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V-Art’s new tool, called the V-Art Protocol, is aimed to help protect IP rights and improve NFT project licensing and will go live on Nov. 2, the blockchain-based digital content monetization platform said.

Projects can verify, protect and manage their IP rights on NEAR and Ethereum blockchains, and V-Art aims to add Aurora and Polygon this year and Solana next year, V-Art CEO Anastasiia Gliebova told The Block at the web3 Summit in Lisbon. The firm raised $1.4 million in seed funding thus far.

NFT IP rights, particularly when it touches upon copyright, have led to skirmishes between NFT project leaders and holders in the past. Case in point was CryptoPunks created by Larva Labs. The NFT project did not have any public guidelines for IP or copyright for years — until users attempted to monetize their NFT, then LarvaLabs sought legal action against such holders. 

Partly stemming from unclear NFT IP rights came projects who eschewed copyright altogether such as Nouns, The Block previously reported. 

With additional reporting by Lucy Harley-McKeown

© 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.

Deribit, the largest bitcoin options exchange by market share, lost $28 million in a hack. The company also halted withdrawals.

“Deribit hot wallet compromised, but client funds are safe and loss is covered by company reserves,” Deribit tweeted. “Our hot wallet was hacked for USD 28m earlier this evening just before midnight UTC on 1 November 2022.”

The company said it is performing ongoing security checks and has halted withdrawals — including withdrawals from third-party custodians Copper, Clearloop and Cobo — until it is confident that the platform is safe to re-open.

This is a breaking story and will be updated as more information comes to light. 

© 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.

Digital Currency Group (DCG) has moved Mark Murphy from the role of chief operating officer to president as part of a streamlining, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based crypto firm — which owns Grayscale, Genesis, and CoinDesk — also parted ways with 10 — mostly junior — employees, leaving it with 66. Bloomberg first reported the news. A DCG spokesperson subsequently confirmed the story to The Block. 

“We recently made a series of internal changes to position DCG for its next phase of growth, including a streamlining of our departments alongside several promotions on our leadership team,” a spokesperson said in a statement. 

Murphy, a longtime right-hand man of DCG founder Barry Silbert, first joined DCG as its head of public affairs in April 2018. Previously, he served as a global head of communications of financial products for Bloomberg LP. Prior to that, he was a EVP of communications and public affairs for Second Market, the secondary market place founded by Silbert and later acquired by Nasdaq. 

A growing number of crypto firms have announced layoffs in recent weeks as they grapple with a bear market and suppressed token prices. Earlier today, The Block revealed that exchange operator Bitmex had cut 30% of its workforce, shortly after parting ways with CEO Alexander Höptner.

Staff affected by the DCG reshuffle were informed about the changes last week. 

In addition to Murphy’s new role, Jenn Goodson was named chief administrative officer; Simon Koster became chief strategy officer; Matt Kummell was appointed senior vice president of operations; and Amanda Cowie was put in charge of communications, marketing and events.

DCG-owned Genesis — a crypto lender that lent heavily to now-bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital — began cutting staff in August, while also parting ways with CEO Michael Moro.  

© 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.

Generate Capital is buying two mining facilities for $5 million from bankrupt mining hosting firm Compute North. 

New filings in Compute North’s bankruptcy proceedings show a deal has reached the court, with counsel filing a proposed order for the sale of its stake in the Wolf Hollow, Texas, and Kearney, Nebraska, mining facilities. A U.S. Bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division signed the order approving the sale today. Generate will assume the liabilities and obligations associated with the sites and their equipment as part of the sale.

Compute North did not receive any other qualifying bids for the assets in the lead up to the sale, and thus cancelled the planned auction and moved to consummate the agreement with Generate Capital. There is no planned merger or restructuring plan from Generate from the sale. The agreement does not cover assets that are owned by third parties but utilized at the sites.

Generate had a hand in funding of the sites — and allegedly in Compute North’s collapse. The lender acted as one of Compute North’s biggest funding sources in opening new sites, like the Wolf Hollow mining facility. It agreed to lend Compute North up to $300 million to pay advanced costs and project developments in February of this year.

