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Point72’s Steve Cohen has exited his investment in crypto trading firm Radkl, according to a report by Bloomberg.  

A spokesperson from Radkl told Bloomberg that — despite the news — the firm is “extremely well capitalized with its current investors and continues to grow rapidly.” 

Radkl is led by Ryan Sheftel and was born out of New York Stock Exchange market maker GTS. The firm previously said that it planned to be an electronic market maker across crypto exchanges, while also trading on a bilateral basis with other market participants. 

High-speed trading guru Jim Greco previously worked at the firm, before leaving in January of this year to set up F9 Research. Greco formed digital asset-focused quant investment fund with other former Radkl employees Allan Erskine and Jason Bell.  

Despite the Radkl website listing Beatrice O’Carroll as managing director, her LinkedIn suggests she left the firm in June. She did not immediately respond to request for comment.  

Tuesday’s announcement comes less than a year after it was reported that Cohen invested in the firm. This wasn’t Cohen’s only crypto investment at the time, as he invested in NFT project Recur in September 2021. 

Radkl and Point72 did not responded to requests for comment from The Block by the time of publication.

Corrects headline to show Cohen has exited the investment. 

© 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 trading platform Luno said on Tuesday that it had been given a digital asset service provider (DASP) license by French regulators. 

The move means Luno can now offer its services directly to customers in France. The company said it is now moving towards obtaining the optional license from the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) — the country’s stock market regulator — which has to date not been awarded to any DASP.

“We believe that regulation is vital in crypto’s path to mass adoption and our DASP registration represents a key step towards achieving our strategic growth plans,” said Luno CEO and c0-founder Marcus Swanepoel. 

Luno is part of the Digital Currency Group, which has more than $40 billion in crypto under management and is the world’s largest blockchain investor.

In May, France also granted Binance a DASP license, after the exchange giant announced a €100 million ($102 million) investment in the country and a partnership with Paris-based startup incubator Station F.

© 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.

Stefan Chu, who ran the over-the-counter (OTC) desk at TPS Capital, has left the company as the trading firm distances itself from bankrupt crypto fund Three Arrows Capital.

Chu left TPS in late July, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, and he recently began describing himself as “ex TPS” on his Twitter profile. Neither Chu nor TPS responded to requests for comment from The Block.

His departure comes a few weeks after TPS moved to distance itself from Three Arrows Capital (3AC), the hedge fund now in liquidation after failing to repay loans from an array of crypto institutions. In a statement on July 7, TPS said it’s an “independent legal entity and its operations are separate and distinct from those of 3AC.”

TPS further clarified that while 3AC was briefly a shareholder in the company, it ceased to be in early 2021. 3AC’s co-founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies held an “indirect equity interest” in TPS, it said, but with no control over the company’s operations. According to the statement, the two firms’ cooperation primarily took the form of referring business to each other. TPS also acted as an intermediary, helping to coordinate loan agreements with lenders.

The Block’s reporting has shown that TPS staff described their employer as the OTC desk of 3AC in emails to prospective clients.

Chu himself produced regular market research reports since at least July 2021 under the title, “State of the Blockchain Weekly Run.” Versions of those reports published on the messaging app Telegram, that were reviewed by The Block, show him referring to TPS as “The Official OTC desk for Three Arrows Capital” in editions dated December 18 and January 15.

TPS bills itself as a proprietary trading firm, offering OTC, market making, trade facilitation and block trade services to crypto investors. 

© 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.

Helium founder Amir Haleem has addressed criticism about how the project characterized its relationships with Lime and Salesforce, following news reports that neither company was currently using technology from the decentralized wireless network.

In an August 1 Twitter thread, Haleem explained that he “wanted to clear a few things up,” adding: “It’s been frustrating and upsetting to read some of this stuff.” 

Tech outlet Mashable reported on July 29 that a widely cited relationship between Helium and transportation company Lime did not exist. A Lime spokesperson told the news outlet that it did not have any contact with the Helium following a brief, initial test in 2019. The Verge then reported in a separate article that Salesforce also did not have a relationship with Helium. Helium displayed both the Salesforce and Lime logos on its website until Friday, under the words “Helium is used by.” 

