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Danish shipping company Maersk and IBM are withdrawing their blockchain-enabled supply chain offering, TradeLens, and discontinuing the platform.

TradeLens was founded on the “bold vision to make a leap in global supply chain digitization as an open and neutral industry platform,” said Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at Maersk.

Unfortunately, thought the platform was viable, the need for full global industry collaboration failed. As a result, TradeLens has not reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work and meet the financial expectations as an independent business, Hershko said.

Several large companies have moved to enable blockchain-based supply chains to ensure further transparency in the process.

The platform will go offline by end of the first quarter.

Maersk will continue its efforts to digitize the supply chain and increase industry innovation through other solutions to reduce trade friction and promote more global trade.

The TradeLens platform was announced in 2018 and jointly developed by IBM and GTD Solution, a division of Maersk, as a blockchain-enabled shipping solution designed to promote more efficient and secure global trade.

© 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.

Data and analytics firm FTSE Russell, which is owned by the London Stock Exchange Group, is rolling out a market cap index series covering the investable digital asset market.

It includes eight indices from large to micro cap, and monitors data and hundreds of exchanges constantly in order to “define the investable universe.”

“Transparency in this asset class becomes more important than ever,” said Arne Staal, CEO at FTSE Russell. “FTSE Russell has taken a measured approach to this frontier investment space and has built a rigorous and transparent framework, underpinned by robust governance and comprehensive data to meet investor needs, both where they are now and as they prepare for change in this market.”

The company said that its asset and exchange vetting is a cornerstone of the new digital asset indices, as “unlike more established markets, price sourcing is more difficult” in the digital asset market.

First, it looks at technical, operational, regulatory, security, transactional and custodial factors, then vets individual assets and finally uses real-time filters.

© 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.

TeraWulf fell by 7.9% and BIT Mining rose by 7.69%, but the share price for most other bitcoin miners traded little changed on Tuesday.

Bitcoin was trading at around $16,400 by market close, according to data from TradingView.

BTCUSD Chart by TradingView

Mawson Infrastructure was another outlier to the downside, falling by 5.58%, but the share price for most other bitcoin miners traded within 3% of yesterday’s price.

Here’s how crypto mining companies performed on Tuesday, Nov. 29:

© 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.

Serious art collectors known to frequent the opening day of the Art Basel Miami Beach fair had the ability to take something home completely for free on Tuesday — a “generative” NFT minted on the Tezos blockchain.

The Tezos exhibit at the exclusive fair featured an interactive, live-minting experience that lets visitors scan a QR code to start production of an algorithmic NFT designed by either Tyler Boswell, DistCollective or Ivona Tau.

The whole process takes about two minutes, and the work is quickly delivered to the visitor’s wallet and then displayed on a large screen with information about the work’s rarity. 

Blokhaus founder Mark Soares, who works with Tezos on the project, said that only 2,500 of the NFTs would be minted during the week-long fair. Similar NFTs minted at other fairs in Hong Kong and Paris have been resold on the secondary market for hundreds of dollars, he said in an interview at the exhibit, dubbed “Performance in Code: Deciphering Value in Generative Art.”

“In the marketplace, Tezos has always been different in the positioning,” Soares said. “What we like to showcase with Tezos is this authentic art movement that does in fact exist in blockchain and intends to get, frankly, overshadowed by these more candy-coated, hype collections that can emerge. Nothing wrong with those, but there’s more to NFT art than just PFP NFTs, which tend to dominate a lot of the narrative.”

Crossover effect

He said the exhibit, developed in collaboration with art platform fxhash, was designed to onboard serious art collectors to the Tezos blockchain.

“We are still at the stage of curiosity,” he said. “There’s no doubt that there are collectors who are collecting NFTs here as part of their overall collection, but I’m seeing the opposite also. NFT collectors are coming in to collect other forms of art as well. And so there’s like a crossover that’s taking place.”

Soares said he didn’t expect interest in the sector to slow down in the aftermath of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

“I was actually talking to the fxhash folks, and this month was the biggest month they’ve had in terms of sales,” he said. “They said that the more chaos that happens, the better they do.”

Prominent artists throughout the Tezos ecosystem will be featured throughout the week in a conversation series at Art Basel that “will examine the merging of generative art algorithms and blockchain technology.” The exhibit is open to the public Dec. 1-3.

© 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.

Crypto news site CoinDesk, owned by Digital Currency Group (DCG), has received takeover interest including one that suggested a $300 million purchase price, according to Semafor, according to Semafor.

Potential buyers circling the company include private equity firms, family offices, rival publications including Blockworks and hedge funds that hunt for distressed assets, but there is no formal sales process, unnamed sources told the publication.

CoinDesk’s story earlier this month showing that a large portion of Alameda’s Research balance sheet was made up of FTT tokens has been cited as a catalyst for FTX’s unraveling by prompting investors to lose faith in the exchange.

The publication — a competitor of The Block — brings in $50 million in yearly revenues stemming from advertising and its Consensus conference, Semafor said.

A spokesperson with DCG declined to comment on the story.

In a letter to shareholders last week, DCG CEO Barry Silbert addressed issues with one of the group’s other companies, Genesis, after media reports said that it might be headed toward bankruptcy. Genesis Trading was hit by FTX’s collapse, with close to $175 million of the derivatives business locked up in an account with the bankrupt centralized exchange.

“DCG will continue to be a leading builder of the industry and we are committed to our long-term mission of accelerating the development of a better financial system,” he wrote in a note to clients obtained by The Block. 

