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Author: Igor Igamberdiev
Nomura-backed institutional crypto custodian Komainu has raised $25 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by hedge fund veteran Alan Howard, who also owns crypto-asset manager Elwood Asset Management. Additional participants in the round included Galaxy Digital, NOIA Capital, and Nomura Research Institute.
Established in 2018, Komainu is a joint venture between three firms: Nomura, Ledger, and CoinShares. All three firms also contributed to Series A.
With fresh capital at hand, Saint Helier, Jersey-based Komainu plans to expand globally, support additional assets, and provide services to prime brokerages.
Komainu was launched in June 2020 and currently holds over $3 billion in assets under custody on behalf of institutional investors, including asset managers, corporations, and government agencies.
The Series A comes amid a rally in bitcoin’s price as more institutions are investing in the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is currently trading at around $54,200, according to TradingView.
Hedge fund manager Howard appears to be on a crypto-investing spree. The British billionaire has recently backed several startups in the space, including One River Digital Asset Management and bitcoin payments app Bottlepay.
© 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.
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Author: Yogita Khatri
© 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.
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Author: Andreas Nicolos
Mike Novogratz’ Galaxy Digital is officially in the bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) game.
Regulators in Canada approved CI Global Asset Management’s (CI GAM) offering with the crypto investment firm acting as sub-advisor. The receipt is dated March 4, public records show.
The CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF (BTCX) will begin trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange Tuesday with the exchange’s approval, according to an announcement. CI GAM also plans to merge its existing bitcoin fund into the ETF, according to an announcement from the firm. The CI Galaxy Bitcoin Fund manages about $172 million worth of assets.
Canada first approved a bitcoin ETF in February of this year. CI GAM and Galaxy filed soon after the initial approval of the Purpose Bitcoin ETF. Purpose did $165 million in volume on its first day.
Soon after filing for a bitcoin ETF, CI GAM and Galaxy submitted a prospectus for an ether-based ETF to trade on TSX. If approved, it would be a first-of-its-kind offering. Galaxy has said it plans to deepen its ETH offerings, and is planning to launch a family of ETH funds.
CI-GAM has also filed and obtained receipts on prospectuses on mutual fund offerings for BTC and ETH.
© 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.
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Author: Aislinn Keely
Development teams for Keep Protocol and NuCypher are proposing an on-chain merger in a network first for Ethereum.
Unlike past instances in which DeFi protocols pledged to collaborate closely, the proposal, as outlined by Keep Network project lead Matt Luongo in a forum thread, would see the two protocols join together in a multi-stage process.
As previously reported by The Block, Keep Network is an Ethereum-based protocol for privately storing data offline. Its best-known product is tBTC, one of a handful of tokens on Ethereum that are backed by bitcoin holdings. NuCypher is also focused on privacy, having built a layer on top of Ethereum that utilizes proxy re-encryption or PRE.
Why the merger? As Luongo puts it, both teams “realized we have a lot in common.” In a follow-up interview via DM, Luongo told The Block: “We have shared values. It felt like we were all excited about the technology and unified against projects we think are too centralized, like WBTC and Ren.”
He went on to say that “[w]hile the protocols had gone in different directions in the past year, both have been considering roadmaps that would bring us back into competition for the medium term… Our strengths and weaknesses are complementary.”
There’s an economic factor at play as well, with the teams betting that a protocol merger will shore up their long-term viability as well.
“The token models are very very similar,” said Luongo. “Both are work tokens that can be used to earn fees. Both networks grow when they have more users paying for services When you combine them, you share half of the pie – but the expectation is that the combined network will far exceed what either could do individually. Now tBTC can make use of proxy re-encryption without fear of enriching a competing network, PRE can be used for account recovery, and future applications can build off both.”
As the NuCypher team, which penned a forum post on the so-called Codename KEANU, put it in their tweet thread on the matter:
“The long-term benefits of this potential hard merge could be immense and include a unified protocol specification, multiple software clients, multiple core development teams, and combined communities/stakers/node operators providing arbitrary threshold cryptography services.”
The two development teams would remain independent under the proposal, with both contributing to the shared protocol if the merger goes forward. At the heart of the shared protocol would be a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, to be used for governance. Tokens from the two protocols, KEEP and NU, would carry equal weight under this framework.
