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Crypto exchange group FTX announced on Thursday the close of a fundraising round that values the company at $25 billion, adding $420.69 million to its war chest to make acquisitions and launch new products.

The announcement comes just a few months after the firm — which prohibits U.S. residents from trading on its main platform — said it raised more than $900 million in a Series B round that valued the firm at $18 billion. Investors across the crypto market have been pouring into private companies, boosting valuations beyond unicorn status for firms like FalconX, TradingView, and OpenSea. 

Per the announcement shared with The Block, FTX’s new funding round included participation from 69 investors including Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and “funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.” Billionaires Alan Howard and Israel Englander backed it in its previous round. 

The firm — which operates markets that facilitate trading in crypto derivatives and other instruments — also announced that the Singapore government-owned investment giant Temasek participated in its Series B. FTX’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried remains a majority owner of the firm. 

Bankman-Fried said that new investors decided to join its cap table because of its recent growth. Open interest in FTX’s bitcoin futures market soared to nearly $4 billion since May, when open interest stood at around $1 billion. Still, rival Binance saw futures open interest hit nearly $5.5 billion this week. Meanwhile, FTX only accounts for about 37% of Coinbase’s volumes in spot crypto trading, as per The Block’s Data Dashboard. 

“Market share is up substantially since the start of the first fundraise,” Bankman-Fried said. 

The firm has also expanded its business, launching a platform for non-fungible token trading as well as purchasing futures platform LedgerX for an undisclosed sum. 

The fresh injection of capital could help FTX acquire more firms in the near term, according to Bankman-Fried. The billionaire California-native and former trader told The Block that acquisitions could help the firm more quickly expand its product suite in a way that mimics its purchase of LedgerX, which could allow it to offer perpetual swaps to US crypto traders.

“I would probably guess there will be another three or so,” Bankman-Fried said. “Maybe two small ones … three moderate to big ones.”

In aggregate, those deals could top $1 billion in value, according to SBF. 

Those deals could pave the way to a wide-range of new products, including a potential FTX branded exchange-traded fund, Bankman-Fried said. 

“Whether it is a spot or futures based ETF, we’d be willing to talk about structured products with partners like BlackRock.”

Still, FTX — like companies across the crypto landscape — have to worry about the ire of regulators. The firm, which recently moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas, still can not do business in New York. The firm has aspirations to offer access to clients in the empire state in the next year. 

As for Bankman-Fried’s ambitions for the near term, he plans to launch new products to further diversify a revenue base that is mostly based on transactions of cryptos. He said that he expects to double its revenues next year from $1 billion, adding “ideally we get to 3 or 4x.”

© 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.

FTX has memed itself into another massive funding round.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Bahamas-based crypto exchange said Wednesday it had raised $420,690,000 in a Series B-1 funding round. Sixty-nine investors – including BlackRock and Tiger Global – joined the fast-growing crypto conglomerate.

Investors valued the exchange at $25 billion, FTX said, a nearly 39% jump over the Series B sticker price from July when it raised a whopping $900 million in crypto’s largest-ever venture capital funding round. FTX says users have grown 48% in that period and trading volume rose 75%.

Read more: FTX Crypto Exchange Valued at $18B in $900M Funding Round

Surging growth coincided with FTX’s summertime marketing blitz. The new funding round is being announced as bitcoin tops fresh all-time highs.

The exchange has spent big on sports advertising this year, writing a mainstream outreach playbook with Major League Baseball that competitor Coinbase appears to be following in a new deal with the National Basketball Association.

But courting name recognition is just one spoke in the strategy, Bankman-Fried told CoinDesk in an interview.

Awash in venture capital and multimillion-dollar-a-day revenue streams, the CEO is planning a series of acquisitions and partnerships to get FTX into more countries, with more users.

“We’ve probably done a half a billion dollars of acquisitions so far this year,” Bankman-Fried told CoinDesk in a call. He said the coming buys are “potentially sizable.”

All that from a company whose influence is growing by the day. FTX – once only an overseas crypto derivatives exchange – now boasts a U.S. affiliate with its own NFT marketplace and a roadmap to offering regulated futures products.