© 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.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wants information on how large crypto exchanges conduct business, including whether they use customer funds for undisclosed purposes, following the collapse of FTX. 

The Oregon Democrat and chair of the powerful tax policy committee also wants details of the assets on the balance sheets of Binance.US, Coinbase, Bitfinex, Gemini, Kraken, and Kucoin, how many corporate entities they have, and how funds are segregated between those entities. He’s pursuing the information as part of an effort to draft legislation to enhance consumer protection for crypto customers. 

In letters sent to those exchanges, Wyden also asked for more information on their accounting, anti-money laundering compliance, and controls against digital asset market manipulation.

“As Congress considers much-needed regulations for the crypto industry, I will focus on the clear need for consumer protections along the lines of the assurances that have long existed for customers of banks, credit unions and securities brokers,” Wyden said in the statement, noting that customer accounts with digital asset trading firms do not enjoy the same federal insurance extended to bank accounts.  

“If these protections had been in place before the failure of FTX, far fewer retail investors would be facing precipitous financial harm today,” he added. 

Customers for the bankrupt offshore trading firm, its U.S. subsidiary, and other affiliates face a lengthy process to recover any portion of their funds — which will likely be pennies on the dollar. 

On Monday, crypto lender BlockFi became the latest digital asset company to declare bankruptcy, its financial situation exacerbated by FTX’s own collapse. The pair join a growing roster of cryptocurrency-related bankruptcy cases this year.  

© 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.

Top NFT marketplace OpenSea will now support digital assets built on the BNB Chain blockchain, the company announced.

OpenSea took to Twitter to share that by listing non-fungible tokens built on the BNB Chain it would be able to handle trades for collections created by players like Goodfellas NFT and Pixelsweeper.

While BNB Chain trade volumes represent a mere fraction of the number of transactions completed by NFTs built on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, OpenSea’s announcement demonstrates a continued interest in growing its marketplace by supporting a wide array of NFTs built on various blockchains.

Last month, OpenSea announced users could list and sell Avalanche-based NFTs.

© 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.

Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke is the latest politician to ditch a political donation from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

The former congressman and gubernatorial candidate returned a $1 million donation from Bankman-Fried, according to The Texas Tribune. 

O’Rourke’s campaign claims it never asked for the money and returned the cash a week before FTX filed for bankruptcy. The campaign’s decision to reject the cash was made before the FTX collapse began, with the campaign telling the Texas publication that records would show the money was returned Nov. 4, before the troubled company began to publicly unravel. 

“This contribution was unsolicited,” O’Rourke spokesperson Chris Evans told the Tribune. 

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month, after a run on its native utility token. The massive crypto exchange shocked the industry and sent crypto markets plunging. Bankman-Fried, a prolific political donor during the 2022 midterm cycle, resigned as CEO when his firm filed for bankruptcy protection. 

A month before the crypto exchange fell apart, Bankman-Fried made the $1 million donation to O’Rourke’s campaign on Oct. 11. The Texas Democrat lost his bid for governor against GOP Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month. 

O’Rourke also received a $100,000 donation from Nishad Singh, another FTX official. The campaign did not say whether it will return Singh’s money. 

A number of politicians have distanced themselves from Bankman-Fried in recent weeks. Reps. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., and Kevin Hern, R-Okla., were among the first lawmakers to donate the former FTX boss’s contributions to charity. 

© 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.

Troubled crypto lender BlockFi has $355 million in digital assets frozen on FTX’s platform, the company said in court.

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy protection this week, becoming the latest firm to face financial turmoil after the collapse of one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. 

FTX, once valued at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware earlier this month. The firm had given BlockFi a $275 million loan earlier this year, and was listed as BlockFi’s second-largest creditor in bankruptcy filings.

BlockFi also has a considerable amount of cash stuck on FTX, a lawyer for the firm said in a New Jersey courtroom. BlockFi has $355 million in digital assets that are “frozen” on the platform, according to BlockFi attorney Joshua Sussberg. 

© 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.

Crypto exchange CrossTower has signed an agreement to acquire prime brokerage and digital asset exchange Bequant, according to a company release.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The news comes less than a week after the exchange’s CEO Kapil Rathi told Bloomberg it was considering making further acquisitions.

CrossTower initially submitted a bid for bankrupt lender Voyager Digital but lost out to FTX.US in September. The exchange intends to submit a fresh bid in the wake of FTX filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection in July due to its over $650 million exposure to the collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC).

Expansion plans

CrossTower launched in May 2020 to cater to institutional investors. It received a $6 million seed funding round led by technology investor and co-founder of Mangrove Capital Gerard Lopez and is spearheaded by two executives  — Rathi and Kristin Boggiano — who are veterans of traditional exchange industry.

The acquisition will enable CrossTower to expand globally and add over 600 exchange clients, according to the release.

“The market requires consolidation for the next stage of its maturity. Undoubtedly, the market will continue to grow and evolve with stronger regulation and with larger balance sheets, and it will earn back the trust of investors,” said George Zarya, founder and CEO of Bequant, in the release. 

Alongside the acquisition announcement, CrossTower also introduced a new crypto ESG fund backed by the Lydian Group.

The Lydian Group is co-founded by Gerard Lopez and Greg Fishman, a technology entrepreneur. The Lydian Group emerged from stealth in June and counts Cointelegraph, CrossTower, Bequant and Coin360 within its portfolio, according to a report from Tech EU.

© 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.