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The transition is aimed at reducing barriers of entry for The Graph’s users by decreasing gas costs and speeding up transactions.

Positioning and expectations explain why the Binance case drove prices down but markets rebounded after Coinbase.

Digital asset trading firm BCB Group will no longer acquire the Hamburg-based financial institution Sutor Bank. 

After “careful analysis and consideration” by both parties, Sutor Bank withdrew its agreement to sell its shares to BCB Group, according to a emailed statement. BCB cited “recent banking market events and macroeconomic changes” and said it would focus more on its European strategy via an application for an e-money license in France and move to capture and service demand for USD payment rails. 

BCB Group first announced the plan acquire Sutor Bank in December of 2021. The terms of the deal weren’t announced, but it would have provided a “significant capital injection,” The Block previously reported.

“Whilst we still believe in the team at Sutor and their innovative platforms, ultimately we recognize that in today’s market, unrecognizable compared to the 2021 market, we can each serve our clients on our own foundations more effectively than via the deal originally agreed,” BCB Group’s founder and CEO Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie said in the statement.

© 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 technology known as DVT involves splitting a validator’s private key across several node operators. The goal is to increase the network’s resilience – while also protect the individual validators – by reducing single points of failure.

Korean crypto lending service Delio halted withdrawals today until further notice.

Delio pointed to crypto investment company Haru as the reason for the halt, according to an update on its site. Haru, which advertised up to 12% yield on its Earn Plus product, suspended deposits and withdrawals on June 13, blaming an unspecified issue with one of its service providers. 

Delio CEO Jung Sang-ho told Money Today that the problem was caused by an increase in withdrawals following Haru’s suspension of services. According to Korea Economic Daily, which cited Block Media, Jung said there was a transactional relationship with Haru but would not state the amount.

Delio provides lending and borrowing services, advertising yields of up to 10.7%. Its website claims the service has processed 41,700 bitcoin ($1 billion), 118,000 ether ($205 million) and $6.2 million of altcoins during its time of operation.

© 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.

Binance, which at at one time boasted more than 8,000 employees, describes itself as a “remote-first” company. But it has offices dotted all over the world — and a policy that forbids staff from talking about them. 

The crypto exchange operator, which is currently embroiled in a battle with regulators in the U.S., has penned blog posts about its setup ever since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The company said at the time that remote work has been the reality for “most of its journey.”

CEO Changpeng Zhao, meanwhile, has often claimed that Binance has no headquarters because it is a “decentralized” organization. It’s a feature of the business — and indeed of other crypto outfits — that can make things tricky for regulators. 

In recent years, Binance has been putting down deeper roots in cities where it has won regulatory approval. Dubai and Paris, for example, have become regional hubs for the sprawling company. 

But Binance also has offices in markets in which it is less in favor with local regulators, including in the UK where staff have access to an office within a shared workspace in Central London, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s despite the fact that Binance Markets Limited, its local entity, was banned by the Financial Conduct Authority in 2021. 

Binance staff told to keep quiet

A spokesperson for Binance said that the company is not domiciled in the UK and clarified that the platform is only available to UK consumers “on a ‘reverse solicitation’ basis.” In markets where it has lots of international employees working in close proximity, Binance sometimes arranges shared workspaces, they added.

But staff must be careful not to talk about them, two of the people familiar with the matter said. 

“For personal and operational security reasons, we don’t actively encourage employees to advertise where these shared workspaces are located,” the Binance spokesperson said. 

Details of the policy come just days after Binance’s Zhao warned staff, in an internal memo last week, to be careful about what they say via private messaging platforms, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s suit against the company contained a comment from an employee who allegedly said “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.”

The Binance spokesperson said the office policy boils down to security concerns.

“Ensuring that our colleagues’ personal safety is not compromised is of paramount importance to Binance,” they added.  

Security concerns

That chimes with what one of the people familiar with the policy told The Block — that security was the main driver and that Binance was especially conscious of this after dealing with “lunatics” and angry investors in the past. In one prominent example involving a rival exchange named OKX, a trader who had suffered steep losses turned up outside the firm’s premises in Hong Kong threatening suicide. 

Yet other crypto firms do not appear to have enforced Binance’s policy of gagging staff, and two of the people familiar with the matter said Binance might have ulterior motives.

“It was 100% to avoid regulators. But they pretended it was to stop angry customers showing up,” said one. 

Of Binance’s thousands of staff, fully a quarter are based near the company’s regional hubs in Paris and Dubai, or in a satellite office within a jurisdiction in which Binance holds licenses or registrations, according to its spokesperson. 

 “In many other jurisdictions in which we have established a local presence, we have provided a local address and contact details for our office to local regulators,” they said, adding that many staff work on a remote basis.

© 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 company says Mexico is the largest market for remittances from the U.S.

AlchemyAI will launch as two new products – an in-app chatbot and a ChatGPT plugin – to help web3 developers access data faster and speed up product development.

Connext, a blockchain interoperability startup, raised $7.5 million in a strategic funding round at a valuation of $250 million.

Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, NGC Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, Polygon Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, KXVC, a_capital, No Limit Holdings, 1k(x), #Hashed, Factor, Scalar Capital and Dokia Capital participated in the round.

The latest influx of cash brings the firm’s total funding to $23.5 million. Connext intends to use the capital to create the Connext Foundation, which will finance projects aimed at expanding the firm’s scale, community-led initiatives and other strategies that bolster growth.

Connext founder Arjun Bhuptani told The Block that the first Connext Foundation project will set up public coordination processes such as Connext Improvement Proposals, with a future focus on giving grants to protocol development teams working on Connext Improvement Proposals and other infrastructure to expand the network. 

After the launch of its second version in February, Connext has 20,000 users and has processed over 1.2 million transactions on its platform. Protocols built on top of Connext include Metamask, Planet IX, DODO and 32 others.

© 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.

A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday rejected SEC’s request to order a freeze on Binance.US’ assets – provided the parties could agree on limits.