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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced legislation that would ban the use of a federally adopted central bank digital currency in the state, accusing President Joe Biden of eyeing the technology for “surveillance and control.”

DeSantis, a Republican, on Monday announced the proposal that would prohibit the use of a CBDC as money within Florida’s commercial code, a move he says would “protect Floridians from the Biden administration’s weaponization of the financial sector.”

“Florida will not side with economic central planners; we will not adopt policies that threaten personal economic freedom and security,” DeSantis, who’s widely considered as possible presidential candidate in next year’s election, said in a statement.

The move comes after South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, also a Republican, vetoed a commercial code bill this month on the argumet that it might allow a central bank digital currency to be considered legal currency in the state, but would have excluded bitcoin from that state’s definition of money. While it had passed the Republican-majority state legislature, the measure faced opposition from some national Republican groups.

‘No privacy’

While DeSantis first raised his opposition to centrally-controlled digital currencies last year, he’s taken a friendlier approach toward decentralized tokens like bitcoin and has said he was working on ways for Floridians to pay taxes with crypto.  

The Biden administration last year developed policy objectives for a possible CBDC system in the United States, and the Federal Reserve has been researching a potential digital dollar. The Treasury Department is leading an interagency working group to consider the possible implications of a CBDC, the Democratic administration said in September.

“A Central Bank Digital Currency is the cornerstone of a federal government that could track each and every transaction that happens in the world,” Florida state CFO Jimmy Patronis said in the statement on Monday. “There would be no privacy, and if there is no privacy, there are no rights.”

© 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 Biden Administration is currently studying the possibility of introducing a central bank digital currency.

The protocol is trying to keep its NFT marketplace competitive with Opensea and Blur

Metatime, a Turkish crypto exchange that has yet to launch, raised $11 million in seed funding.

Turkish investment firm Yildiz Tekno GSYO and multiple undisclosed angel investors provided the funding, Metatime said.

Abdurrahman Kilic of Yildiz Tekno confirmed the investment to The Block. The firm’s limited partners are some of Turkey’s biggest companies including Halkbank, Turk Telekom and Kalyon Holding.

Crypto is popular in Turkey where inflation is sky-high and the currency is devalued. The country was ranked twelfth in Chainalysis’s 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index. Metatime is coming into a space already crowded with established crypto exchanges amid economic turmoil, including BtcTurk, Paribu and Bitay.

Yildiz invested $150,000 for 1% equity in Metatime, Yusuf Sevim, co-founder and CEO of Metatime, told The Block. He added that the rest of the funding — $11 million — was provided by angel investors in a token round.

A total of 33 undisclosed angel investors bought MetaCoin (MTC) tokens, Sevim said, adding that 100 million MTC were sold at 5 cents and another 100 million MTC at 6 cents.

The two tranches of the token sale began and ended in January and February, respectively, Sevim said. While he declined to name the angel investors, Sevim said they are from Turkey, Denmark and Germany.

What is Metatime?

Metatime is an Istanbul-based crypto startup that is preparing to launch several products and services, including a crypto exchange, wallet, NFT marketplace, native blockchain and a stablecoin.

Sevim said Metatime was established in 2021 and has been under development since then. When asked why the startup raised the seed round after two years, Sevim said that he and Metatime’s other co-founder Hys Sahin had previously invested $10 million in the company. Metatime has a third co-founder, Ali Bahadir Ural, who didn’t invest, Sevim said.

Metatime’s exchange, blockchain, stablecoin and MTC token will go live on Nov. 11, according to Sevim. The NFT marketplace and wallet are expected to launch in the first quarter of next year.

On Nov. 11, 10% of the angel investors’ tokens will also get unlocked, Sevim said, adding that the rest 90% of tokens will unlock over the following 225 days with a daily unlock rate of 0.4%.

There are currently 208 people working for Metatime, Sevim said, and the startup is hiring more people across roles. Metatime will hold several public token sales as well in the near future.

 

© 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 biggest U.S. banks have not stepped forward to welcome homeless crypto businesses scrambling for banking services after fleeing the wreckage of Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank.

The senator from Wyoming – a speaker at CoinDesk’s Consensus festival – on crypto’s prospects in Washington D.C.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is suing the liquidators of its Bahamas entity, saying FTX Digital Markets wrongly claims to own the exchange and was actually “a front to facilitate a conspiracy” to defraud customers.