Read more: FTX.US to Buy LedgerX in Bid for US Crypto Derivatives

The power FTX has amassed over the cryptosphere was on display last week when it barred NFTs projects with revenue-sharing schemes from listing on its marketplace. A number of projects including Solarians quickly dumped that feature to comply, angering troves of buyers.

“To some extent, people are taking cues from us,” Bankman-Fried said.

Investment behemoth Pimco, which has over $2.2 trillion in assets under management, has dabbled in cryptocurrencies and plans to invest further, according to Chief Investment Officer Daniel Ivascyn.

• Ivascyn told CNBC on Wednesday that some of the fixed-income focused firm’s hedge-fund portfolios are already trading crypto-linked securities, which he described as a “starting point.”
• “We’re trading from a relative value perspective. So we’re not taking directional exposure, but we’re looking to take advantage of mispricings between the cash product, popular trust that trades on the exchange, and then the futures.”
• Ivascyn said Pimco is exploring potentially trading crypto, but stressed that it will be taking “baby steps” and focusing heavily on internal diligence.
• He went on to say that Pimco is “thinking about scenarios where this could take us to ensure that we are competitively prepared to deal with what’s a rapidly changing environment that offers a pretty significant value proposition.”
• His comments come in a week that has seen the first bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange – a development some observers expect to accelerate the flow of institutional money into crypto.

Read more: Purpose Investments Files to List 3 More Crypto ETFs in Canada

Bitcoin remains on the offensive, thanks to ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF’s strong debut on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this week. The cryptocurrency bounced to $66,400, having found bids near $64,000 during the Asian hours.

• Analysts foresee a rally toward $86,000 in the coming weeks. However, it may not be a smooth ride, as the derivatives market is beginning to show signs of overheating – often a recipe for price pullbacks.
• Bitcoin’s average funding rate or the cost of holding long positions in the perpetual futures listed on major exchanges, including Binance, has risen to 0.06% – the highest in at least six months, according to data provided by Bybit. Exchanges calculate funding rates every eight hours.
• On retail-focused exchange Bybit, the funding rate surged as high as 0.14% early today.
• “Participants need to pay close attention to the exchange funding rates represented by Bybit, where retail investors are more concentrated, and excessive rates may trigger another short-term price downturn,” Babel Finance mentioned in the weekly research note published Monday.
• While funding rates seen at press time are significantly higher than those seen before the early September sell-off and the mid-May price crash, they are not yet as high as the ones seen during the first quarter bull frenzy.
• Although a positive funding rate represents an upbeat market mood, a very high reading indicates that the leverage is heavily skewed on the bullish side and often paves the way for price pullbacks.
• Stack Fund’s COO and Co-Founder Matthew Dibb said elevated funding rates might inject volatility into the market. “Our expectation is that capital will rotate into ethereum and major altcoins while bitcoin cools off slightly,” Dibb added.

Copper, a provider of crypto services for institutions, is in talks over a $500 million funding round that would give the firm a $2.5 billion valuation.

• The round would likely come together before the end of the year, Business Insider reported Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.
• The news emerges just five months after London-based Copper raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Dawn Capital and Target Global.
• Copper declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.
• The centerpiece of Copper’s infrastructure is its ClearLoop tool, intended to allow institutional investors to hold on to assets until just before a trade is executed so they can retain their trading capital while trades are initiated.
• Former U.K. Chancellor Philip Hammond recently joined Copper in an advisory capacity.

Read more: 21Shares Taps Copper for Custody of Crypto ETPs

The cryptocurrency hit five-month highs of over $4,200 earlier today, extending Wednesday’s 7.3% gain – the biggest since Oct. 1. The price chart shows the path of least resistance is to the higher side, and record highs could soon come into play.

• Ether has convincingly breached the bearish trendline connecting May and September highs. Bitcoin topped similar resistance earlier this month and clocked new record highs of over $66,000 on Wednesday.
• Ether has also flipped the September high of $4,030 into support.
• There is little resistance overhead on the way to $4,379 – the record reached in May.
• The relative strength index (RSI) on the 4-hour chart is signaling overbought conditions with an above-70 print. So, a pullback to former hurdle-turned-support at $4,030 may be seen before a continued rally to lifetime highs.
• The options market is leaning bullish, with investors buying out-of-the-money or higher strike call options on expectations that U.S. regulators would soon approve an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tied to ether futures contracts.

