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Before FTX was facilitating in billions of dollars in trade volumes and its name was plastered on Miami Heat’s stadium, it was a scrappy upstart venue “coming from behind,” as founder Sam Bankman-Fried put it in a recent podcast with The Block. 

A key component of how the firm moved up the crypto exchange leader board was taking a more authentic approach to marketing and public relations, Bankman-Fried noted.

“Most of it sort of happens organically,” the billionaire said of the firm’s marketing efforts.

“There is this sort of thought in media and PR that I think a lot of people have. I don’t know if they explicitly have it, but I think they at least implicitly have it: that inauthenticity is the correct decision. And the way that you do well at PR is you go up there and forget everything you know about yourself and you read some bullet point.”

He went on:

“I think the advice that you’ll often get from people is look don’t say anything to reporters or something that sounds kind of like that. I basically think that advice is garbage.”

While he admits that some of his tweets have been “dumb,” he thinks that a more inauthentic approach can breed contempt among users. He noted Facebook as one example. 

“One thing we’ve seen with Facebook or Meta now is they have tried to keep their head down a lot,” he said. “And I think inauthentic is almost like their brand strategy.”

Listen to the full interview with SBF, here. 

© 2021 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.

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a collection of coveted non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has now generated more than $1 billion in total sales.

The cumulative sales figure for the 10,000-piece collection now stands at roughly $1.03 billion, according to data site CryptoSlam.

BAYC reached milestone in the first few days of the new year, with roughly $55 million in sales recorded since January 1.

Demand for the digital apes was especially strong among celebrities — many of them rappers — in the closing weeks of 2021. Martin Garrix, Post Malone, Diplo and DJ Khaled are just a few of the growing number of artists to have ‘aped in,’ as the saying goes in crypto.

Rapper Eminem joined the fray on January 3, splashing around $462,000 on a gold-jacketed specimen.

The buy-in from big-name celebrities has lent more credence to the idea that the primates have become a status symbol to rival flashy cars and watches. So too have in-depth pieces from the likes of Rolling Stone, the popular culture magazine.

MoonPay, the $3.4 billion crypto payments app, has also helped stoke enthusiasm for the NFTs by brokering sales to big-name celebrities — including many of those mentioned in this piece — through a new concierge service.

Still, the rise of BAYC has not been without controversy. The community has been ridiculed by some corners of the crypto market for not practicing smart security techniques, a failing that has resulted in the theft of some apes. On Monday, BAYC was forced to address accusations of racist origins in a Twitter spaces.

© 2021 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 pilot version e-CNY, the mobile wallet for China’s digital yuan, has gone live on iOS and Android app stores in China.  

Individual users in China may now download a version of the app to try out “personal wallet opening and management” and “e-CNY exchange and circulation services,” according to a tweet from BlockBeats, a local news outlet, which also featured screenshots of the app.

The developer of the e-CNY app is listed as the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency Research Institute, an offshoot of China’s central bank.

To download the trial app and activate the wallet, users must be physically located in one of 11 locations: Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian and the Winter Olympics area.

The digital yuan is a so-called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs) — a kind of cryptocurrency issued and controlled by the government of a nation state.

While many countries around the world are investigating the technology, China has seized an early lead in readying a CBDC for public use.

As far back as April 2020, its central bank said the digital yuan could be used during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. The claim later caused consternation among United States senators, who said that American participants in the event should not use the currency.

© 2021 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 asset management firm Grayscale announced Tuesday a shake-up in the constituents of its DeFi index. 

The firm, which is owned by crypto deca-unicorn DCG, said that it would remove Bancor and UMA from the index and add AMP. Bancor – the token tied to the decentralized exchange — and UMA — a token tied to a protocol for synthetic assets – together accounted for 2% and 2.9% of the index at the time of its launch, respectively. Grayscale launched the fund and its underpinning index in July 2021 to provide institutional investors exposure to the fast-growing corner of the crypto market without having to custody tokens themselves. 

As for the new addition, AMP is a token that is used within the Flexa Network as a form of collateral. 

