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Luno, the crypto exchange owned by Digital Currency Group, reduced its workforce by 35%.

The London-based firm told employees about the layoffs earlier today. Luno had a total headcount of 960, meaning over 330 jobs will be lost as a result of the cuts, CNBC reported earlier. 

DCG has come under increasing pressure over the past year as the crypto downturn intensified amid a turbulent macroeconomic backdrop. The collapse of crypto hedge fund 3AC in June and the failure of FTX in November exacerbated the firm’s underperformance. 

“Luno unfortunately hasn’t been immune to this turbulence, which has affected our overall growth and revenue numbers,” the company said in a message shared with employees. “While we anticipated a downturn and proactively planned ahead with a business and funding model that can be resilient to some of these factors, the sheer scale and speed of all of this happening, and all at the same time, has put significant strain on our original plan.”

The company said that customers and operations would not be impacted. DCG and Luno did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by The Block.

“Given all the sensitivity and misinformation in the market right now, I believe it’s also important to reiterate to everyone that customer funds are safe,” the company 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.

The Lido team proposed plans for how the protocol should support ether withdrawals once Ethereum’s upcoming Shanghai upgrade has been activated.

The Lido team put forward its designs to the Lido DAO, the project’s form of governance, via a post on the community’s forum. The feature will enable users to unstake their staked ether tokens once the Shanghai upgrade happens.

The Lido team described the designing process for the withdrawal feature as a complex task. This complexity is due to the way staked ether withdrawals will work following the Shanghai upgrade. The process will be asynchronous, which means withdrawals won’t happen at the same time for all participants.

Lido’s planned withdrawal feature will have two modes, the design document stated. The first mode called “turbo” will process unstaking requests as quickly as possible while the “bunker” mode will be triggered under mass slashing conditions. Slashing is a penalty incurred by validators in a proof-of-stake network when they run foul of consensus rules. In Ethereum, validators get penalized by having a portion of their staked tokens burned. Lido’s bunker mode aims to prevent sophisticated actors from profiting at the expense of the community, the design document added.

For Lido, the withdrawal feature is an important aspect of its operations going forward. Lido is the most dominant liquid staking protocol on Ethereum. The project accounts for 29% of all staked ether, according to a Dune dashboard.

Lido DAO will deliberate on the design specifics in the coming days. The community will vote on any new recommendations before the plans will be implemented in the protocol.

© 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.

Fixed-rate contracts could be a thing of the past as the bitcoin mining hosting landscape transforms in 2023, Galaxy Digital said in a recent report.

The hashrate also will end the year up 23% at 325 EH, the firm said in its year-end report on mining. 

“The bitcoin mining industry is currently going through a purge of all of the excess and misallocations of capital that supported weak business models during the bull market of 2021,” the bank said. “Miners ended 2022 in survival mode, setting the stage for more turbulent times ahead in 2023.”

Several bitcoin miners have filed for bankruptcy amid a drop in bitcoin prices and a surge in energy costs, which have squeezed margins. Those that have survived thus far have been more cautious in spending on machines, which have lost tremendous value, and have been more fiscally responsible.

“Going forward, it is essential that miners develop a treasury management strategy that aligns with their future cash needs,” Galaxy said. However, it added, “In 2023, we do not anticipate the same level of sell pressure coming from miners.”

The firm notes that more than 1 GW of hosting capacity entered bankruptcy in 2022.

Fixed-rate contracts may become a thing of the past.”We may see hosting providers push for pass through power contracts plus a spread, while also offering clients certain revenue curtailment benefits,” Galaxy 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.

Marinade Finance, a liquid staking protocol for the Solana blockchain, has announced a token incentive program to reward users who deposit their solana (SOL) coins in exchange for a liquid staking derivative, mSOL.

The program, called “Open Doors,” will give out up to 160 million marinade tokens (worth some $9.6 million) as rewards to users over the next 12 months. The goal is to grow the amount of solana locked on the Marinade platform by 40 million SOL, the team said on Twitter. 

Liquid staking allows users to receive a token that represents their staked assets. These tokens, in this case mSOL, can then be used in other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols or for trading, but must be returned to unlock the original staked assets. This approach to staking allows users to free up liquidity and generate extra yield on assets that are being staked.

Currently, less than 3% of all SOL is used for liquid staking, according to Marinade’s estimates. However, as more users make use of liquid staking, this is expected to change. The team behind Marinade believes that a growth in liquid staking will have a significant impact to boost liquidity across various protocols in the Solana ecosystem.