“We spent a lot of time working with the brands mentioned in some of the stories last week,” Haleem wrote in one of the Twitter thread posts. “Months and months of trials, experiments, prototyping, sales engineering. We had verbal approvals with the teams we worked with to publicize and highlight these engagements.” Haleem also added that the company does not have “any commercial relationships with entities using the network,” and therefore does not have “perfect visibility” into the status of trials and network sensors.

“But as time goes on, personnel change, and verbal approvals simply aren’t good enough,” Haleem continued. “We’ve worked with @HeliumFndn to update the ecosystem page to only reflect companies that we think are active and with written approvals, and we’ll work to keep it current going forward,” Haleem wrote.

“Since the Network launched in 2019, we’ve worked with a variety of companies on various applications and pilots,” a Nova Labs spokesperson told The Block on August 1. “In the case of the brands mentioned in recent articles, we had approvals to talk about the use cases but we’re going to be much more rigorous now about the logo approval process going forward to avoid any confusion. Both Nova and our partner the Helium Foundation have removed the reference.”  

Helium, Inc., the company behind the Helium Network, announced it would rebrand as Nova Labs in March. Haleem is also CEO of Nova Labs. Axios reported in February that Helium raised a $200 million Series D round at a $1.2 billion valuation.

© 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 possible exploit of the Nomad cross-blockchain bridge has resulted in the outflow of millions of dollars worth of crypto.

The still-developing situation appears to have begun just after 5:30 EDT. Initial outflows from the Nomad bridge contract focused on wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), with holdings of wrapped ether and later the stablecoin USDC also affected. As much as $100 million worth of crypto appears to have been affected.

It’s also not clear whether the potential exploit is the work of a single actor or multiple, though blockchain data suggests that transactions may have been constructed to give the appearance of multiple actors.

“Right now the official update is that we’re aware and actively looking into this,” the team said in a Discord message.

The team behind the Nomad project raised a $22.4 million seed round earlier this year. Its backers include OpenSea and Coinbase, among others.

This is a developing story.

© 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.

Institutional clients of Coinbase Prime based in the US will now be able to stake ETH on the platform, with funds secured in the firm’s cold storage vault.

“Clients can create a wallet, decide how much to stake, and initiate staking from the ETH asset page on their Coinbase Prime account,” a blog post published today by the firm said.

Staking allows investors to earn a yield on their cryptocurrencies by committing them to a pool of assets, which helps support the liquidity and operations of a blockchain ecosystem. Often compared to a high-yield savings account, investors can earn upwards of 20% in annual yield on some platforms.

But the practice isn’t without risks. Staking often requires investors to store their funds with a third party known as a “custodian,” who, in some cases, technically owns the funds while they are being staked. Earlier this year, investors saw billions wiped away as custodians like Voyager and Celsius went bankrupt in response to the collapse of TerraUSD.

The blog post said that “securing client funds is our highest priority.” It added that all withdrawal keys are held in the firm’s cold storage vault and that staking transactions have to complete consensus before they are executed. This means they have to be added to a blockchain before the transaction is considered valid.

Staking is only possible on blockchains using the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which forces network participants – known as validators or “stakers” – to “lock up” a certain amount of their tokens. By forcing validators to maintain a financial stake, they are disincentivized from behavior that may compromise the network and consequently drive down the price.

At present, Ethereum is transitioning from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake blockchain system, meaning that both validation processes are running concurrently. Known as “The Merge”, the transition is expected to happen in September, at which point Ethereum mining will be phased out.

Coinbase Prime also staking for cryptocurrencies such as Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, Tezos, Celo, and others.

© 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.

About half of the bitcoin mining companies tracked by The Block were up and the other half were down on the stock market on Monday.

The coin was trading closer to $23,00o at market close, after climbing above $24,000 over the weekend.

SAI.TECH, CleanSpark and HIVE Blockchain’s stock went up by 10.91%, 9.27% and 8.65% (on the Toronto Stock Exchange), respectively.

On the other side, Stronghold Digital Mining was down by 7.17%, followed by Marathon (-5.54%) and Cipher Mining (-5.23%).

Bitcoin miner Bitfarms announced in a July update that it increased total energy capacity by 21% last month, reaching a total of 166 megawatts.

The company was down by 3.42% on Nasdaq at market close.

