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Web3 gaming company Aurory announced that the digital assets users can acquire playing its free-to-play games can now exist on Arbitrum, an Ethereum Layer-2 network.

“We have always imagined Aurory existing across multiple gaming ecosystems, and this is the first step in realizing that vision,” Jonathan Campeau, an executive producer at Aurory, said in a statement. The company’s gaming assets will now live on either the Arbitrum or Solana blockchains.

Aurory also said in the statement that gamers will be able to utilize its SyncSpace technology, which allows players to deposit gaming assets on Solana and then withdraw them on Arbitrum, or vice versa. The company hopes the plan will create a “seamless cross-chain experience for users.”

Arbitrum network

There has been significant activity involving the Arbitrum network in recent weeks. Last month, not only did Xai, a gaming-focused permissionless Layer 3 blockchain, say it would launch later this year on the network, The Graph, a leading indexing and query protocol for organizing blockchain data, said it had begun the final phase of migrating to Arbitrum. Earlier this month, Cega expanded its structured DeFi investments product to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Aurory also said that the gaming assets that players can choose to have live on Arbitrum will include Aury tokens, “playable NFT characters, skins, and Neftie eggs.” These assets either have, or will have, utility on Aurory’s two flagship games which are Adventure and Tactics.

© 2023 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.

Ethereum infrastructure service Flashbots has raised approximately $60 million at a valuation of $1 billion. 

The company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 21 to notify the agency it had raised about $30.4 million of the total it was seeking. Two more SEC filings are expected to become public in the coming days which will show the firm raised the total amount desired, according to a person familiar. 

Investors and partners had been invited to invest in a reverse pitch “beauty contest for decentralization.”

The company confirmed it had fully subscribed the Series B round thanks to the participation of “leading venture capital firms, Layer-2 networks,” angel investors, decentralized exchanges and apps, in addition to MEV supply chain actors, according to an email sent to The Block.

Capital earmarked for Suave

The funding will be directed toward development of the Suave platform that allows users to “transact cheaper and more privately” on the blockchain.

The completion of the Series B round follows reporting from The Block earlier this year stating the startup aspired to attain unicorn status by raising up to $50 million. Top crypto VC Paradigm was the lead investor in the company’s seed-stage fundraise in 2020, according to Crunchbase.

Flashbots’ service proposes blocks for validators running the Ethereum blockchain.

© 2023 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.

Regulators view Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies as commodities. But mining firms can still trip over securities regulations if they’re not careful. This story is part of CoinDesk’s Mining Week.

A report circulated on Twitter on Tuesday that the exchange plans to eliminate 30% of its workforce amid declining profit.

The world’s biggest bitcoin mine has drawn the ire of some local residents concerned with Bitcoin’s community impact.

The intersection of AI and crypto has everyone riled up, but there is little agreement on what is its best iteration.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged a couple for allegedly defrauding over 100 people with a digital assets commodity pool that had been named “Blessings of God Thru Crypto.”

Michael and Amanda Griffis, owners of a real estate company in Clarksville, Tennessee, raised over $6 million by reaching out to colleagues and customers to offer them the option to pool funds to trade digital asset commodity futures contracts, the CFTC said on Tuesday in a statement.

“The defendants falsely represented that pool funds would be safe and under their control, that pool participants could expect high gains, and that the defendants would use pool funds to trade ‘crypto futures’ on the ‘Apex Trading Platform’ with the advice of a person identified only as ‘Coach Wendy,’” the CFTC said. “As further alleged in the complaint, the defendants leveraged their personal and professional relationships, developed through their real estate business, to convince victims the pool scheme was legitimate.”

‘Blessings Pool’

The commodity pool claimed to give “investors the opportunity to bet on the future price of cryptocurrency,” and the couple promised “exaggerated profits” without disclosing potential risks, the agency said in the complaint.

The two allegedly commingled the pool with their personal funds.

Pool participants would transfer funds to Michael Griffis’ account, who then transferred that to his personal account on Coinbase. From there, he would convert the funds into digital asset commodities like bitcoin or Tether and transfer them to an electronic trading platform called the Apex Trading Platform to trade futures, the CFTC said. 

About $855,000 was paid out to some pool participants, which the CFTC said was linked to Ponzi-style payments. 

“The defendants betrayed their pool participants, and they profited from that betrayal. Today’s filing reinforces the CFTC’s long-standing commitment to hold accountable those who take advantage of victims,” Ian McGinley, the CFTC’s director of enforcement, said in a statement. 

Both Michael and Amanda Griffis operate EXIT Realty Screamin’ Eagle. The real estate firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

© 2023 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 program follows Avalanche’s initiative to financial institutions to test blockchain services on one of its subnets.

Namibia’s virtual assets bill was put into law on Friday, according to the Gazette of the Republic of Namibia.

Layer-2 blockchain Optimism is set to unlock $36 million worth of tokens on Sunday, and the anticipated increase in supply spurred a 3.5% slump in the blockchain’s native token (OP) on Tuesday.