The deal would sour, with Compute North CFO Harold Coulby claiming during the bankruptcy process that Generate attempted to leverage parts of the agreement that ultimately led to a dissolution of the agreement and the funding that came with it. That left Compute North unable to continue funding in-progress data centers and ultimately to the Chapter 11 restructuring process. 

The sale fulfills the promise of the first day declarations, when Coulby said the plan over the Chapter 11 process was to enter a sale process to market and sell its assets. 

Still, there are other creditors to satisfy. Part of the sale agreement includes so-called “cure amounts” for creditors, and those amounts are still being hammered out in the court process. The committee representing creditors in the case, along with individual creditors, have filed objections related to the amounts laid out in the initial deal. Those are still to be finalized.

© 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 Bitmex has cut its workforce by 30% as part of a pivot away from the exchange’s “beyond derivatives” strategy, which included a push into spot trading, brokerage and custody services.

“We are pivoting from our Beyond Derivatives strategy, and will return much of our focus aiming at providing the crypto derivatives trading experience people will turn to,” a Bitmex spokesperson said in an emailed response to The Block. “We are going to refocus on liquidity, latencies and a vibrant derivatives community including BMEX Token trading.”

“As an undesirable consequence, we had to make changes to our workforce,” the spokesperson added. “Our top priority is to make sure all employees who will be impacted have the support they require. Each of them have been instrumental in the remarkable journey Bitmex has taken from its roots as a small startup to one of the top crypto exchanges in the world.”

Last week Alexander Höptner departed from his role as CEO of Bitmex after less than two years with the company. The firm’s chief financial officer, Stephan Lutz, was appointed as the exchange’s interim CEO. The exchange employed roughly 180 people as of September.

Earlier this year, the exchange cut around 75 jobs after abandoning its plans to acquire German bank Bankhaus von der Heydt. Layoffs have also taken place across the industry at firms like GSR, Crypto.com and Coinbase. 

Bitmex’s struggles

Founded in 2014, Bitmex was one of the first exchanges to offer crypto derivatives. It has since struggled with a number of legal battles.

Bitmex’s co-founder and CEO Arthur Hayes had to step down from the role following lawsuits from both the Commodities Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice. In May,  Hayes pleaded guilty to violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and received a sentence of six months of home detention as part of a two-year probationary period.

Bitmex was once considered a leader in cryptocurrency derivatives, having been able to claim 35% of the open interest across bitcoin futures, according to data from The Block Research. Now Bitmex only holds a bit over 2% of the market share with newer players such as FTX and the CME Group taking a slice of the pie.

“After the leadership change announced last week, we are taking the next step to becoming the No. 1 Crypto Derivatives Trading Platform for professional traders again,” said a Bitmex spokesperson.

© 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.

Most bitcoin mining stocks tracked by The Block declined on Tuesday.

Bitcoin was trading at around $20,400 at market close, according to data from TradingView.

BTCUSD Chart by TradingView

Argo Blockchain fell 18.03% on the Nasdaq and 11.12% on the London Stock Exchange, following news that it might become cash flow negative due to a financing deal that fell through.

Core Scientific’s price fell by 10.35% after announcing on Oct. 27 that it could run out of cash by the end of the year.

Greenidge Generation Holdings fell 8.46%, followed by Marathon Digital Holdings (-6.79%), and Riot Blockchain (-6.39%).

Here’s how crypto mining companies performed on Tuesday, Nov. 1:

© 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.

American adults are split on whether to trust cryptocurrency. But a majority agree that the government should provide clearer regulation of digital assets, according to a new poll. 

Seventy-nine percent of respondents say there should be clearer regulation of the crypto industry, according to a poll commissioned by Grayscale. Further, 76% said the federal government should establish “clear rules” for cryptocurrency trading. 

The survey was conducted for Grayscale by The Harris Poll, and comes as policymakers in Washington, D.C. consider setting new rules for cryptocurrencies. The digital asset industry has been embroiled in a debate this week over a bill that would grant new authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on digital commodities. 

“There is strong support for U.S. crypto regulation: Americans want clearly established rules and regulations. They indicate the regulation should be consumer focused to ensure crypto is accessible to everyone,” The Harris Poll wrote in a summary of its survey.

