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A new report from the Department of Justice proposes more international cooperation among law enforcement agencies on the crypto and blockchain front.

Information sharing and the harmonization of anti-money laundering and know-your-customer rules were also proposed in the DOJ report, which was developed in conjunction with other US agencies in the wake of the Biden White House’s executive order on crypto. That EO was released in March.

The report itself was drafted in response to that executive order. In the introduction, US Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote that “the growing use of digital assets in the global financial system has profound implications for investors, consumers, and businesses and increases the risk of crimes such as money laundering, ransomware, terrorist financing, fraud and theft, and sanctions evasion.”

Garland went on to write:

“Strong international law enforcement cooperation will be essential to best position the United States and its partners to detect, investigate, prosecute, and otherwise disrupt criminal activity related to digital assets, and to overcome the unique obstacles posed by the features of these technologies to law enforcement efforts to combat their misuse.”

Specifically, as Garland noted, the department proposes “expanding our operational and capacity building efforts with international partners; increasing information sharing, coordination, and deconfliction; and closing regulatory gaps across jurisdictions.”

Read the full 58-page report here. 

© 2022 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.

Aurora, an Ethereum compatible blockchain on the NEAR Protocol, paid a $6 million bounty reward to an ethical hacker known as pwning.eth, who discovered a critical vulnerability on the network in April. 

The vulnerability was reported through the bug bounty platform Immunefi, and was patched before any hack took place or funds were lost. 

Per Immunefi, this was a critical inflation bug on Aurora Engine, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment built on the NEAR protocol. This is where users can deposit ETH and ERC-20 tokens from the Ethereum mainnet to NEAR.

That bug in the Aurora engine could have allowed a malicious entity to mint new ETH and drain more than 70,000 ETH, worth about $122 million currently and $210 million when the bug was reported.

“Our bug bounty program with Immunefi proved very valuable in incentivizing white hats to look at our code base and disclose bugs in a responsible manner,” stated Frank Braun, head of security at Aurora Labs. “Such a vulnerability should have been discovered at an earlier stage of the defence pipeline and we have already started improving our methods to achieve that in the future. However this event ultimately proves that our security mechanisms work,” Braun added.

The bug bounty program from Aurora is still live on Immunefi, as well as many other programs. To date, Immunefi claims to have helped ethical hackers and security researchers earn $40 million in total rewards. In the month of May, Immunefi revealed that Wormhole paid out $10 million to a white hat hacker through its platform.

© 2022 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 tax and accounting startup Ledgible has closed a $20 million Series A led by asset management firm EJF Capital. Thomson Reuters Ventures, Fenbushi US and TTV Capital among others also joined the round, according to a release. 

Ledgible says it integrates major blockchains, exchanges, wallets, and professional accounting tools in order to determine tax liabilities for both consumers and enterprises. The funding will be used to expand its product offering, as well as to recruit experts for its ‘professional tax’ and ‘enterprise accounting’ product lines. 

© 2022 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.

Katie Haun’s Haun Ventures has led a $32 million fundraising round for Euler, a non-custodial protocol that allows users to lend and borrow digital assets. 

Euler, which is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, says it’s able to mitigate the risk of lending and borrowing assets through a framework that assigns each investment a tier depending on its risk. 

“Euler takes a unique approach to address the risks associated with lending and borrowing crypto assets that stood out to us as exemplary in DeFi,” Haun said in a statement on Tuesday. “These kinds of innovative solutions are particularly important since lending and borrowing protocols serve as a key cornerstone of crypto markets.”

The company says that the round — which also featured participation from Variant, FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto — will help it diversify the Euler DAO treasury.

DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations, are decentralized structures that give investors the ability to vote on proposals ranging from a protocol’s marketing efforts to a new product via a native governance token. Euler says its DAO, which will launch later this year, will give users the ability to vote on Euler’s development and operations, and determine how its community treasury is put to use. 

Euler is one of the first investments for Katie Haun, a former federal prosecutor turned investor, since she founded Haun Ventures and raised $1.5 billion for two crypto-focused venture capital funds. Previously, the firm led a $50 million round into NFT marketplace Zora and also invested in crypto tax software TaxBit.

© 2022 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.

Tech conglomerate Samsung said Tuesday that its US arm is launching a new Discord server to support its Web3 activities — joining the ranks of many crypto projects that use the chat client for this purpose.