AMP will make up 7.39% of the fund. Other assets in the fund include Uniswap and Aave, which make up 42.33% and 13.06%, respectively. 

The changes were part of the funds quarterly rebalancing. 

Grayscale, which is best known for its GBTC product, has its sights set on launching a wide range of new financial products tied to the crypto market in 2022. The firm has said that it intends to upgrade its GBTC product into a proper exchange-traded fund. The firm also submitted an application with financial regulators to launch an ETF that would track the shares of companies operating in the digital asset space. 

© 2021 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.

Polymarket, a blockchain-based prediction market platform, has settled with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In an announcement Monday, the CFTC said that the settlement was for “offering off-exchange event-based binary options contracts and failure to obtain designation as a designated contract market (DCM) or registration as a swap execution facility (SEF).” 

As part of the settlement, Polymarket agreed to pay $1.4 million, wind down the non-compliant markets on its website, Polymarket.com, and “cease and desist from violating the CEA and CFTC regulations, as charged.”

As previously reported by The Block, venture-backed Polymarket’s platform utilizes smart contracts to let users bet on event outcomes, such as last year’s presidential election. Bets are placed using the USDC stablecoin. Yet per the settlement order published Monday, “[t]he products traded on Polymarket are swaps” under US federal law.

In the settlement order, the CFTC noted that “by January 14, 2022 Respondent shall cease offering access to trading in markets displayed on Polymarket.com, unless such offering, solicitation or trading complies with the Act and applicable Commission Regulations, and will facilitate the resolution (i.e. wind down) of all markets displayed on Polymarket.com that do not comply with the Act and applicable Commission Regulations.”

“By no later than January 24, 2022, Polymarket will certify to the Commission that it has fulfilled these commitments and has made funds available for full redemption by market participants,” the order continued. 

“All derivatives markets must operate within the bounds of the law regardless of the technology used, and particularly including those in the so-called decentralized finance or ‘DeFi’ space,” Acting Director of Enforcement Vincent McGonagle said in a statement. “Market participants should proactively engage with the CFTC to ensure that our markets remain robust, transparent, and afford customers the protection provided under the CEA and our regulations.”

In its press release, the CFTC noted the startup’s “substantial cooperation with the Division of Enforcement’s investigation of this matter in the form of a reduced civil monetary penalty.”

In a statement posted to Twitter, Polymarket said: “We’re pleased to confirm that we’ve successfully agreed to a settlement with the CFTC, & are excited to move forward & focus on the future of Polymarket. As per the order, the 3 markets lasting past 1/14 that don’t comply with the Act will be prematurely resolved. More soon.”

The announcement represents the CFTC’s first enforcement action in the crypto space for 2022. The move comes weeks after the agency’s new leader, Rostin Benham, was confirmed by the Senate for the position. Benham, a commissioner since 2017, had served in an acting chairman capacity since last January.

During his confirmation hearings, Benham pressed Congress on providing greater crypto market oversight powers to the CFTC.

Bloomberg first reported last fall that Polymarket was the subject of a CFTC inquiry.

© 2021 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.

Estonia is circulating a series of frequently asked questions (FAQs) to dispel fears that its newly approved crypto legislation equates to a ban. 

The heightened requirements are an effort to comply with recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which released guidance for nations recommending heightened anti-money laundering standards for VASPs. 

The legislative proposal seeks to regulate crypto entities, or virtual asset service providers (VASPs), like traditional financial institutions and payment platforms. It adds onto Estonia’s 2020 prohibition of the opening of anonymous virtual accounts by expanding the definition of VASP and holding VASPs to a higher standard of anti-money laundering provisions.

Essentially, VASPs will be responsible for collecting and transmitting know-your-customer information and are prohibited from opening anonymous accounts, a way of targeting noncustodial wallets. They also have to obtain a VASP license for a fee of 10,000 euros — an uptick from the previous 3,300 — as well as meeting capital requirements and paying a supervision fee of 1% of share capital and 0.035% of all virtual asset transactions. This is to dissuade dormant entities from registering, according to the FAQ. 

