FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

UPDATE: 4:09 PM ET: Coinbase has confirmed the April 14 direct listing date, saying in a statement on Twitter:

“We’re happy to announce that earlier today, the SEC declared our S-1 registration statement effective and that we expect our direct listing to occur on April 14, 2021, with our Class A common stock trading on the @NASDAQ under the ticker symbol COIN.”

Coinbase, the U.S.-based crypto exchange, is set to go public in the next two weeks, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg’s report said that Coinbase “is now planning to make its trading debut about April 14, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Bloomberg had previously reported that Coinbase’s expected March direct listing was pushed back.

Coinbase’s S-1 prospectus filing became public in late February and formally set the stage for the crypto exchange unicorn’s direct listing. The firm made its intent to go public via a direct stock listing in late January, as reported by The Block at the time. Coinbase later confirmed that it would go public on Nasdaq’s stock exchange. 

This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is added.

© 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 leader at the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority spotlighted the country’s recent anti-money laundering work (AML) in a recent speech.

In a speech delivered on March 24 but publicized on April 1, Mark Steward cited cryptocurrency as a key emerging risk to AML controls. Steward heads the FCA’s Enforcement and Market Oversight division. In January, the FCA formally took charge of AML in crypto businesses.

Part of the FCA’s response has been to create a new version of its Warning List specifically for crypto businesses. The “Unregistered Cryptoasset Businesses” list, which began on March 9, has grown in size since its inception. In his speech, Steward specified:

“We placed the first names on the Unregistered Cryptocurrency Businesses List earlier this month, all crypto ATM firms, and we have just added 29 crypto custodian wallet providers to the list.”

As previously reported by The Block, crypto firms in the UK have endeavored to meet compliance demands in the UK since the beginning of the year. At its heart, the unregistered business list aims to penalize firms that fail to obtain registration.

Steward said of the FCA’s role that “we do not regulate or supervise the cryptocurrency business, these firms are required to be registered with the FCA and they are required to comply with the Money Laundering Regulations.”

The FCA’s current UCB list includes 53 companies. Curiously, the list features more than a dozen firms registered to just two addresses. 20-22 Wenlock Road, London and Kemp House 152-160 City Road, London were the formal home of nine and five crypto businesses, respectively, included on the FCA list. Those addresses belong to two corporate formation firms, MadeSimple and Capital Office.

© 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.

Planning the release of its own digital ruble, at least one official within Russia’s central bank seems to be looking askance at private stablecoins. 

Ivan Zimin, who heads the Central Bank of Russia’s Department of Financial Technology, said in remarks Friday before a Russian trade association that stablecoins are a problem for the ruble’s dominance within Russia. He went even further, saying that limitations are likely on the horizon.

“We have already taken the first step in restricting the use of unsecured cryptocurrencies and we will likely take a second by limiting the use of stablecoins in making payments,” said Zimin. 

With the CBR planning to release a prototype of a digital ruble later this year, Zimin’s remarks indicate some defensiveness in the face of private competition. “Stablecoins, unsecured private cryptocurrencies, various other monetary substitutes cannot be used as means of payment,” he said.

Russia has been wrestling with its approach to crypto for much of the past year. A recently signed law “On Digital Financial Assets” similarly affirmed that cryptocurrencies, while legal to trade, “are not a legal means of payment in the territory of the Russian Federation.” Stablecoins, however, have been picking up steam even at the highest levels. 

Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, has announced plans both for a blockchain-backed platform for asset trading and an application with the central bank to issue its own ruble-backed “Sbercoin.”

© 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.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker that counts the world’s bitcoin hardware designers among its clientele, plans to invest $100 billion over the next three years to grow its capacity.

“TSMC expects to invest USD$100b over the next three years to increase capacity to support the manufacturing and R&D of advanced semiconductor technologies,” the company told Bloomberg on Thursday. “TSMC is working closely with our customers to address their needs in a sustainable manner.”

The global economy is experiencing a chip shortage because of production disruptions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, impacting numerous industries including bitcoin mining, as The Block reported this week.

Bitcoin miner manufacturers rely on companies like TSMC, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, and Samsung Foundry to construct their application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips for bitcoin mining hardware.

Other industries affected include smartphones, personal computers, and electronic vehicles. In response, several chipmakers have announced plans to invest billions of dollars to increase their capacities. Intel, for instance, plans to directly compete with TSMC with a $20 billion investment via two new factories in Arizona. Samsung Electronics is also spending over $100 billion over the next decade to expand its semiconductor business.

© 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.

Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley said in a Thursday regulatory filing that a number of its institutional funds may gain exposure to bitcoin in the form of cash-settled futures or a Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust.

The filing names twelve funds, including Counterpoint Global, which Bloomberg News reported was considering some kind of bitcoin investment or exposure strategy. 

