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DIMO Network, a decentralized automotive data insight network, today launched its mainnet, which aims to give users more control over— and potentially earn rewards from — driving data.

Users that plug their cars in and provide information to the network will receive an airdrop of tokens over the next three months that, among other functions, provide a governance utility to network participants. Ongoing token rewards for users who offer viable telemetry to the network are to be distributed on a weekly basis.

“You can kind of think about it like the DMV or the digital twin of your car. You get to register your vehicle. We enforce uniqueness on the car so we can know this is the only version of this car connected to DIMO and we can tell what kind of car it is and what data it’s producing,” DIMO co-founder Andy Chatham told The Block in an interview.

The airdrop is part of the company’s effort to turn the protocol over to token holders and will end in three months, according to DIMO.

The decentralized alternative gives users a way to monetize their data. The existing user-data marketplace is primarily used by corporations for corporate interests.

“We’re collecting on behalf of the owner of the vehicle with their authorization and they’re excited about it,” said Chatham, “versus OEMs that are collecting that data from the vehicles kind of like through the back door and getting you to agree to the terms and agreements.”

Chatham said DIMO was approached by corporate entities to broker an agreement to purchase data from the company but he turned them down over concerns that the data would be turned against consumers.

Currently DIMO’s vehicle network consists of 4,200 cars, including 480 different models that have streamed nearly 24 million miles worth of data.

The information gathered by DIMO can vary from one vehicle model to another. “It’s very easy for people to start … they just put in their credentials into our app,” said Chatham of the roughly 1,400 Teslas on the network, adding the network receives “rich data about the battery performance” from the connected cars.

Other vehicles networked with DIMO require a piece of hardware that connects via universal car adapters and can be fine-tuned in order to offer data insights on miles driven, diagnostic codes, tire pressure and a wide range of telemetry. Within the device, a SIM card pings one of any three cellular networks to send gathered insights back to DIMO’s network.

An important distinction between DIMO’s approach versus data collection tools present in original equipment from manufacturers, referred to as “OEMs” in the industry, is that DIMO does so on behalf of the vehicle owners, Chatham explained.

For now, DIMO is focused on simple use cases, such as providing data from DIMO to an affiliate company to reduce car payments for Tesla owners who opt in, for which DIMO receives a cut. In return for using the affiliate service, users also receive tokens from DIMO, a model that Chatham said makes sense for the time being.

“We also just added valuations to the app, so we’re pulling in instant valuations from CarMax, Carvana and Vroom, and then a bunch of other valuation sources. So if you want to go sell your car, you can do that with the data you’ve already collected attached to it and potentially get a better price than you would otherwise,” Chatham said. 

For its next phase DIMO is building a developer platform. “What we’re really interested in is building better apps and services for people that help them navigate the used car market or the insurance market or get better maintenance for their car, sell their car for more money when they go to sell it,” said Chatham.

© 2022 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.

The CEO of the peer-to-peer bitcoin trading platform Paxful Ray Youssef told customers to get their bitcoin off the platform and move it into self-custody. 

Youssef cited the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX as reasons for urging Paxful’s 11 million customers to self-custody their cryptocurrency. 

“I take great pride in protecting our community’s funds and, unlike others in our industry, I have never touched our customers’ money,” Youssef said in an email to users. “My sole responsibility is to help and serve you. That’s why today I’m messaging all of our users to move your Bitcoin to self-custody. You should not keep your savings on Paxful, or any exchange, and only keep what you trade here.”

Last month, cryptocurrency exchange volumes jumped compared to October as the collapse of FTX roiled markets, with decentralized platforms seeing an increase of 93% as doubled to $65 billion from $34 billion. Centralized exchange volumes rose by 24% to $673 billion, up from $543 billion in October, according to The Block data.

Youssef adds that when customers trust platforms to safeguard their crypto, “you’re at the mercy of these custodians and their morals.”

“Bitcoin has given us the chance to finally be in control and we must take it,” Youssef said.

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

© 2022 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.

FTX CEO John Ray refuted Sam Bankman-Fried’s contention that FTX US has enough segregated funds on hand to re-open user withdrawals.

The CEO laid out the core structural flaws that led to the collapse of the multi-billion dollar empire early last month in a written statement ahead of his appearance tomorrow before the House Financial Services Committee. 

“Questions have been raised as to why all of the FTX Group companies were included in the Chapter 11 filing, particularly FTX US,” Ray said. “The answer is because FTX US was not operated independently of FTX.com.”

He further mapped a series of problems involving FTX’s entanglement with Alameda Research that led to the collapse.

“Customer assets from FTX.com were commingled with assets from the Alameda trading platform,” he said, also noting that senior management faced no controls on access to private keys. 

Other issues plaguing that relationship were Alameda’s risky margin trading and unrestricted borrow from FTX’s deposits; FTX’s wave of investments and loans to insiders at FTX and Alameda; and the fact that Alameda’s market-making left customer assets on outside exchanges around the world, Ray said.

‘Utter failure of corporate controls’

His testimony will come before Bankman-Fried’s own virtual appearance. 