Quick Take

• In this weekly series, we dive into some of the most interesting data and developments across the Layer 1 blockchain landscape, from DeFi and bridges to network activity and funding
• As the crypto markets enter into new all-time highs, DeFi protocols within L1 ecosystems continue to play crucial roles in attracting and retaining capital
• This week, we take a look at Polkadot, Fantom, Harmony, and Avalanche

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An Australian Senate Select Committee has submitted its final report on a year-long review of the country’s approach to crypto and blockchain regulation, seeking to guide, for the first time, a clear framework for the domestic digital assets sector.

The committee on “Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre,” which submitted its initial report in November 2020 and a second in April this year, tabled its third and final report Tuesday. The document outlines problems identified by leading industry participants and includes 12 recommendations for addressing issues as they relate to the lack of crypto and blockchain regulations in the country.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology regulation in Australia have often appeared fragmented and haphazard, attempting to apply decades-old laws to the nascent tech.

Taxation of cryptocurrencies for example, while considered capital gains, “unavoidably complicates” the establishment of crypto projects when compared to competing jurisdictions like Singapore that have “favorable income tax laws and do not have CGT,” the committee heard from one witness.

Liberal Party Sen. Andrew Bragg, who chairs the committee and is an outspoken supporter of digital asset innovation and regulation, said Australia would be competitive with Singapore, the U.K., and the U.S. in its approach to crypto and blockchain technology.

“Australia can be a leader in digital assets,” said Bragg. “This means Australians can access new choices and lower prices. It means Australians can have more control of their financial destiny rather than being dependent on endless intermediation.”

Recommendations but not yet law

Recommendations range from the implementation of a licensing regime for crypto exchanges to establishing a custody or depository regime for digital assets with minimum standards under the Treasury portfolio.

The committee also recommends that the Australian government establish a new Decentralized Autonomous Organisation (DAO) company structure.

“AML/CTF regulations and Financial Action Task Force guidelines need to strike a balance between appropriately managing risks, without implementing the travel rule in a way that undermines the operation of legitimate digital asset businesses,” the committee said in its report in relation to DAOs.

The issue of debanking, currently facing local crypto businesses by large banks, was also reviewed and said it understood the difficulty individuals and businesses face by taking their issue public, which, as the committee heard last month, places them on a blacklist against other banks.

Last month, the committee heard several complaints of large financial institutions, including some of the country’s biggest banks, denying or terminating services to local cryptocurrency and remittance businesses.

The committee heard little to no reason had been given for the “debanking” and that banks were being “anti-competitive” because they “didn’t like that there was this competition coming through that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies posed.”

The committee recommends that the Treasury lead a “policy review” of the viability of a retail Central Bank Digital Currency in the country, in order to curb reliance on the private banking sector.

Having been tabled by the committee, the recommendations are now subject to action in the Senate, where they will be debated further until such time when the debates produce a bill to be voted on in both the lower and upper houses.

To view the full list of the committee’s recommendations, see here.

Read more: Australia Has Third-Highest Rate of Crypto Adoption in the World: Finder Survey

PleasrDAO, a collective of NFT owners, has purchased the rare “​​Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” physical album by the Wu-Tang Clan.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the DAO purchased the album after the federal government sold it for $4 million in July. At the time, the government released no details about who the buyer was. PleasrDAO acquired the album on September 10, according to The Times.

Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli first purchased the album at a 2015 auction for $2 million. After Shkreli was convicted of fraud in 2017, federal authorities seized the album. The government kept it in a temperature-controlled vault in the basement of the Department of Justice, according to a Wednesday blog post from PleasrDAO. 

Wu-Tang Clan only created two “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” albums and placed extreme legal restrictions on them as a means of protesting the digitalization of the music industry. For instance, the album may not be commercially released until 2103, and it cannot be played or broadcast in front of large audiences. 

However, PleasrDAO intends to let non-owners of the album listen to its contents while respecting its legal parameters. 