Some worried that the requirements equated to a ban of owning crypto or a noncustodial wallet. The industry raised similar concerns during the draft stage of FATF’s guidance, arguing that depending on a given nation’s implementation, nations could use the recommendations to justify banning decentralized finance or noncustodial entities. If that were the case, the DeFi space could be walled off, with no compliant way to exchange funds between centralized and decentralized entities. 

Estonia’s FAQ made it clear that it is not intending a ban. AML rules do not apply to customers or private wallets set up without the help of a service provider. Citizens are free to hold crypto whichever way they like and transact with any entity. The anti-anonymity rules only apply to VASPs, which fall under the purview of Estonia’s Anti-Money Laundering Act.

“This means that the legislation does not contain any measures to ban customers from owning and trading virtual assets and does not in any way require customers to share their private keys to wallets,” the government’s document explained. “Individuals can still freely use non-custodial wallets.”

Those wallets just can’t be set up through a VASP since businesses are required to verify the identities behind the accounts. In practice, Estonia banned businesses from offering the ability to create non-custodial accounts. It’s also unclear how Estonian VASPs will transact with non-custodial wallets since they cannot effectively transmit the identification information of the user in a transaction with an anonymous wallet. The FAQ included the provision that transactions between VASPs and un-hosted wallets are permitted “given real-time risk analysis is performed on each transaction.” 

The Estonian government approved the proposed rules on Dec. 23. It now has to pass through Parliament before its planned implementation in the first half of 2022. 

© 2021 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 rare Serum #69 for Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club just sold for 1,542.069 ETH ($5.8 million), making it the largest sale of a Bored Ape “serum” thus far. 

Deepak Thapliyal, CEO of the blockchain tech startup Chain, bought this rare non-fungible token or NFT — though not without competition from the Andreessen Horowitz-backed Meta4 Capital, which had offered to buy Serum #69 for 1,500 ETH ($5.76 million). 

While perhaps serving as an illumination of the current state of collectibles sales in the NFT space, the development also begs the inevitable question: what is a serum, and why would it sell for so much?

To help answer this question, here’s a primer on Mutant Ape Yacht Club serums and how they fit in with the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem. 

From Bored to Mutant Apes

The NFT development startup Yuga Labs first created the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC, or Bored Apes) in April 2021. BAYC is a collection of 10,000 generativity made images of cartoon apes minted on the Ethereum blockchain. 

BAYC quickly sold out after the initial mint and saw ever-rising secondary sales on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. BAYC NFTs easily fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at purchase, and the most expensive Bored Ape previously sold for $2.7 million. 

Yuga Labs didn’t intend for Bored Ape to be their only collection, however. Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC, or Mutant Apes) has always been a part of the Bored Ape road map and was set to launch after 100% of BAYC NFTs sold. 

Thus, Yuga Labs set out to create 20,000 Mutant Apes. Ten thousand of them would reward Bored Ape owners with new creatures based on the traits of their original Bored Ape, while the other 10,000 would be designed to welcome newcomers into the Bored Ape ecosystem with a lower cost of entry. 

For the latter, 10,000 Mutant Apes would be sold via a “Dutch Auction” on August 28. A Dutch auction is a method in which an item is auctioned at a higher asking price and gradually lowered. Yuga Labs set the original Mutant Ape price at 3 ETH and reduced it until they were all sold. 

The former 10,000 Mutant Apes? They’d need a little something called serums. 

Now you serum, now you don’t

Bored Ape serums are an NFT that mutates the collection’s languid primates. To mutate a Bored Ape with a serum, an individual must have both a Bored Ape NFT and a serum NFT in their wallet before using the mutating feature on the MAYC website. 

Yuga Labs airdropped, or sent out, 10,000 serums to BAYC owners on August 28, 2021 — the same day as the Dutch auction. Serums burn upon use and can thus only be used once. A Bored Ape that has been mutated cannot use another serum of the same tier.

However, not all serums are alike. Of the 10,000 serums, Yuga Labs originally airdropped 7,500 M1 serums, 2,492 M2 serums, and eight Mega Mutant, or M3, serums. 