© 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.

Blockchain-gaming unicorn Mythical Games’s plan for surviving a prolonged crypto winter? Go on the offensive.

While on one front Mythical CEO John Linden has traveled to Dubai to meet with potential investors — his company is considering raising an additional $50 million — on a separate front, the web3 firm is launching a digital-asset marketplace it hopes will streamline the process of onboarding new gamers.

Mythical Games was last valued at $1.25 billion after it raised $150 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. Deteriorating prices for digital assets and corruption, however, have been roiling the world of crypto, making gaming executives’ quest to add new users an increasingly steep hill to climb in recent months.

One of the primary aims with the company’s new marketplace, dubbed Mythical Marketplace 2.o, is catering to gamers who prize being able to quickly move assets, Linden said. “Gamers are not necessarily crypto traders,” he said. “Gamers are mostly looking for liquidity.”

Although Mythical kept the acquisition under wraps, it began integrating DMarket’s technology months ago as it pursued an improved marketplace platform. Linden said the tech overhaul is already paying dividends with monthly transactions on the rise. After going live about six weeks ago, Mythical’s new marketplace has processed more than 2 million transactions, the company said.

Onboarding made easy?

Unlike the market for high-profile digital-asset collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Doodles — where a single NFT can sell for thousands if not millions of dollars —  web3 gaming companies like Mythical are pursuing high volumes of lower-priced in-game transactions. One challenge is simplifying, for those new to crypto, the process of buying and selling digital assets, namely non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

“Marketplace 2.0 provides a frictionless user experience that enables peer-to-peer transactions … for gamers looking to participate in the play-and-own gaming economies of the future,” Mythical also said in a statement.

Linden also said a major advantage inherited from DMarket is that the marketplace has a working relationship with dozens of digital payment providers around the world. This should make onboarding new customers, regardless of location, even easier.

“It’s more consumer options,” Linden said. “Depending on where you’re at geographically they have a lot more payment options that are regionalized.”

Gameplay preview of NFL Rivals courtesy of Mythical Games.

Mythical’s gaming slate

As the number of blockchain-enabled gaming projects proliferate and an increasing number of veteran video game developers enter the space, Mythical Games may have a leg up on at least some of its competitors as the company has made inroads both launching games and raising its profile through partnerships with well-known brands.

Last September, Mythical launched Blankos Block Party, a title Linden said has so far attracted one million signups. The game is available on the Epic Game Store. Mythical also, through its partnership with the wildly popular National Football League has a sports game nearing a wide release called NFL Rivals.

“People are playing the crap out of the game,” Linden said of NFL Rivals, adding “the game’s going into soft launch next month and we’re aiming for a full launch a few months from now.”

© 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.

Governance members of Dai stablecoin issuer MakerDAO have approved a preliminary proposal to deposit $100 million worth of the USDC stablecoin from its reserves into a special investment account known as a “vault” managed by Yearn Finance. The vault has a limit of $100 million and is expected to earn an estimated yield of 2% per year for MakerDAO, worth $2 million.

The partnership between MakerDAO and Yearn Finance, which was first suggested in November 2022 by Yearn, a yield aggregator, still needs final approval through an executive vote. Executive Votes are the final step in the Maker Governance process and are used to implement technical changes to the Maker Protocol.

This move is in line with MakerDAO’s strategy of generating income from its treasury reserves by attracting interest from both centralized and decentralized entities for partnerships where they deposit assets into the reserves. 

In September 2022, Coinbase proposed that MakerDAO deposit $1.6 billion worth of USDC into its institutional platform, offering a yield of 1.5% per year. MakerDAO has also allocated USDC on various decentralized finance platforms such as Aave, Compound, and Idle Finance.

© 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.

Gemba, a software developer providing virtual reality training to corporates, raised $18 million in a Series A round led by Parkway Venture Capital. The deal values the business at $60 million. 

The fresh funds will foster a growth push in EMEA and expansion in North America, a company release said. 

The company, which counts Nike, Carlsberg and AstraZeneca among its clients, provides live, ‘life-like’ training experiences via VR headsets. The tech is currently only compatible with Meta’s Quest VR headset but it plans to expand to other popular devices, the company told TechCrunch. 