As Thursday’s filing notes:

“Certain Funds may have exposure to bitcoin indirectly through cash settled futures or indirectly through investments in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (BTC) (“GBTC”), a privately offered investment vehicle that invests in bitcoin. To the extent a Fund invests in bitcoin futures or GBTC, it will do so through a wholly-owned subsidiary, which is organized as an exempted company under the laws of the Cayman Islands (each, a “Subsidiary”). A Fund may at times have no exposure to bitcoin.”

The filing also indicates the degree to which each fund may gain exposure, suggesting as much as 25 percent of their respective assets could be put towards bitcoin products.

“Each of the Advantage Portfolio, Asia Opportunity Portfolio, Counterpoint Global Portfolio, Developing Opportunity Portfolio, Global Advantage Portfolio, Global Permanence Portfolio, Global Opportunity Portfolio, Growth Portfolio, Inception Portfolio, International Advantage Portfolio, International Opportunity Portfolio and Permanence Portfolio may, consistent with its principal investment strategies, invest up to 25% of its total assets in a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Fund organized as a company under the laws of the Cayman Islands,” the filing states. “Each Subsidiary may invest in GBTC, cash-settled bitcoin futures and other investments.”

Last month, Morgan Stanley revealed that it would begin offering its institutional private wealth clients access to bitcoin-related funds. At the same time, wealth management unit penned an investor note that made outlined a case for cryptocurrency as an emerging investable asset class, as previously reported. 

Hat tip MacroScope17

© 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.

Quick Take

• Several metrics recorded record numbers in March. In all cases, spot and derivatives volume for Q1 2021 surpassed the total 2020 volume. 
• Total adjusted on-chain volume saw a slight decline of 2.2% to $577.2 billion in March.
• Adjusted on-chain volume of stablecoins plateaued at an all-time high of $384.3 billion in March.
• Centralized exchange spot trading volumes decreased by 7.8% to $1.06 trillion in March.
• Besides Binance, FTX was one of the only major exchanges to increase its spot market share in March.

This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.

The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has extended its annual financial crime reporting framework to cryptocurrency businesses.

Announcing the news on Wednesday, the FCA said cryptocurrency exchange and wallet operators would have to submit an annual financial crime reporting document, known as “REP-CRIM,” from March 30, 2022.

“We consider it appropriate to include cryptoasset businesses irrespective of their total annual revenue because they pose a higher inherent money laundering and terrorist financing risk,” said the FCA.

The regulator initially introduced the REP-CRIM framework in 2016, and last August, it consulted on increasing the number of firms required to submit a REP-CRIM document. Following the consultation, the FCA has now published its final policy and requirements.

Per the policy, around 7,000 firms would now have to submit a REP-CRIM document instead of about 2,500 before. Besides crypto firms, banks, building societies, and other businesses have also been brought under the REP-CRIM framework.

“These changes will give us firm-specific information about financial crime from a wider set of firms, across an increased variety of sectors and firm sizes,” said the FCA. “This additional information will allow our supervisory approach to be more data-led, and broaden our understanding of firms that may have inherent money laundering risks due to their activities.”

The FCA, during its consultation, had initially proposed the effective date of the REP-CRIM extension to January 10, 2022. But it then changed it to March 30, 2022, due to the “Temporary Registration Regime” that was announced last December and enabled existing businesses to continue to operate until 9 July 2021, pending the FCA’s determination of their application.

In other words, the FCA wanted to give crypto businesses at least a few months after their registration to follow the new REP-CRIM rules.

The FCA continues to toughen its rules for crypto businesses since it began overseeing crypto firms’ adherence to AMLD5 regulations in January 2020. But to date, the regulator has registered only four crypto firms. There are still more than 150 firms waiting to get registered, as The Block reported previously. The situation recently prompted trade body CryptoUK to call on chancellor Rishi Sunak to intervene.

© 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.

Executives of publicly-traded bitcoin mining firm Argo Blockchain are now betting on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with their new NFT investment firm.

The firm, NFT Investments PLC, was incorporated on March 3 by Argo co-founders Jonathan Bixby and Mike Edwards, and it now looks to go public in London.

NFT Investments plans to float 200 million ordinary shares on the niche Aquis Stock Exchange Global Market (AQSE) and raise around 10 million pounds (about $14 million).

The firm said the initial public offering (IPO) would value it at 25 million pounds (around $34.5 million) and make it the first NFT investment firm to go public.

“I am incredibly excited to be leading the world’s first pure play NFT vehicle to list on a public market,” said Bixby, executive chairman of NFT Investments. “Just like when our team brought Argo Blockchain to the London market, we have a vision of creating an on ramp from fiat into this exciting new space.”

NFT Investments would specifically invest in NFTs and in companies or funds that have exposure to NFTs and blockchain technology. NFTs are digital certificates tied to unique art pieces. They have grown significantly in popularity in recent months.

The NFT Investments team believes that the NFT market will continue to grow over the long term, with NFTs becoming a “key underlying asset for the whole virtual economy.”