Ray again noted an unprecedented “utter failure of corporate controls at every level of an organization” that is hampering his diagnostics, including incomplete documentation for “transactions involving nearly 500 investments made with FTX Group funds and assets.”

Bankman-Fried has quibbled with such criticism from Ray of the company’s corporate controls in numerous media appearances since the collapse. 

Ray cordoned off a number of subjects he would not address, including communications or lack thereof with Bankman-Fried, and ongoing legal proceedings, including investigations from U.S. law enforcement. 

Despite those limits, Ray very clearly addresses a number of the core concerns with FTX, including the division of its global and U.S. branches.

Bankman-Fried was also unclear as to whether he would testify before the Senate Banking Committee at a Wednesday hearing that the committee’s leadership have pushed him to attend. 

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from former FTX and Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

© 2022 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.

Quick Take

• DeGods and y00ts have monopolized the mindshare in the Solana NFT market, despite getting off to a bumpy start that almost prompted the team to throw in the towel.
• In the face of adversity, both collections have emerged as knights in shining armors capable of salvaging the Solana NFT landscape.
• Since the FTX collapse, revealed and unrevealed y00ts have noted floor price increases of 0.7% and 5.6%, respectively.

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Cumberland sees adoption leading to a market recovery in 2023, but only after a “spat of volatility” as the “market rewires itself.”

Jonah Van Bourg, the firm’s head of trading, said he expects an eventual up-trend next year in the wake of deregulation by China and Russia that will enhance bitcoin’s “geopolitical relevance,” as well as the continued onboarding of blockchain technology by major tech companies.

After a very busy month, price action is consolidating,” Van Bourg said in a lengthy Twitter thread. “Given the nature of crypto and the tectonic shifts occurring beneath it, we do not expect this paradigm to last.”

The collapse of FTX and Terra removed oxygen from lending markets and accelerated realignment with more ‘sober’ valuations, the thread read. Firms across the industry have curtailed plans or are out of business, and “the future of the industry is as cloudy as ever,” he said.

He said the relative price stability seen in recent weeks won’t last.

“In the wake of billions of dollars worth of those liquidations and trillions of dollars of lost market capitalization, the next leg of price action is almost entirely dependent upon whether there are further firesales to come,” he said.

While Van Bourg admits a handful of portfolios will be unwound over the coming months, the more significant risk he foresees is a lack of crypto — as opposed to a surplus.

© 2022 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.

A new game for Illuvium has gone live — if you’re one of the 30,000 lucky community members selected to try it out.

The private beta for “Illuvium: Overworld” is the second game released by Australia-based Illuvium Labs to date. A preview of gameplay teased details about the universe’s backstory, and the Overworld will involve playing as a ranger whose spaceship has crash-landed in the wilderness.

Players will be able to explore a section of the Overworld called the Crimson Waste, mine resources and forage for assets to create weapons and armor. They can also hunt for Illuvials, the powerful creatures used for battling in “Illuvium: Arena,” which came out earlier this year and is also in private beta.

Built using Unreal Engine 5 and on ImmutableX’s blockchain, Illuvium’s whitepaper describes its series of interlinked games as a “universe consisting of an open-world monster collector, auto battler, and city builder.” It plans to release an additional six games over the next two decades.

A third title could also be around the corner. The company said “Illuvium: Zero” could have an alpha release before Christmas.

The first AAA blockchain game?

The race is on among web3 game developers to create the first blockchain game that goes viral and wins over traditional gamers. That’s no small task, with popular games like PUBG, Fortnite and Roblox attracting hundreds of millions of players a month.

By comparison, the most popular web3 game at the moment, Alien Worlds, had just 690,000 unique active wallets engaged with its smart contract over the past 30 days, according to DappRadar.

Even at its peak, web3 gaming poster child Axie Infinity reached less than 2.8 million players a month.

While awareness and onboarding remain an ongoing struggle, perhaps the biggest issue to mainstream adoption is simply that the games themselves just haven’t been compelling enough to non-crypto audiences.

Illuvium thinks it can change that. Valued at $10 billion and with backers that include AAVE founder Stani Kulechov and Sandbox founder Sebastien Borget, it wants to introduce 100 million gamers to the advantages of owning their hard-earned digital assets in the form of interoperable NFTs that can be collected, bought, sold and used across its games.

“Our mission is to build the first truly AAA experience in the history of web3,” co-founder and game director Aaron Warwick said.

© 2022 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.

Bitcoin miner Argo is looking to sell assets and get a loan as it seeks to avoid bankruptcy as it runs low on cash and after it accidentally published a document implying it would file for Chapter 11.

The company is in “advanced negotiations with a third party” to sell certain assets and secure equipment financing, it said in a statement. “The company is at risk of having insufficient cash to support ongoing business operations within the next month.”

“The company is hopeful that it will be able to consummate the transaction outside of a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the United States, although there is no assurance that the company can avoid such a filing,” it said.

Argo said that it accidentally published draft materials on its website saying that it was voluntarily filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., leading its stock to be temporarily suspended on the London Stock Exchange on Friday.