Poll respondents were less likely to trust cryptocurrency than traditional investment tools and big banks. Eighty-four percent said they trust traditional investment tools like stocks and bonds, while 51% said they trust cryptocurrencies. That percentage was slightly higher than the 49% of respondents who said they trust politicians and the government. 

Still, more than half of respondents — 53% — said they see crypto as the “future of finance.” 

New rules for the industry could prompt more Americans to invest in digital assets, the survey found. Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they would be more comfortable investing in crypto if there was more government regulation. Approximately one-fifth of people surveyed said they own cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, dogecoin or USDC as an asset or investment tool, while 6% said they owned NFTs. 

On the global stage, adults polled were split on where the U.S. stands on crypto regulation compared with other countries. Forty percent said the U.S. is “on par” with other countries when it comes to “creating a regulatory environment that promotes cryptocurrencies,” or making it “easier or safer for anyone to buy or trade crypto.” Meanwhile, 39% said the U.S. is either “somewhat” or “far behind” other countries, and only 6% said the U.S. is “far ahead” of other countries. 

The online poll surveyed 2,029 adults from Oct. 6-11. Respondents were selected from a group of people who previously agreed to participate in Harris surveys. 

© 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.

ZkSync, an Ethereum scaling protocol, will integrate three popular programming languages into its Software Developer Kits (SDKs).

By adding support for Java, Python, and Go, developers have access to and the ability to use a coding language they are accustomed to, and enables new use cases such as “mobile or hardware-specific applications,” zkSync wrote on Twitter. 

This announcement comes shortly after zkSync launched its non-public mainnet on Oct. 28.

SDKs are the cornerstone of developer tooling for building applications and are one of the main bottlenecks withholding the expansion of new blockchain-based application use cases.

ZkSync is an Ethereum scaling protocol that centers around a principle it calls “10x moments.” For blockchains to gain mass adoption, specific improvements such as ease of building, scalability, and speed must occur, according to the company.

Adding support for popular languages to its SDKs is a move that falls under the principle of ease of building and is the first development since its mainnet launch attempting to mitigate the headaches of building decentralized applications.

© 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.

MicroStrategy narrowly missed on its third quarter revenue, while reporting just $700,000 in impairment losses related to bitcoin holdings. 

The software firm said that revenue came in at $125.4 million for the third quarter, compared to the $125.8 million estimate. It posted $128 million a year earlier.

The third quarter was Phong Le’s first as CEO , having taken over the position from Michael Saylor on Aug. 8. Despite the change at the top, MicroStrategy has maintained the course when it comes to bitcoin, purchasing an additional $6 million worth between Aug. 2 and Sept. 19 — which took its total to an even 130,000 BTC. 

Impairment losses relating to bitcoin holdings were $700,000, compared with $65 million during the third quarter of 2021. It’s also a significant drop from the $918 million in the second quarter as prices have stagnated over the past three months. Impairment losses are included as part of the firm’s operating expenses.

“We incurred a minimal bitcoin impairment charge as bitcoin prices were stable during the third quarter, and were encouraged by FASB’s recent announcement of its support for fair value accounting for bitcoin,” CFO Andrew Kang said.

The change in leadership has had little impact on the firm’s bitcoin strategy, due to Saylor’s Class B shares. He held 1,961,668 Class B shares as of June 30. Class B holders are entitled to 10.0x votes per share compared to 1.0x votes per Class A holders.

© 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.

That sought-after little blue Twitter checkmark may soon become easier for anyone to obtain. For a price.

Self-proclaimed “Chief Twit” Elon Musk announced a plan to open the floodgates to user-verification on the social media platform.

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit,” Musk tweeted, adding that he would “give power to the people” at a price of $8 dollars a month and that the price would be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”

Aside from the verified account badge, users willing to pay for verification will get priority in replies, mentions; and search, see half as many ads ;and have the ability to post longer video and audio files, according to Musk’s thread. 

“This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators,” Musk said.

Users who pay can also bypass paywalls for publishers willing to work with Twitter, he said.

Although the change may be welcomed by some, other users have voiced concern over fears that paid-for verification will give would-be scammers a veneer of legitimacy.

© 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.