FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

The SEC took pains to note the Beaxy exchange did a lot of illegal trading. Is this a preview of its action against Coinbase?

A message from CEO Ray Youssef cited key staff departures and regulatory challenges.

The project allows users to purchase carbon credits through its nature-themed NFTs to offset the environmental impact of blockchain technology.

When supposedly safe investments like bonds and stocks underperform, what does that mean for our view of apparently risky investments like Bitcoin? Noelle Acheson offers her thoughts.

P2P led and Jump Crypto joined the incubator’s first external funding round.

Su Zhu and Kyle Davies’ crypto exchange OPNX is open for business. 

The firm announced to its community members Tuesday the venue’s launch as well as a giveaway of its native token FLEX as a “token of our appreciation.”

“Many of you may know that FLEX will power OPNX as the native ecosystem token. As a token of our appreciation, we have included eligible waitlisted users in our FLEX coin giveaway (i.e no action is needed from your side),” the note reads. 

FLEX appears to have a market capitalization of $256 million, but is thinly traded with just $796,000 in volumes changing hands over the last 24-hours, according to CoinMarketCap. 

OPNX is the brainchild of the sullied hedge fund investors behind now bankrupt Three Arrows Capital, which was among the most notable victims of crypto’s 2022 credit crisis. The former classmates teamed up with Coinflex CEO Mark Lamb to launch the venture via a rebranding of the erstwhile derivatives venue. The exchange intends to support trading in bankruptcy claims tied to failed exchanges, like Sam Bankman-Fried’s now bankrupt FTX. Lambs’ wife, Leslie Lamb, is the firm’s chief executive officer. 

Courts in Seychelles approved the firm’s restructuring plans on in March, after which Coinflex rebranded to OPNX. Coinflex’s original restructuring proposal included no mention of OPNX or plans to rebrand. 

According to the memo sent out Tuesday, OPNX is not available in a number of regions, including the U.S., Canada, and several African countries. 

Zhu told the Wall Street Journal in February that the Dubai-based venture raised about $25 million in funding for the new venture.

© 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.

Users can get a 50% discount on trading fees if they hold FLEX tokens.

Longtime crypto markets executive Michael Moro joined an upstart derivatives exchange as chief executive more than eight months after stepping down from his post at beleaguered lending and trading firm Genesis Global Capital.

Moro—who joined Genesis in 2015 following a career on Wall Street that included SecondMarket and Citigroup—will begin building out a team for the new firm, called Ankex. 

Billed as a so-called hybrid crypto exchange, the platform will offer the trappings of both a centralized derivatives exchange as well as that of a decentralized exchange. It was incubated by crypto trading infrastructure company Qredo.

The non-custodial exchange will allow users to self-custody their funds while supporting the same level of low latency, deep liquidity trading, Qredo’s Josh Goodbody said in a statement. 

“Having come from Genesis and seen the events of 2022 unfold, I’m acutely aware of the importance of empowering traders to operate on trustless platforms while retaining full control of their assets at all times,” Moro said in a press release. Moro stepped down from his role as CEO of Genesis in August. 

Genesis Global Capital filed for bankruptcy in January after the firm failed in a bid to raise cash for its troubled lending unit.

“By leveraging our combined strengths and driving a culture of excellence, we can ensure that traders are able to operate without the risk of losing access to their assets to circumstances beyond their control,” Moro said. 

The crypto derivatives market is shaping up to become more competitive in the wake of FTX’s meltdown, with Coinbase and Gemini both eyeing their own offshore options. Elsewhere, former hedge fund duo (and former Genesis counter-party) Kyle Davies and Su Zhu have teamed up with former CoinFlex founder Mark Lamb to launch a venue that supports trading in bankruptcy claims of defunct crypto firms. 

Since the start of the year, crypto derivatives markets have seen a surge in activity with bitcoin futures volumes topping $1.3 trillion last month. Binance commands the majority of those volumes, as per The Block’s data dashboard. 

In an interview with The Block, Moro said that the company would soon seek funding via a seed raise as it expands out its team. 

© 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.

LayerZero Labs, the developer of the blockchain interoperability protocol LayerZero, reached a valuation of $3 billion in a Series B funding round worth $120 million.

Investors in the round included a16z Crypto, Sequoia Capital, Circle Ventures, Samsung Next, OpenSea and Christie’s, LayerZero said Tuesday. The news confirms The Block’s reporting in May that said LayerZero was seeking funds at a $3 billion valuation.

LayerZero began raising for the round late last year due to challenging mid-year market conditions, Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, told The Block in an interview.

A total of 33 investors participated in the Series B round, but there was no lead investor, Pellegrino said.

That’s opposed to LayerZero’s $135 million Series A round in March 2022 that was co-led by a16z Crypto, Sequoia Capital and FTX Ventures. These three investors, at the time, provided the massive $120 million chunk, according to Pellegrino. LayerZero was then valued at $1 billion. Today’s news means the project has tripled its valuation in less than a year.

“We didn’t need the money,” Pellegrino said, adding that it was raised to meet LayerZero’s growth plans. “One of the big goals this year is to significantly push into the Asia-Pacific region and the gaming sector,” Pellegrino said.

APAC and gaming expansion

LayerZero is a blockchain interoperability protocol that enables users to send tokens in a single transaction across different blockchains. It is an alternative to blockchain bridges that require several transactions before completing a token transfer.

Since its launch last year, LayerZero has seen massive adoption, according to Pellegrino, who said the protocol’s total value locked crossed $7 billion, and transactional volume has hit more than $6 billion.

Top DeFi protocols — including Uniswap, SushiSwap and PancakeSwap — have integrated Layerzero for cross-chain transactions.

LayerZero also supports NFT transfers through its Omnichain Non-Fungible Tokens (ONFT) standard.

Earlier this year, Pudgy Penguins, an Ethereum-based NFT collection, partnered with LayerZero to enable cross-chain transactions. Blockchain play-to-earn game DeFi Kingdoms also integrated LayerZero in December. “We want to have the same presence we have in DeFi in gaming,” Pellegrino said. “We want to work directly with gaming studios.”

To that end, LayerZero also plans to increase its current headcount of over 40 people to around 70 by the end of the year by hiring across functions, including marketing.

The Series B round brings LayerZero Labs’ total funding to $263 million. All its funding rounds have the same structure of SAFE — short for “simple agreement for future equity” — plus token warrants, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block.

Pellegrino declined to comment on the token launch timeline.

© 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 new infrastructure will enable institutional traders to increase storage capacity and process large data sets with minimal delay.