“We truly believe that NFTs will form the backbone of the digital collectables markets and owning the best individual assets and underlying rights can create immense value for our shareholders,” said Bixby.

The firm’s advisors include Argo CEO Peter Wall and its COO Sebastian Chalus, among other crypto and fintech executives. NFT Investments’ board expects to develop its business “substantially within 12 months of admission to AQSE.”

“Net proceeds of the IPO will be used to identify and carry out due diligence on potential investments and to provide working capital for the Company’s initial operations in line with its acquisition and investment strategy,” said NFT Investments.

© 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.

Music and art non-fungible token (NFT) project EulerBeats has sold its latest collection of 27 original tracks, Enigma, for $3 million. 

The project launched its second collection of “LPs” or tracks on Monday, with the auction ending Wednesday at noon EST. According to project co-founder Tyler Mulvihill, the team auctioned off the first 25 LPs on NFT marketplace OpenSea. LP 26 was given to a community DAO for LP and print owners of EulerBeats’ first collection, Genesis.

“We’re proud of our team and excited for the community of Original and Print owners of both Enigma and Genesis to watch and listen to their new art and music,” Mulvihill told The Block.

EulerBeats (pronounced oiler-beats) is an Ethereum-based project that features algorithmically-generated audio tracks. These tracks are accompanied by visuals, which are also created algorithmically through the use of smart contracts. 

What distinguishes EulerBeats from other NFT projects is its revenue model. The project uses a token standard called ERC-1155, which creates tokens that are both non-fungible and fungible. There are essentially two types of EulerBeats: original LPs, which are non-fungible, and “prints” of the LPs, which are reproductions of the original. The prints are priced on a bonding curve, with the price exponentially increasing as more prints are created. 

LPs from the first collection, Genesis, could be reproduced a maximum of 120 times. LPs from the second collection, Enigma, can be reproduced a maximum of 160 times. 

Each time a print is created, the owners of the original LP earn 8% of the revenue. According to a Dune Analytics analysis by @ChubbyAvocado, 87.5 ETH in royalties already paid to OG holders of Enigma collection. 

Four of the Enigma LPs, LP 02, 04, 17, and 20, were bought by the three co-founders of a DAO called “BEETSDAO.” According to one of the co-founders, Jordan Garbis, the team wants to build a public token to represent their LP collection and the capability of the EulerBeats community to do things like stake prints they currently own. 

“Revenue-generating NFTs are the future,” Garbis told The Block in a phone interview. “We wanted to create a way to fractionalize and democratize access to NFTs.”

The token will be similar to the B20 token, a token developed by decentralized token swap protocol WhaleStreet. The B20 token fractionalized ownership over 20 pieces by popular digital artist Beeple, who sold his 5000-day collection for $69.4 million in a widely-covered auction. However, according to Garbis, the biggest difference is that BEETSDAO’s token will generate revenue. This revenue, he said, will go into paying print holders in the form of incentives, by hosting airdrops, or by simply reinvesting back into the DAO. 

“NFTs are still in their infancy but this is the future of what copyright could be,” he said. 

© 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.

Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea will support the use of the Layer 2 scaling solution Immutable X.

According to a press statement, integrating Immutable X will allow the marketplace to offer OpenSea users a “gas-free trading experience without sacrificing the security of the Ethereum network,” according to Nate Chastain, OpenSea’s head of product. 

“We’re rolling this out not only to better support existing Immutable X projects, but for future game developers and players on OpenSea who will benefit from this scaling solution,” Chastain said. 

Immutable is an Australia-based company that is focused on creating a more accessible and seamless trading platform, backed by investors like Naspers Ventures, Galaxy Digital and Apex Capital Partners.

Immutable X is the first layer-2 scaling solution for NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain with instant trade confirmation and high scalability – providing, according to the company, at least 9,000 transactions per second and zero gas fees. The protocol is expected to go live this spring, based on past comments from the development team.

Layer 2 solutions are meant to help scale applications by handling transactions off the Ethereum blockchain, known in this context as a Layer 1 network. Within the scope of NFTs, the nature of these tokens can make them expensive to move or trade on-chain. Essentially, teams building layer 2 solutions are trying to make these minting and trading processes more scalable, faster, and trustless.

There are several different types of solutions, including NFT-specifics like Dapper Labs’ Flow, sidechains like Matic and Ronin, plasma channels, and state channels. Immutable X is considered a “ZK-rollup,” which uses validity proofs. This means once a cryptographic proof has been accepted on-chain, users receive instant confirmation that the transactions were valid and immutable.

According to a blog post written by the Immutable team, when it comes to NFTs, this means users can withdraw immediately and no one can attack the system — regardless of how many funds are going through the system. ZK-rollups aim to significantly speed up and increase the number of transactions carried out in a given time period. 

The development comes soon after OpenSea raised $23 million in a funding round led by a16z. 

© 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.