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New York-based investing firm Public announced Wednesday that it announced Otis, a fractional investing company that focuses on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), art and other collectible items. 

“With Otis joining Public, the Public platform will soon be the only place in the world where people can invest in — and build a modern portfolio with — any fractional asset,” Leif Abraham, Public.com’s co-CEO, wrote in a blog post. Public began supporting crypto investments in October 2021, including bitcoin, ether and dogecoin, among others. 

Fractionalization works by breaking down an asset, such as a rare CryptoPunk, into smaller tokens that a user can then purchase. If the asset in its entirety grows in value, the fractionalized token of that asset becomes more profitable as well. 

Some pop culture artifacts have already been fractionalized, such as the original “Doge” meme, worth about $4 million, getting fractionalized into 16,969,696,969 $DOG tokens in August of 2021.

© 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.

Dubai unveiled a new agency tasked with virtual asset regulation on Wednesday as its leadership looks to solidify the city’s position in the emerging global digital economy.

The Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) will operate as an affiliated agency of the Dubai World Trade Center and will focus on compliance and disclosures of virtual asset service providers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a government announcement today. The new agency will also handle the UAE’s crypto licensing regime.

These crypto licenses will only be given to firms that establish a business presence in the UAE. Apart from crypto exchanges, VARA will also regulate the activities of custodians and asset managers in the cryptocurrency space.

Wednesday’s news confirms earlier reports that authorities in Dubai were working towards establishing a virtual asset licensing regime before the end of the first quarter. At the time, reports stated that the development was based on a collaboration between crypto exchange giant Binance and the Dubai World Trade Center.

© 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.

Decentralized crypto derivatives exchange dYdX has released a beta version of its iOS mobile app.

Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Wednesday, dYdX said the app is currently available to 10,000 users that meet specific criteria.

There are two open waitlists that describe such criteria: the priority waitlist and the referral waitlist. The former requires users to hold at least 10 DYDX or stkDYDX tokens or at least one Hedgie, a collection of 4,200 NFTs that was recently distributed by dYdX to its community. They also have to do a trading volume of at least $1,000 after 4pm UTC on March 9 to qualify. The priority waitlist is open until March 23.

To access the referral waitlist, users will have to sign up for the beta app and share their link on social media platforms to earn points. They will earn one point for signing up, another for sharing on social media, and three points for each successful referral. In a classical startup growth hack, the more points they rack up, they higher they’ll rank on the waitlist.

dYdX said it is one of the first DeFi platforms to launch a mobile app. The idea is to give users an experience on par with centralized exchanges, dYdX founder Antonio Juliano told The Block.

“The app experience has a much better UI/UX than interacting via a mobile browser, as it is native to the device,” said Juliano. “Once you connect, you will also have the ability for the app to ‘remember’ your info and not have to go through the connection steps again.”

Users will be able to directly connect their crypto wallets to the dYdX mobile app and start trading. Since it is a beta app, users may run into some bugs, but the general security of the app is equivalent dYdX’s main desktop app, said Juliano.

The general public launch of the dYdX iOS app is expected by the end of next month, said Juliano. It is not immediately clear if the exchange is also planning to release an Android app.

dYdX is one of only a few DeFi protocols to offer a mobile app, joining 1inch, which launched its iOS app last 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.

Boston-based bank State Street has announced a new crypto custody offering in partnership with Copper, the UK-based custodial startup.

“State Street Digital will leverage Copper.co’s technology to develop and, subject to receipt of regulatory and other approvals, launch an institutional grade digital custody offering where clients can store and settle their digital assets within a secure environment operated by State Street,” State Street said in its Wednesday morning announcement. 

Per the announcement, State Street’s custody product “is subject to regulatory approval.”

State Street has long floated its custody ambitions since standing up a dedicated crypto unit last year, as The Block previously reported. 

“As the digital asset market continues to evolve, this collaboration will help our firm to expand our product offering and roadmap,” Swen Werner, head of digital custody for State Street Digital, said in a statement.

Last year, Copper was moving toward the raise of as much as $500 million in fresh funding. 

© 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 European Commission confirmed on Wednesday it would extend the remit of its sanctions against Russia and Belarus in light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, adding details on the classification of cryptoassets.