FTX’s new management wants a declaratory judgment from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware that says FTX Digital Markets “has no ownership” in any of the FTX debtors’ property. 

The FTX debtors have often been at odds with the team of lawyers, known as joint provisional liquidators under Bahamian law, tasked with winding down its Bahamian entity since the crypto behemoth filed for bankruptcy protection in November. The Bahamian entity still controls at least hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of assets. 

“If the FTX debtors succeed in this adversary proceeding, there will be no property of FTX DM for local proceedings in The Bahamas to resolve,” the filing says.

A lawyer for the joint provisional liquidators did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

‘Corporate shell’

The plaintiffs in the adversary proceeding include FTX.US, the exchange’s sibling trading firm Alameda Research and West Realm Shires, Inc., a holding company formed by former FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried. They name FTX Digital Markets and its joint provisional liquidators Brian Simms, Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves, as defendants. 

According to the lawsuit, FTX Digital Markets claims to be “the constructive owner of FTX.com’s property” and says the ownership dispute should be settled in The Bahamas. The FTX debtors handling the bankruptcy in the United States disagree, saying that the liquidators inherited a “corporate shell” that they are using to continue a jurisdictional bankruptcy battle. The “baseless” ownership claims will harm FTX customers and creditors, lawyers say.

“The JPLs’ claim to ownership of FTX.com’s property is based largely on constructive, equitable, and other non-documentary arguments that depend upon the false premise that FTX DM was the center of the FTX Group. Nothing could be further from the truth,” the filing says. “The peculiar history of FTX DM is a classic example of abuse of the corporate form. It was created as a front to facilitate a conspiracy to defraud the debtors’ customers—a conspiracy to which three individuals have already pled guilty.”

Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founders Gary Wang and Nishad Singh have all pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to their time at the bankrupt company. Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to a litany of criminal charges and awaits an October trial.

FTX Digital Markets was an “offshore haven for a continuous fraudulent scheme, as well as a conduit through which the fruits of that fraudulent scheme could be channeled to insiders and third parties outside of the reach of any independent and effective regulatory authority,” according to lawyers for the FTX debtors.

© 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.

Bitcoin continued to trade higher at the top of the week, with Ark Invest saying last week’s rally is a sign of its value as a safe haven asset.

Bitcoin was trading around $28,400 by 9:25 a.m. EDT, up 3.6% in the past day, according to TradingView. Ether was flat over the past day, trading just below $1,800.

Altcoin prices slipped over the past day. Ripple’s XRP and Polygon’s MATIC traded lower, falling 2.6% and 3.2%, respectively. Solana’s SOL bucked the trend, jumping over 8% in the past day.

Dog-themed memecoins traded down, with Dogecoin and shiba inu falling 0.5% and 1%, respectively.  

Safe haven

“In the face of the U.S. and European banking crises, bitcoin’s price appreciation suggests that lax regulatory oversight had no impact on the decentralized, transparent, and auditable crypto asset ecosystem,” Ark Invest’s Yassine Elmandjra wrote in the firm’s weekly newsletter. 

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are behaving like “safe havens,” he said.

“Last weekend, when many banks were closed, and others were facing bank runs, bitcoin didn’t skip a beat: it settled ~$33 billion, facilitated ~600k transactions, issued 2,037 new BTC at a steady and predictable ~1.8% inflation rate, attracted ~1 million new addresses, and generated $43 million for miners securing the network,” Elmandjra said.

“While the U.S. banking system was seizing up in response to bank runs threatening regional banks, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto networks didn’t skip a beat,” Ark Invest Founder and CEO Cathie Wood tweeted.

Regulators should have been focused on the centralized and opaque points of failure looming in the traditional banking system, she 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.

Bitcoin’s price may be surging, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s convinced the rally will continue. 

Coinshares’s digital asset investment products saw outflows for the sixth consecutive week that totaled $95 million. That figure reached $406 million over the past five weeks, representing 1.2% of total assets under management.

That’s despite the cryptocurrency soaring to above $28,000 for the first time since June on Sunday, getting close to doubling its value from the start of the year. 

Bitcoin saw outflows in investment products totaling $113 million last week. Coinshares said the flows were, in part, due to the need for liquidity rather than negative sentiment.

© 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.