“Shareholders should note that the company has not filed for bankruptcy at this time,” it said. “The company has requested that the UK Financial Conduct Authority restore the listing of its ordinary shares and that is expected to happen as soon as practicable.”

The miner had already warned that it would become cashflow negative if it failed to raise more money, after a financing deal fell through. In that scenario it would also have to cease operations, the company said at the time. The news comes as miners struggle with increasing mining difficulty, higher energy costs and lower bitcoin prices.

Argo has hired legal advisers, financial advisers and investment bankers to help analyze options, it said.

© 2022 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.

Bitcoin Group SE, a crypto investment company, has signed an agreement to acquire the centuries-old German bank Bankhaus von der Heydt for 14 million euro ($14.75 million) and 150,000 shares.

The purchase price is subject to change depending on developments in the equity of the target company, according to a company release.

The deal is still subject to approval by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and is expected the close in the third quarter of 2023.

Founded in 1754, Bankhaus von der Heydt holds a full banking license. It is also a provider for digital asset custody and tokenization in Germany. Last year, the bank partnered with Fireblocks to provide crypto services to clients.

Crypto exchange Bitmex planned to acquire the bank in January of this year, but the deal fell through in March after the two parties reportedly mutually agreed to call it off. The reasons were unknown, but the deal was also subject to the approval of BaFin.

Bitcoin Group aims to build up a portfolio of companies through acquisitions that meet the requirements of its investors in terms of risk diversification and potential returns, according to its website. It currently owns shares  in two companies: Futurum Bank AG, which operates the crypto-trading platform Bitcoin.de, and Sineus Financial Services GmbH, which is a financial services provider supervised by BaFin.

Bitcoin Group close up 1.3% today in Frankfurt. 

© 2022 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.

Coinbase received 12,320 law enforcement requests for the year through Sept. 30, a 66% increase.

The majority, 43%, of requests came from the U.S., followed by the UK, Germany and Spain, according to the exchange’s latest transparency report. 

“Since last year’s report, these requests have more than doubled, which we attribute to a combination of our own expansion and an overall increase in law enforcement and regulatory interest in the crypto industry,” Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase, said in a blog post. 

The exchange, which serves more than 108 million customers around the world, regularly receives and responds to requests from law enforcement and government agencies seeking customer account information and financial records in connection with civil, criminal or other investigative matters.

The increase comes months after Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for being used by a hacker group linked to North Korea. Last month, Kraken agreed to settle with OFAC for apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations. 

Grewal said the overwhelming majority of requests, both globally and in the U.S., were from law enforcement agencies in connection with criminal enforcement matters. Such requests range can be in the form of subpoenas, court orders, search warrants or other formal legal processes.

“We have an obligation to respond to such requests if they are valid under financial regulations and other applicable laws,” Grewal wrote. 

© 2022 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.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried will testify virtually before Congress on Tuesday, saying he can’t travel to Washington, D.C. due to his busy schedule and security concerns about paparazzi.

“I’m quite overbooked and was not planning to be testifying until, like, very recently,” Bankman-Fried said. “From a security standpoint … It’s very difficult for me to move right now and travel because just, like, the paparazzi effect is quite large.”

Bankman-Fried will testify virtually before the House Financial Services Committee for its first hearing on the collapse of FTX and broader implications for the digital asset industry, he said during a Twitter Spaces interview. Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, once valued at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy protection after a run on its utility token last month following concerns that the business wasn’t properly capitalized. 

The disgraced crypto boss remains in the Bahamas, where FTX’s main trading subsidiary, FTX Digital Markets, is based. Before the company fell apart, Bankman-Fried visited Washington often to meet with policymakers and regulators. 

The hour-long interview was the latest stop on Bankman-Fried’s extraordinary whirlwind media tour. He played the “Storybook Brawl” video game during the talk, which was hosted by options flow data platform Unusual Whales.

Bankman-Fried initially brushed off a hearing request from the House Financial Services Committee. Despite his recent media circuit and tweets detailing his view of the collapse, Bankman-Fried said he needed more time to understand what happened at his own companies before speaking to lawmakers. But he reversed course and agreed to testify last week, after committee Chair Maxine Waters, D-Calif., pressed him to appear at the scheduled hearing. 

Lawmakers in both chambers are investigating what happened at FTX. Bankman-Fried has not committed to appearing before the Senate Banking Committee, which will hold its own hearing on Wednesday and has threatened him with a subpoena. 

“I am not currently scheduled to do that,” Bankman-Fried said. “I am open and willing to have a conversation with the chair or the ranking member about the hearing if they believe it’s important that I attend,” Bankman-Fried said, noting that he expects the two hearings will be “very materially similar” because they are happening back-to-back.

Although he’s avoided leaving the Bahamas since the FTX crash, Bankman-Fried said he would not expect to be detained if he enters the country, despite ongoing law enforcement investigations into the company’s practices leading up to the collapse. 

“I don’t believe I would be,” Bankman-Fried said. 

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

© 2022 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.