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Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz believes most “bad actors” and “terrible risk management practices” in crypto have been swept away.

For companies that have managed to survive thus far, the risk going forward is a lack of capital flowing into the space, with institutional adoption still shy following the slump in cryptocurrencies and various bankruptcies in the industry, Novogratz said during a Barclays Crypto & Blockchain Summit fireside chat aired on Thursday.

“There are plenty of companies that are capital-starved,” which also presents an opportunity in asset management for firms like Galaxy since there’s no shortage of places to apply capital, he said.

The company this week disclosed a $1 billion net loss in 2022 and said that it expects to turn a profit in the first quarter of this year. During an investor call on Tuesday, Novogratz said that the banking crisis and the way the U.S. has abused cheap debt have helped prove the whole thesis behind crypto.

Crypto prices have rallied this year, with bitcoin  — and more recently XRP tokens —taking the lead.

Thinking back to the weekend that culminated in the shutdown of Signature by regulators, Novogratz said that Galaxy was never in a position of not knowing where to put its money. While Signature and Silvergate were “important counterparties,” it had banking relationships with Bank of New York and others.

In fact, Galaxy had its single largest volume days in customer franchise that weekend, Novogratz said.

“We took advantage in lots of ways of that disconnect,” he said. “We provided liquidity where others weren’t willing to provide liquidity. And we made a whole lot of money over that weekend.”

‘Regulatory assault’

Novogratz sees the current regulatory environment as an “assault” on crypto that will drive businesses and people offshore.

“This regulation by 1,000 cuts is damaging,” he said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week said that it was investigating Coinbase and on Monday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced it was suing the biggest crypto exchange, Binance, for allegedly violating U.S. laws. 

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has been vocal about U.S. regulation and has said he’s “happy to go to court” if needed.

“I appreciate Brian Armstrong taking the fight public,” Novogratz said.

© 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.

After the recent collapse of three crypto-friendly banks, many firms are left hunting for new banking partnerships. Brett Philbin, Rachel Millard and Rosie Gillam of Edelman Smithfield offer advice.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose over $28,000 on Thursday, rallying over 15% in the past two weeks. Mark Connors, 3IQ head of research, is attributing the most popular cryptocurrency‘s rise to the uncertainty in the banking sector.

Grenada recalled all diplomats after the June 2022 election, when the party that granted Sun’s title was ousted from power, the Grenada Broadcasting Network reported.

The New York City show, titled QQL: Analogs, features large-scale physical derivations of the generative artist’s popular NFT collection.

At the end of last year, turning selfies into glamorous AI-generated photos that transformed everyday people into action heroes and animated gods and goddesses was all the rage.

Now, Unstoppable Domains has launched a new feature, which not only allows consumers to experiment with the astounding things artificial intelligence can accomplish when fed a batch of smartphone photos but also allows people to mint those photos as NFTs that can be used as avatars across web3 applications, or even sold on the open market.

“There’s a ton of players in this field,” said Unstoppable Domains’ senior director of engineering Lisa DeLuca. “[But] none of those other solutions are minted on chain.”

The real question may be: Is there still demand? People may have already moved on from the trend made popular by companies like Lensa toward the end of last year. Time will also tell if people are interested in minting photos of themselves as an NFT as the digital-asset market suffers from a pronounced downturn.

Unstoppable Domains attained unicorn status the middle of last year. The company builds solutions that let people create and manage web3 domains or digital identities that they can use across blockchain-enabled applications while picking and choosing how much personal data to share with different platforms. The creation of platforms like Unstoppable Domains and Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has helped fuel interest in web3 domains.

Unstoppable Domains said it has registered 3.3 million web3 domains since launching.

Unstoppable Domains said it is allowing consumers to create 200 unique, AI-generated avatars, for $14.99. Then users can pick one photo from that grouping which they can then mint as an NFT on the Polygon blockchain. The service is available to all consumers even if they do not have a presence on any web3 applications. 

© 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.

Raydium, Solana’s second-biggest decentralized exchange, envisons a bug bounty program to clean up its market maker smart contracts.

Bitcoin continues to trade above $28,000 while the broader crypto market is trending lower. 

The leading cryptocurrency by market cap was trading around $28,350, by  11:45 a.m. EST, up about 0.2%, according to TradingView data. Ether was down 1% over the same period, trading below $1,800. 

Altcoins slipped as well. Binance’s BNB fell 0.2%, Ripple’s XRP was down 1%, and Cardano’s ADA dropped 1.8%. Solana’s SOL and Litecoin’s LTC experienced slightly sharper sell-offs, falling 3% and 2.2%, respectively. 

Crypto trading firm QCP Digital noted that bitcoin is heading for its best quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2021 — “barring a major surprise tomorrow,” the firm added.

“Tomorrow’s large quarter-end option expiry is unlikely to provide the fireworks that other March quarter-ends have done in recent years,” QCP said, adding that the speed of the recent spot move and lack of traders’ conviction has left the open interest map “spread rather thinly across strikes.”

The effect of the CFTC’s civil suit against Binance appears to have been largely brushed aside.

“It is likely to go the same way as a suit against Bitmex a few years back, where a large settlement was reached to conclude the affair,” QCP Digital wrote. The U.S. government’s plethora of open cases versus crypto firms is “almost impossible for markets to price or time.”

© 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.

Crypto rewards app Fold and Visa (V) have expanded their ongoing partnership to North America, Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean, an announcement said.