PleasrDAO also owns various other high-profile (and high-value) NFTs. In September, the group purchased an NFT of the original Doge meme for $225 million. In April, it bought an NFT minted by Edward Snowden for $5.4 million.

© 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.

Options traders are turning their attention to long-term bullish bets on the cryptocurrency ether, as some anticipate that an ether-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) product will likely follow the launch of the first bitcoin futures-based ETF in the U.S.

Data reveal a growing demand for long-dated, out-of-the-money (OTM) call options on ether – bullish bets with strike prices well above the spot market price of the cryptocurrency.

A strong purchase activity was captured on ether’s $15,000 calls expiring March 25, 2022, according to Singapore-based trading firm QCP Capital. That’s a far cry from current spot prices; ether traded above $4,000 in the past three days, following bitcoin’s surge to nearly $67,000.

Markets’ “long-term attention seems to be shifting from BTC to ETH with potential ETH ETF release after BTC [ETF in the U.S.], coupled with ETH 2.0 catalyst,” QCP Capital wrote in its Telegram channel on Tuesday.

Data provided by crypto derivatives exchange Deribit shows that call options with a strike price at $15,000 have the highest open interest for all options expiring in March 2022.

Genesis Volatility, another data provider, said while the flows for the $15,000-strike calls have been a mix of buyers and sellers, the initial transactions at this strike price started with a buy of roughly 700 contracts on Oct. 15. At the time, open interest was at roughly 8,000 contracts. There were about 40,000 contracts open interest for the $15,000-strike March calls as of Wednesday.

“The mix in flow is good,” Greg Magadini, co-founder and CEO of Genesis Volatility, told CoinDesk. “It means there’s a real two-way market here and people hold both views regarding $15,000 being possible.”

Bitcoin’s surged to a new all-time high earlier Wednesday during trading hours in the U.S, after the successful debut of the first U.S. bitcoin futures-based ETF. Some market participants have hoped that an ether ETF may be approved, boosting ether’s price, too.

There are at least five known applications in the U.S. for ether-based ETFs including two ether futures-based products by fund manager VanEck (The Ethereum Strategy ETF) and ProShares (Ether Strategy ETF).

“With the launch of the bitcoin futures ETF, it has become a certainty that an ether ETF of the same kind can’t be that far off,” Stefan Coolican, president and chief financial officer at investment firm Ether Capital, said. “Both cryptos are decentralized and ether is no more complex than bitcoin in that regard from a regulatory perspective.”

A few speculate that an ether-based ETF will launch as soon as this year.

“An ether ETF will definitely launch this year and will definitely be bullish for ether,” Trey Griggs, CEO of crypto market GSR’s U.S. arm, said in a written response. “The robust interest in the BTC ETF has again sparked rapid fire conversations in the investment management community about products that track a broad array of altcoins.”

Data show there are traders willing to bet this will happen. Over the past three days, institution-focused, over-the-counter desk Paradigm noticed that their clients’ flows continued to lean “bullish” for ether, with particularly high volumes on both outright and call spread trades for call options expiring November, December and March 2022.

Options are hedging instruments that give the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to purchase, and the put offers the right to sell.

“What we see are bullish bets for a move higher into year end and March of next year,” Patrick Chu, director of institutional sales and trading at Paradigm, told CoinDesk.

QCP also noted that long-term implied volatility (IV) has rallied more than 10% since the past weekend, with a strong put-call skew – the cost of puts relative to calls – favoring calls. Implied volatility is investors’ expectations of price turbulence over a specific period. A higher implied volatility results from greater demand for options and vice versa. That translates into higher prices for both put and call options.

Data from Skew shows that the three-month, six-month put-call skews have remained negative in the past week, implying stronger demand for long-term calls.

Not everyone is convinced an Ether ETF will hit the market just yet. Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, a crypto indexes provider, said he anticipates that the product may arrive sometime in mid-2022, pointing out that it will require a stronger liquidity and open interest in the underlying ether futures market before the launch.

As of Tuesday, the amount of money locked in the ether futures contracts on derivatives exchanges totaled at $10.4 billion. For comparison, the dollar value of bitcoin futures’ open interest was nearly $25 billion on the same day.