As Yuga Labs demonstrated with a Bored Ape named Curtis, M1 and M2 serums do not really make a significant difference — other than the scarcity, and thus price, of the serum.  

Yuga Labs’ demonstration of M1 and M2 serums on a Bored Ape named Curtis.

The M3 serum, though, offers more exaggerated features of the original Bored Ape. 

It must be noted that not all M3 Mutant Apes are derived from serums. Five more were added in the Dutch auction, bringing the total number of possible M3 Mutant Apes to 13, according to the Bored Ape Discord. But those existing eight serums are incredibly rare — and become even more so as users burn serums by mutating Bored Apes. 

Rarity was one of the biggest reasons why Thapliyal decided to spend nearly $6 million on M3 serum #69, as he explained on Twitter. He spent a total of $7.2 million for both the serum and his Bored Ape. Thapliyal’s argument: he sees the potential to quadruple his earnings — if he decides to sell at all. 

With Mutant Ape Yacht Club and serums, Yuga Labs found a way to add a scarcity model that goes beyond the Bored Ape initial mint.

Bored Apes do indeed have rare features, such as an Ape wearing a prom dress or donning a party hat, but they are permanently etched into the NFT’s JPEG. By comparison, these serums are ephemeral and thus become rarer the more they’re consumed.

© 2021 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 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is looking for a new director to lead the development of a central bank digital currency.

Per a LinkedIn post from January 1, the director of project management “will forward the Federal Reserve System’s efforts to build, manage, and test software to further its understandings of digital currency.”

The Fed is working alongside MIT’s Digital Currency Institute on CBDC research, a partnership that has put the Boston branch of the U.S.’s central bank at the forefront of development. The project will also be keeping its research open-source, according to assistant vice president Robert Bench. 

The development of a U.S. CBDC, or digital dollar, is a subject of major interest, both from the crypto industry and from financial policymakers. Over the past year, the role of private stablecoins has emerged as the centerpiece of debates before Congress. While many legislators see CBDCs as a promising alternative to private operators, others are skeptical of the Fed’s ability to stay ahead of the technological curve. 

Fed Governor Chris Waller has indicated a preference for private stablecoins over a CBDC. Recently reconfirmed Chair Jerome Powell has expressed uncertainty as to whether issuing a CBDC would benefit U.S. financial policy.

© 2021 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 leading candidate for the South Korean presidency has announced a fundraiser based on non-fungible tokens.

Per the Korea Times’ report, Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2022 presidential elections, will be giving NFTs to donors to his campaign. The news comes despite earlier concerns that such fundraises may violate the Political Funds Act or the Public Official Election Act.

Donors will not exactly be buying NFTs. They will be receiving NFTs including a picture of Lee and a list of his policies as a kind of memento for their donation.

The move is part of broader outreach from the Lee campaign to young voters. This push has included talks in support of digital assets as well as advocacy for NFTs in gaming. The Lee campaign is calling it the first use of NFTs for a national presidential campaigns finance in the world. 

While Lee’s NFT fundraise may be the first of its kind, the crypto industry has been playing a growing role in campaign donations recently. In the U.S., former first lady Melania Trump recently launched an NFT platform. The first offering was a tokenized watercolor of former president Donald Trump’s eyes. 

© 2021 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 year is coming to an end and the team at Lisk would like to take this opportunity to summarize the most important accomplishments.

In 2021, despite the current pandemic situation, Lisk accomplished a multitude of achievements and other incredibly important milestones. From the successful and largest network migration to the hosting of a brand new blockchain event, ​​this blog post covers the highlights of the past twelve months.

Lisk’s Biggest Achievements in 2021

This year, the Lisk project has witnessed the successful completion of a few of the most crucial milestones since its inception. In August 2021, the Emerald roadmap phase was completed and the Sapphire stage started. This will finally lead the project to the official launch of its blockchain application platform.

The completion of the Emerald phase was possible thanks to the successful migration to the Lisk Mainnet v3, the most significant protocol change to ever occur on the Lisk blockchain and arguably the biggest update to a running production blockchain ever.