In a statement published on its website, the bloc said that cryptoassets fall under the scope of “transferable securities,” a classification which is not in the draft EU regulation on cryptoassets. These regulations, known as MiCA, are due for a key committee vote next week following delays last week.

The statement also confirmed the common understanding that loans and credit can be provided by any means, including cryptoassets. 

Last week, EU finance ministers and other officials discussed the move via video link, as concern grew that crypto could be used as a backdoor for moving money in and out of Russia. At the time, many large crypto businesses pledged to honor the sanctions while resisting calls for blanket bans. 

In recent weeks, companies ranging from Revolut to PayPal and Google have shut off Russian users.

The resistance among crypto exchanges speaks to one underpinning ethos of the crypto space: advocacy for open financial system access.

© 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.

Binance is reportedly looking to invest in several mainstream companies as a way of fostering greater crypto adoption in traditional business circles.

The crypto exchange giant plans to invest in one or two firms across several business sectors, CEO Changpeng Zhao said in an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday. According to Zhao, the aim of this investment spree is “to bring them into crypto.”

In February, Binance acquired a $200 million stake in Forbes, a publication that once sued the exchange giant for defamation. Going by Zhao’s comments, Binance will continue to pursue investments into other entities that operate in the mainstream business arena.

Binance’s core business is a crypto exchange platform that supports peer-to-peer, spot and derivatives trading for hundreds of cryptocurrency pairs. The Block’s Data Dashboard shows over $420 billion in crypto trading volume for Binance in February. According to Zhao, 90% of the company’s revenue comes from the fees levied on these trading activities.

Amid this dealmaking spree, the company is attempting to smooth regulatory wrinkles with authorities across different countries. Zhao himself recently met with politicians in the UK and made the case for more collaborative efforts between the company and policymakers.

© 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 White House on Wednesday published details of a much-anticipated executive order from President Joseph Biden on the treatment of digital assets. 

The fact sheet, which The Block obtained four hours ahead of time, describes the order as “outlining the first ever, whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology.”

The order addresses hot-button issues, including a strategy to protect consumers, financial stability, national security and climate risks. 

Per earlier reporting, it is fairly benign, despite early fears of a pending crypto crackdown. It does, however, emphasize an all-of-government approach, calling on new work from the Treasury, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Reserve and national security agencies on relevant portions of the ecosystem.

© 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.

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Cake DeFi launched a new corporate venture arm on Wednesday, loaded with $100 million in fresh funding intended to accelerate the growth of web3, gaming and fintech firms.

The Singapore-based fintech platform said in a release that Cake DeFi Ventures (CDV) will look for global investment opportunities in startups across the world.

The fund will be led by Cake DeFi co-founders Julian Hosp and U-Zyn Chua.

“With Cake’s current status as Singapore’s and Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing platform, projects which we invest in can expect to receive strong support scaling globally,” said Hosp.

Cake DeFi has grown rapidly over the past year, increasing its user base by 10 times by the end of 2021. It said that much of this growth took place in the fourth quarter, when confirmed users almost doubled.

The fund has already led its first investment in a media, events and tech venture called The Edge of Company. It did not disclose the terms of the deal. 

It joins a frothy and sharp-elbowed market for crypto and web3 project funding. A number of large players have announced big funds in recent months, including Paradigm’s $2.5 billion fund, FTX’s $2 billion venture fund, and Pantera Capital’s $1 billion fund.

© 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.

Goldman Sachs is connecting clients with Galaxy Digital’s Institutional Ethereum Fund, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

An amended Form D filing from Galaxy Digital indicates that Goldman Sachs receives an introduction fee for delivering clients to the Galaxy Institutional Ethereum Fund. 

“Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC will receive an introduction fee with respect to certain clients introduced to Issuer,” says the filing.

In January of 2021, Galaxy Digital announced it would launch a suite of Ethereum funds, including this institutional offering. To date, the Institutional Ethereum Fund has sold over $50.5 million over 28 investors, according to the Form D. The minimum investment is $250,000. 

Galaxy Digital has an existing partnership with Goldman Sachs in the form of a liquidity agreement. The crypto firm has been a liquidity provider for Goldman’s bitcoin futures block trades since June of 2021. 

© 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.