It is currently a costly affair to put on a masterclass through Gemba, with lessons coming in at around $7,250 per program. Enterprise subscriptions start at $120,000 for a 50-person team per year and can eat around $1.2 million at a larger scale. 

The raise is the latest example of cash pouring into the development of VR technologies. Throughout last year, a number of funds were created to back this kind of tech, including through global bank HSBC, investment management firm Invesco, chip maker Qualcomm and metaverse faithful Animoca Brands.

As it tries to justify its audacious play in AR and VR tech, Facebook parent Meta has made a case for VR having a useful application in the workplace – including training initiatives such as Gemba’s, online lectures and VR meetings. 

© 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.

Eligible account holders of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius will now be able to receive an airdrop of the Flare network’s token (FLR).

Chief Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York authorized Celsius to credit eligible account holders with the Flare tokens they are entitled to, according to a court order filed on Jan. 24.

The Flare network is a Layer 1 blockchain and oracle provider. Earlier this month, the blockchain distributed Flare tokens to anyone who held one or more XRP tokens during a December 2020 snapshot. XRP holders had been waiting over two years for this distribution.

A grant distribution agreement between Celsius and Flare network meant that holders of XRP within Celsius accounts were also expected to receive the airdrop. However, Celsius filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July and therefore needed to gain the approval of the court to grant the tokens. 

Flare tokens are currently trading at around 3 cents, according to data from CoinGecko. The token hit an all-time high of 15 cents on Jan. 10, which was the day after the airdrop took place. Around 4.28 billion tokens were distributed to recipients .

© 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.

Episode 2 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Defiant founder Camila Russo.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

The crypto bull market in 2017 inspired journalist Camila Russo to tell the story behind the creation of Ethereum.

Russo’s book, “The Infinite Machine,” has caught the attention of Ridley Scott, whose production company Scott Free Productions has signed on to co-produce the film adaption. Ridley Scott is best known for helming such blockbusters as “Gladiator”, “Alien”, “Blade Runner”, “Thelma & Louise”, among many others.

In this episode of The Scoop, Camila Russo recounts how her personal experience using crypto in South America showed her the advantages of decentralized systems and shares some striking revelations from time spent researching the origins of Ethereum.

According to Russo, an important early dispute among Ethereum’s eight cofounders centered around Ethereum’s business model:

“It was, ‘Are we are we building a foundation to encourage building on top of this open source platform?’ or, ‘Are we building a for-profit company that’s going to make tons of apps on top of this protocol?’ . . . At the end of that, Vitalik had to make the call, and he decided that this would be a nonprofit foundation.”

One takeaway Russo hopes readers get from her book is the idea that “there is an alternative being built,” when it comes to things like the internet (web3) and our financial system (DeFi).

As of yet, there is no release date for the film adaptation of “The Infinite Machine,” although the community has created an NFT collection to raise funds for the film.

During this episode, Chaparro and Russo also discuss:

• Why Vitalik Buterin is an effective leader.
• What is left for Ethereum to accomplish.
• How the book got picked for a film adaptation.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network, NordVPN

About Circle
Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com to learn more.

About Railgun
RAILGUN is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let RAILGUN’s Zero-Knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance, and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with RAILGUN SDK and be sure to check out RAILGUN with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more.

About Flare
Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetisation models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network

About NordVPN
NordVPN is essential for keeping crypto transactions secure, hiding your IP address and protecting your devices from hackers and data theft. Get premium cyber-security on up to 6 devices for the price of a cup of coffee a month. Get your exclusive NordVPN Deal and try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee: Visit https://nordvpn.com/thescoop

© 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 prices were relatively steady, while ether and DOT dipped. Silvergate sank as equities were in the red. 

Bitcoin continues to trade around $23,000, relatively flat throughout the day, according to TradingView data. 

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

Ether slid around 1% to $1,614 by 4:25 p.m. EST, and Polkadot’s DOT dropped 2.6% in the same period. 

ETHUSD chart by TradingView

Crypto stocks and structured products

Silvergate shed 11% to around $14.27, according to Nasdaq data, having gained 17% during Monday’s session.

Coinbase dropped 4.3% to $53.56, and Block and MicroStrategy fell about 1%. 

Grayscale’s premier fund, the Grayscale bitcoin trust (GBTC), fell 2.5% to $11.97. Shares in the fund now trade at a discount of 41.5% to the value of the bitcoin in the fund, according to The Block data.

© 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.