In addition to this, Lisk has completed the research for the Lisk Interoperability solution and published 25 Lisk Improvement Proposals (LIPs), establishing a new standard for the whole blockchain industry.

Other Remarkable Achievements in 2021

In 2021, Lisk has also:

• Integrated Lisk Explorer into Lisk Desktop – making it more user-friendly and convenient to explore the Lisk blockchain network.
• Joined Crypto Open Patent Alliance – becoming one of the entities (alongside i.e. Coinbase and Blockstream) that will promote an open patent collaboration, helping boost innovation in the blockchain industry.
• Published Lisk Interoperability Solution – hence proposing scalable and decentralized interoperability solution for the Lisk ecosystem. It is also important to mention over 9500 commits on GitHub and the implementation of 29 LIPs.
• Introduced Lisk.com website – making Lisk website more accessible for anyone who wants to join the world of blockchain technology. What is more, in 2022 Lisk is planning to develop our website further.
• Introduced the Lisk Community Squad – enabling Lisk community members to make a real difference in the Lisk Ecosystem.

Lisk Marketing in 2021

2021 was also a breakthrough year for Marketing at Lisk. For the first time, the team organized an online hackathon for the Lisk ecosystem – HackOnLisk. They have conducted not one but two editions of the event. In total, Lisk has received over 300 registrations and awarded developers from all around the world with over $80,000 ($33,000 in the 1st edition, $48,000 in the 2nd edition). The entire list of nominees can be found on Lisk’s official YouTube channel:

HackOnLisk: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLixm1arf_lExcWpFMcUceIOWkqZcBM0TO
HackOnLisk2: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLixm1arf_lExWI8IGo_qSAg75TN46IXIz

In addition, this year Lisk has also introduced the Lisk Grant Program – another initiative created to attract entrepreneurs and developers into the Lisk ecosystem. Each of the selected applicants will receive 60,000CHF funding paid in LSK tokens and technical support to develop their Lisk-based blockchain applications. In 2021, Lisk has already awarded four very prospective projects:

Colecti – an NFT marketplace
Kalipo – a platform to support DAOs
Enevti – a decentralized social media NFT platform
DoEdu – a blockchain-based educational platform

As aforementioned, both initiatives (HackOnLisk and Lisk Grant Program) were announced during our main 2021 events – Lisk.js and AmpliFire. The former is very much focused on developers and the main technological breakthroughs. This year’s edition of Lisk.js was all about the Lisk Interoperability. 12 speakers provided a deep dive into Lisk’s solution, announcing the four new research goals:

• Lisk Bridges
• Reducing time to finality
• Generalizing fee system
• Relayer incentivization

AmpliFire, on the other hand, was designed to attract everyone to the Lisk ecosystem. In December, Lisk gathered community members and newcomers in Berlin (and on the YouTube livestream) to talk about the most significant achievements of 2021 and announcements for 2022. Over 2900 guests had a chance to listen to 8 speakers who provided some essential information about the Lisk project’s development.

This event also allowed the team to finally present The Ultimate Vision for the project: making Lisk the most accessible blockchain application in the world. Therefore, in the upcoming years, the focus will be on the following topics:

• Building a Fiat On-Ramp for LSK
• Creating a Lisk DEX
• Enabling developers to create exchanges for Lisk
• Creating Lisk Bridges and thus implementing Lisk Interoperability solution
• Expanding our team’s size
• Establishing new revenue streams and making Lisk Foundation sustainable

Additionally, it is also worth mentioning that in 2021 Lisk project reached 200,000 followers on Twitter and published over 70 blog posts. This is an important achievement for the project and its community of both developers and users.

Lisk in 2022 – The Best Is Yet To Come!

Although 2021 was very successful not only for Lisk, but also for the blockchain industry as a whole, the team believes that the best is yet to come. During this year’s events, Lisk announced their bold and loud plans for 2022, with the primary goal of implementing the Lisk Interoperability solution and finally launching the Lisk Platform next year.

© 2021 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.