FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Union Square Ventures, an early investor in Coinbase, wants to in fact “double down” on web3 investing rather than retreat in the face of increasing regulatory pressure.

“When they want to shut it down, I say double down,” Fred Wilson, partner at USV, told the fund’s limited partners earlier this week on a quarterly call. “The most powerful technologies send waves of fear through the establishment. When you see that fear in their eyes, invest in the cause of that fear.”

U.S. regulators have increasingly cracked down on the crypto industry due to recent high-profile collapses, including the FTX exchange and the crypto lender Celsius. In March, for instance, Coinbase received a warning from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about a potential enforcement action. The increased scrutiny of the crypto industry in the U.S. has prompted companies to explore international financial hubs, including Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong.

New York-based USV remains committed to keep backing web3 startups. The storied venture capital firm invested in Coinbase in 2013 as its first crypto bet. Over the years, the firm has invested in over 25 web3 projects, including Uniswap, Polygon and Helium, according to The Block Pro’s Deals Dashboard.

While USV remains determined, Wilson said earlier this year that web3 investors would require “a very strong stomach and a very long time horizon” even as valuations are compelling during a bearish market. Despite the last year being challenging, USV raised $625 million across two new funds to invest in both web2 and web3.

© 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 price of the Multichain (MULTI) token has fallen 20% from $7 to $5.63 amid user complaints over stuck transactions on the cross-chain bridge protocol.

Users have been complaining about stuck transactions since as early as May 21. Multichain, for its part, claims that the difficulties stemmed from an ongoing upgrade and the delayed updates to nodes for cross-chain routers.

“The upgrade of the back-end node is taking longer than expected. Most of the routes are working as usual, as some routes (Kava, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM) are suspended temporarily for now. All the affected transactions will arrive once the upgrade is complete,” said Multichain on May 23.

“Only one router left in the upgrade progress. Other 6 routers work fine now,” said an admin in Multichain’s Telegram channel. “We are working on the last router. Everything will be back to normal once it’s finished.” The admin added that all funds are safe and transactions will go through when the upgrades have happened.

Multichain has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Multichain Price Chart | Source: CoinGecko

© 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 lesser known crypto project called DF Fintoch appears to have taken off with $32 million of user funds in a likely exit scam.

The project, referring to itself as “Morgan DF Fintoch,” promised a daily return of 1% on investment. The firm allegedly claimed affiliation with Morgan Stanley, crypto investigator ZachXBT revealed in a thread.

Morgan Stanley had issued a statement saying this project was not affiliated with it. The project also claimed their CEO was an individual called Bob Lambert, while showing a picture of the actor Mike Provenzano.

ZachXBT noted that multiple investors claimed they are unable to withdraw their funds from the project. After checking data from multiple blockchains, he found that the user deposits were sent from Binance Smart Chain to two other blockchains: Ethereum and Tron.

The project had gained 71,000 followers on Twitter and ZachXBT noted it has more than 138,000 token holders, suggesting there were many victims.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore had also put the project’s website on its investor alert list.

© 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.

Cryptocurrency prices were trading lower early Wednesday morning alongside global equities as debt ceiling negotiations in the U.S. continue to drag on and fears of a possible default grip markets. 

The price of bitcoin was trading down 1.86% at $26,713 per coin, while ether was trading down 2.14%. 

European stocks were also trading lower, with the Stoxx 600 Index trading down 1.66% at 7:13 am EDT. Meanwhile, China’s benchmark CSI 300 Index ended the day down 1.38%.

Source: Tradingview

While House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reported a “productive” meeting with President Biden on negotiations to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default, it’s not clear to the market if any progress has been made that brings the two sides closer to finalizing a deal. The U.S. faces possible default in early June — a scenario that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen described to lawmakers has “highly likely.”

As for crypto, bitcoin has held up better than most assets, as noted by trading firm QCP in a note released Wednesday. 

Source: QCP

QCP added that the debt ceiling is “front and centre of all narratives” currently shaping crypto markets. 

“We believe that the disconnect between BTC holding up vs. other comparable markets, is due to investors having learnt from the recent banking crisis that BTC is the best high-beta hedge against a ‘no-deal’ scenario here,” the firm said. 

“Although our medium-term bias is for higher BTC, on a deal scenario — we think BTC could quickly sync back with what other macro markets are implying.”

“On a ‘no-deal’ scenario however, we will easily take out the year’s highs,” it concluded.

© 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.