Ultimately, the merger will see the two teams collaboratively developing what would become a wholly new protocol. The original protocols wouldn’t be abandoned outright, according to Luongo, who said that the Keep and NuCypher developers “are fully independent and can decide how they spent their time, but on the Keep side I know we plan to maintain.”
As framed in their respective proposal posts, the union of NuCypher and Keep is contingent on support from their respective communities and stakeholders.
© 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.
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Author: Michael McSweeney
Though the lot size pales in comparison to past auctions held by the U.S. government, federal officials are set to auction off 0.7501 BTC next week — an amount worth roughly $38,700.
It’s unclear where the government obtained this Bitcoin or why it’s being auctioned through GSA — the government’s auction site usually reserved for office supplies, furniture, and other items like vehicles, scientific equipment, and heavy machinery. Bloomberg first reported on the auction lot’s existence.
However, what is known is that the starting bid for the Bitcoin is $25,000 and will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, according to the GSA’s auction page. Bidding starts March 15 at 5 p.m. ET and will close 48 hours later.
The successful bidder must fill out a “Forfeited Property Sales Certification Form” attesting that they’re not a Department of Justice employee or the person who forfeited the Bitcoin, as well a “Bitcoin End Use Certificate” requiring the bidder’s name, social security number, Bitcoin wallet address, and other personal information.
Full payment for the 0.7501 Bitcoin is due March 19 by wire transfer.
© 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.
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Author: MK Manoylov
Distributed ledger company Ripple said Monday that its partnership with money transfer firm Moneygram is coming to an end.
“Together, Ripple and MoneyGram have made the decision to end our current partnership agreement,” Ripple said in a blog post on the matter.
CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a tweet accompanying the announcement:
“While the lack of a crypto reg framework has needlessly muddied the waters for U.S. businesses & consumers, there’s no denying what Ripple and MGI have achieved together. Billions of dollars have been sent and settled across borders through ODL w/ XRP.”
Ripple also noted in its statement that both companies are “committed to revisiting our relationship in the future.”
Ripple and Moneygram’s partnership dates back to June 2019. As reported at the time, Moneygram agreed to use the digital asset XRP as part of its foreign exchange settlement process, with Ripple taking an equity position in the company. As part of the deal, Moneygram received financial incentives in the form of XRP (though, as it disclosed in public filings, Moneygram did not hold the XRP but rather sold it upon receipt).
Moneygram moved to suspend its use of Ripple’s platform last month, as The Block previously reported, in light of Ripple’s ongoing legal fight with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which filed suit against Garlinghouse, co-founder Chris Larsen and Ripple in December.
Since December, Ripple has filed its formal response to the SEC complaint. Both Garlinghouse and Larsen have moved to have the charges against them dismissed.
© 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.
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Author: Michael McSweeney
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Author: John Dantoni
If you were hungry for tacos — more specifically, digital tacos on the blockchain — you’ll have to stay hungry a little longer.
Popular fast-food chain Taco Bell has released and already sold out its first set of taco-themed non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The restaurant chain released the tokens late Sunday on NFT marketplace Rarible.
Taco Bell created five different NFTs, selling them in collections of five. The tokens were initially put on sale for 0.001 ETH ($1.79), with the highest bid going up to 0.4 WETH ($700).
“Our Spicy Potato Soft Tacos can now live in your hearts, stomachs and digital wallets,” the chain tweeted. The announcement prompted numerous responses from Twitter users.
One user, @mcbenis3, offered his opinion on the development. “Now you can have diarrhea on the blockchain,” he tweeted.
Why exactly has the fast-food company decided to release NFTs and will there be more? Taco Bell did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment, but we’ll update this story when we hear more.
Taco Bell is the latest in a long list of entities joining the digital collectibles ecosystem, spanning everything from artists to music to sports. Most recently, rock band Kings of Leon released its latest album with an NFT component. The NBA and NFT platform NBA Top Shot are selling minted individual Moments from the 2021-2021 season to highlight players chosen for the US Team and the World Team.
Image credit: Manuel Esteban / Shutterstock.com
© 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.
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Author: Saniya More
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Author: Yogita Khatri
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