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The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the nonfarm payrolls report for June at 12:30 UTC.

The Association for Financial Markets in Europe has urged regulators not to exclude DeFi from its MiCA regulatory framework.

“We believe it is crucial to avoid the potential exclusion of so-called ‘decentralised activities; as this could open opportunities for regulatory arbitrage and weaken the application of emerging frameworks,” the paper stated.

The EU recently adopted MiCA regulations, but the framework excludes new paradigms like decentralized finance. The AFME warns this exclusion could undermine the effectiveness of new regulatory frameworks.

“This exclusion could create unintended risks to financial stability and potential knock-on impacts. While the current overlap of DeFi and Traditional Finance (TradFi) is not yet significant, this should be actively monitored and managed,” the paper outlined.

The AFME views DeFi as a significant innovation within the financial system. “Current DeFi efforts can be seen as outsourced innovation and research and development labs for the formal financial system,” the study stated.

The paper, called ‘Decentralised Finance – Principles for building a robust digital economy,’ recommends the EU develop a taxonomy to classify DeFi activities and digital assets. “This would aid in the creation of a comprehensive regulatory solution to address DeFi’s unique challenges,” it added.

The AFME also advocates a risk-based approach to DeFi, calling for a consistent regulatory framework encompassing varying levels of centralization.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Japanese video game titan Sega, once a blockchain-based gaming enthusiast, is dialing back its interest in a sector that has struggled since crypto’s 2021 bull market, when play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity were taking off.

Sega has opted to withhold its most popular franchises, such as Sonic The Hedgehog, from third-party blockchain gaming projects to prevent content devaluation. The company has also temporarily shelved plans to develop its own proprietary blockchain games, according to co-Chief Operating Officer Shuji Utsumi, in an interview with Bloomberg.

Describing the gameplay in play-to-earn games as “boring,” Utsumi also questioned their entertainment value, asking, “What’s the point if games are no fun?”

Utsumi’s comments represent a notable shift for the firm, which, along with competitors such as Square Enix, Bandai Namco and Ubisoft, became initial validators for the gaming-focused Oasys blockchain just last year.

NFTs and lesser-known franchises still in play

Despite the cautious stance on blockchain gaming, Sega still intends to allow external partners to use its lesser-known Three Kingdoms and Virtua Fighter characters for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It will also offer its smaller franchises to several upcoming blockchain games and continue to invest in related projects, Utsumi said, adding that the technology remains useful and Sega is open to getting more involved again longer-term.

“For the majority of people in the video game industry, what blockchain advocates say may sound a bit extreme, but that’s how the first penguin has always been. We should never underestimate them,” Utsumi added.

However, Utsumi was more weary of deploying web3 technology in Sega’s “super game” initiative — a collection of big-budget online multiplayer games set to launch in 2026. “We’re looking into whether this technology is really going to take off in this industry, after all,” he said.

Last month, Utsumi dismissed talk of Sega being acquired by Microsoft.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Such ETFs have existed for some time in Canada and Europe, but have failed to attract large investor interest, the report said.

The layer 2 network will utilize bone, treat, shib and leash tokens for applications built on the blockchain.

Mining stocks have been resurgent this year due to improving sentiment from institutional ETF filings and potential revenue diversification into high-performance computing and AI, the report said.

The second rarest Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT has been sold for just 200 ETH (roughly $372,000) — far below peak prices for the collection’s most prized items.

Bored Ape #3953, a cream-furred creature with protruding eyes shown chewing on pizza, changed hands earlier today, according to blockchain records. Rarity Sniper ranks it as the second rarest item in the collection.

In the past, apes with similar traits have been sold for millions of dollars. The record sale, brokered by Sotheby’s in 2021, was $3.4 million.

The news comes with the prices of some of the most popular NFT collections plummeting. The floor price — the cheapest point of entry for an NFT collection — of Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club currently sits at 31 ETH (around $58,000). It stood at 28 ETH earlier this week, as low as it’s been in over 18 months and less than half its value at the start of the year, according to NFT Price Floor data. Trading volumes for the collection are at a two-year high, implying a sell-off.

Yuga unfazed by crash

Yuga Labs, the startup behind BAYC, appears unfazed by the crash.

“We’re not interested in monitoring the purchase or sale of our collections on marketplaces because it has no impact on what we’re doing at Yuga,” a spokesperson told The Block. “Our focus continues to be building great experiences for our communities, and we’re really excited for everything we have in the pipeline.”

Crypto Twitter was less sanguine. As one user pointed out, “It’s wild to think that at the top, the BAYC floor was higher than this sale (in USD not ETH).”

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Sega earlier promised it would carefully assess play-to-earn gaming models and NFTs to make sure its efforts in the space weren’t seen as “simply money making.”

Binance General Counsel Han Ng, Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann, and Senior Vice President for Compliance Steven Christie are among those that left the company, reportedly over its handling of DOJ investigations.