takes a major leap: Law Decoded, Aug. 22–29
Australia’s financial regulator, the Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has pledged to put crypto assets and decentralized finance (DeFi) firmly in its sights over the next four years. The regulator intends to focus on “digitally enabled misconducts” and to protect investors “from harms posed by crypto-assets.” Given the ASIC’s history of anti-crypto sentiments, such an announcement could be perceived as hostile, but at least it contains a promise to implement some regulatory framework that is still absent. And it is hardly a coincidence that the announcement came only days after Australia’s new ruling government announced plans to move forward with regulation of the crypto sector by conducting a “token mapping” exercise by the end of the year. At the same time, Australia’...
Central African Republic court says new $60,000 citizenship-by-crypto-investment program is unconstitutional
According to Reuters, the Constitutional Court of the Central African Republic (CAR) said on Monday that the purchase of citizenship, e-residency and land using its government-backed Sango digital currency is unconstitutional because a nationality has no market value. Earlier in July, the CAR unveiled its Sango crypto hub to attract global crypto talent and enthusiasts, boost Bitcoin (BTC) adoption and implement new crypto regulatory frameworks. The Sango blockchain is built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, similar to a layer-2 solution. Part of the program includes a citizenship-by-investment program, where foreign nationals can effectively purchase citizenship in the CAR for $60,000 in crypto, with an equivalent amount of Sango tokens held as collateral and returned...
Lawyer Roche alleges statements he made about Ava Labs are false, the result of intoxication
Kyle Roche, the lawyer at the center of allegations made by website Cryptoleaks about a secret agreement between his firm and Ava Labs, responded Monday in a post on Medium. Like Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer, Roche denied the existence of any secret agreement between the parties. Roche claimed that the recordings that have been published on Cryptoleaks’ website were made at the behest of ICP Token creator Dominic Williams. Roche’s firm, Roche Freedman, brought a class action suit against Williams and his Dfinity Foundation last October. Roche said the recordings were heavily edited and he denied the truth of the statements he made in them. According to Roche: “Statements in the video […] are false, and were obtained through deceptive means, including a deliberate scheme to intoxicate, and t...
Why DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi are horizontals in the Metaverse
The future of value creation and exchange will know no national boundaries and jurisdictions. They will all be ecosystem specific. Therefore, all use cases need to be ecosystem-specific. The future for DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi may be embedded. But, this embedding can only be implemented in a well-oiled ecosystem. The Metaverse that brings these user functions together will not only have experiential elements but also utilitarian and gamification elements. For instance, a metaverse in which DeFi can be applicable will need to have opportunities for microtransactions. A metaverse in which SocialFi can be embedded will need to have an ecosystem that has creators and consumers contributing, being compensated and acknowledged for these contributions. Let us now look at what we could see as emb...
CME Group launches euro-denominated Bitcoin and Ether futures
Derivatives marketplace Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group has launched trading for Bitcoin euro and Ether euro futures contracts. In a Monday announcement, CME Group said that it launched contracts for euro-denominated Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) futures sized at 5 BTC and 50 ETH per contract. Both contracts will be listed on CME, cash-settled and based on the CME CF Bitcoin-Euro Reference Rate and CME CF Ether-Euro Reference Rate, respectively. “Our new Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures will provide institutional clients, both within and outside the U.S., with more precise and regulated tools to trade and hedge exposure to the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap,” said CME Group global head of equity and FX products Tim McCourt. First announced on Aug. 4, the euro-denomin...
Sam Bankman-Fried denies report FTX plans to purchase stake in Huobi
Global crypto exchange FTX will not be acquiring a majority stake in Huobi, according to CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF. In a Monday tweet, SBF explicitly denied a Bloomberg report that claimed FTX was planning to purchase crypto exchange Huobi. Cointelegraph reported on Aug. 12 that Huobi co-founder Leon Li was considering selling his majority stake, valued at more than $1 billion, in the company. “We are not planning to acquire Huobi,” said SBF. Just to be explicit because apparently a lot of people are saying this: No, we are not planning to acquire Huobi. — SBF (@SBF_FTX) August 29, 2022 Under SBF’s leadership, both FTX and Alameda Research have stepped in a few times amid the bear market to bail out crypto firms facing liquidity issues. In a June NPR interview, Bankman-Fried...
NFTs Gaming CEO apologizes for losing 12% of startup capital through crypto trading
According to a recent blog post, 0xfanfaron, CEO of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) gaming project Ragnarok, apologized publicly for his missteps in leading the company. Ragnarok is a crypto startup that brought in $15.5 million worth of Ether (ETH) for gaming development in April through its first-ever NFT sale. However, 0xfanfaron disclosed: “We exchanged the ETH from the mint for 15.5 million in USD Coin. As it turns out, this was a good move in treasury management. But when ETH’s price went down, I made mistakes by buying ETH multiple times when I thought it was an advantageous investment for the project.” 0xfanfaron further elaborated that he sold the firm’s Ether positions through a series of trades with the plan to reinvest at a “better time.” The ventu...
Ripple CEO comments on Crypto Leaks, denies funding law firm to target others
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse took to Twitter to deny recent explosive claims made by Crypto Leaks, an online publication focusing on corruption and fraud-related news in the crypto ecosystem. Crypto Leaks published a report on Friday containing a series of short videos from an unknown source. The report claimed that Ava Labs formed a secret pact with the law firm to use the American legal system “gangster style” to “attack and harm crypto organizations.” The same report also alleged that Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse funded a law firm to target competitor firms. The report claimed Roche, who founded Roche Freedman, was earlier working with Boies Schiller Flexner, a firm that was representing Ripple in its lawsuit against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)....
MAS doesn’t trust retail crypto investments, mulling more regulations
The managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Ravi Menon, addressed the agency’s mixed signals on crypto in the public sphere at a seminar on Aug. 29. The public claimed that local regulators were spreading crypto-positive sentiments while simultaneously threatening more regulations. According to the new statement from Menon, the observation is not entirely wrong. He says the agency needs to do “a better job explaining” the situation. Overall, MAS is pro-digital assets, as directly stated by Menon, “yes to digital asset innovation, no to cryptocurrency speculation.” Regulators want the island country to become a hub for fintech innovation and distributed ledger activity. Though according to recent statements, where the problem lies is within cryptocurrenci...