Here’s how crypto mining companies performed on Monday, August 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.

Super PACs linked to some of crypto’s biggest names are spending some serious cash in primary elections this week. The outside groups have reported boosting candidates in Arizona, Michigan and Missouri ahead of Tuesday’s primaries. 

Here’s a roundup of where crypto executives are putting their political dollars. 

Michigan

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has poured $27 million into Protect Our Future PAC, his pandemic-readiness political arm. The super PAC has reported spending $1.1 million for Michigan Democrat Adam Hollier. The state Senator is running in a wide-open primary in the deep blue district, meaning the winner will likely win the November general election.

Hollier is no stranger to crypto: He co-sponsored legislation to establish a blockchain and cryptocurrency commission in his role as a state lawmaker. 

Further, Protect Our Future isn’t the only PAC with crypto ties to wade into the Michigan primary.

Web3 Forward PAC, an outside group funded by another crypto PAC, has reported spending $412,000 to support Hollier. Web3 Forward is funded primarily by GMI PAC, which was launched at the beginning of the election cycle by crypto executives from Multicoin Capital, Messari, FTX and Blockchain Capital, among others. 

Arizona

Crypto-linked PACs are boosting a trio of Arizona Republicans ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

The crypto arm of one of the largest Republican super PACs in the country has spent more than $3 million on Arizona’s contentious Senate primary. Crypto Freedom PAC, a spinoff of the conservative Club for Growth, reported spending $1.1 million to boost Peter Thiel ally Blake Masters for Senate. The PAC has spent even more — $2.1 million — to attack primary opponent Jim Lamon. In turn, Lamon has made crypto a campaign issue. 

“A Crypto PAC is spending $1M attacking me to put Fake Blake in the Senate,” Lamon wrote on Twitter in June. “He will put SS at risk by having the treasury buy Bitcoin, all the while making a fortune for himself and his friends. Follow the money.”

Masters reported owning between $1 million and $5 million in bitcoin on a candidate financial disclosure last fall, along with smaller amounts of ether, dogecoin and other digital assets. 

Also in Arizona, FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame’s super PAC has spent more than $1 million for a pair of Republicans.

The PAC has spent $500,000 to boost Rep. David Schweikert, a co-chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, and another $639,000 on texts, phone calls, mail and digital and TV ads promoting Navy veteran Eli Crane. The PAC’s pro-Schweikert TV spot calls the congressman a “taxpayer superhero.” Salame’s American Dream Federal Action PAC says it is focused on broad issues like national and economic security, not just digital assets.

Missouri

Crypto Innovation PAC has spent nearly a quarter million dollars in the Missouri Senate primary.

The group, which is funded by GMI PAC, is backing Eric Schmitt in the crowded and contentious Senate race. Salame’s American Dream Federal Action PAC is also playing in a Missouri primary. The group has spent $503,000 to support Republican Mark Alford, putting  TV ads on the air in the Show-Me State.

© 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 industry workers in New York who witnessed misconduct within their companies should file a whistleblower complaint, New York State Attorney General Tish James announced on Monday. 

James issued an “investor alert” urging those involved with crypto firms to contact her office if they have been impacted by recent chaos in the market, or if they witnessed improper behavior inside a crypto company.

“The recent turbulence and significant losses in the cryptocurrency market are concerning,” James said in a statement. “Investors were promised large returns on cryptocurrencies, but instead lost their hard-earned money. I urge any New Yorker who believes they were deceived by crypto platforms to contact my office, and I encourage workers in crypto companies who may have witnessed misconduct to file a whistleblower complaint.”

James’ call for whistleblowers comes as the crypto market sagged this summer. New Yorkers impacted by the Terra crash or by turmoil at Celsius, Voyager, and other firms to contact the office’s investor protection bureau. The state attorney general’s office also has an online whistleblower complaint portal.

James has taken aim at crypto firms in the past. The attorney general settled with BlockFi for nearly $1 million in June, and directed unregistered crypto lending platforms to cease operations for not allegedly not fulfilling legal obligations last fall. 

© 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

• Hiring in crypto has slowed but July was still another big month for industry moves.
• The NFT world welcomed an award-winning music producer joining while a founder at its most prominent marketplace exited.

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