“The Samsung US Discord server is specially designed as a fun, interactive way for fans, gamers and creators to interact and get exclusive access to products, events, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other Web3-based wonders,” the company said in a statement. 

The new Discord server has more than 100 members as of press time. 

Samsung’s existing Web3 efforts include launches in Decentraland, which the company debuted in January.

© 2022 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.

Pitango, one of Israel’s leading venture capital firms, has launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to invest in web3 projects.

Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Tuesday, Pitango said this is Israel’s first investment DAO. Specifically, Pitango’s fund — called Pitango First — has launched First Labs, which has then created a DAO called First DAO.

“We are breaking the traditional VC model and will issue a token,” Aviv Barzilay, head of First Labs at Pitango, told The Block in an interview. Barzilay declined to share a timeline for the token launch, details on tokenomics and the investment amount the DAO is launching with.

Pitango, as a VC firm, has around $3 billion in assets under management, said Barzilay.

First DAO

The main reason for Pintago to launch the DAO is to onboard Israel’s web2 startups, especially in the infrastructure and cybersecurity space, to web3, said Barzilay.

With the DAO in place, several people with crypto expertise can help those startups grow in the crypto industry, according to Barzilay.

Founding members of the DAO include Barzilay himself, other unnamed core members of the Pitango First team, Celsius project manager Tomer Weiss, play-to-earn blockchain gaming startup Kryptomon’s chief strategy officer Amit Peled, digital identity solutions company SuperCom’s external director Oren De-lange and crypto PR firm MarketAcross’s partners Nadav Dekner, Elad Mor and Itai Elizur.

First DAO plans to gradually assign management to its community over time.

As for its investment focus, the DAO will invest in early-stage startups across verticals such as DeFi, NFT, gaming and metaverse, said Barzilay.

Pintago First and First Labs have invested in several crypto startups to date, but Barzilay declined to name them because they are in stealth mode.

The DAO will also incubate projects and the first incubation program is expected to launch within the next two months.

“That’s a very big part of what we do,” said Barzilay.

Earlier this year, global VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners also launched a DAO called BessemerDAO — a tool for community engagement and product development among entrepreneurs in the web3 industry. Some of the inaugural members of BessemerDAO include Jay Chang of the Solana-based game Genopets, Josh Fried of Solana Labs and Esteban Castaño of TRM Labs.

© 2022 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.

Telegram, a messaging app popular with crypto investors, said a pseudonymous Twitter thread alleging crimes including rape and assassination “has all the hallmarks of a hoax” and is probably an attempt to steal the private keys to users’ crypto wallets. 

A Twitter user going by the handle @adyingnobody claimed to have used an exploit in Telegram’s software to download more than 100GB of messages, including evidence of behavior ranging from crypto influencers “pretending to be someone you’re not” to rape, pedophilia and even murder. The top post in the thread had more than 4,000 retweets as of 7:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday. 

The Block also received an email from an address with a similar name, recapping the allegations — although they didn’t respond to a follow-up email requesting more information.

A spokesperson for Telegram poured cold water on the lurid tales, telling The Block that “the post has all the hallmarks of a hoax and the purpose of the text is likely to make gullible people download some malware that steals your private keys.” 

© 2022 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.

Navigate, a Singapore-based web3 startup that will let its users share data and earn crypto rewards, has raised $7.6 million in a seed funding round.

Crypto-focused investment firm Distributed Global led the round, with Kraken Ventures, Outlier Ventures, British hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard and others participating, Navigate announced today.

Navigate is founded by a group of five people: Rumi Morales, director of investments at Digital Currency Group; Amir Husain, founder and CEO of artificial intelligence company SparkCognition; Ali Husain, director at SparkCognition; Amanda Center, manager at SparkCognition; and Moeez Hassan Qadri, a former project manager at SparkCognition.

Morales and Amir Husain are also the founding board directors of Navigate.

Navigate has raised the seed round via a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) sale, Center told The Block. That means investors will receive Navigate’s native NVG8 token in exchange for their capital at a future date.

Navigate closed its round in the first quarter of this year, said Center. She acknowledged that the market environment has now become challenging for raising funds, but investor capital remains available “for great ideas and good teams.”

Data sharing and monetization

Navigate’s business idea is to let users share data on its platform and, in return, offer crypto rewards in its NVG8 token.

But what kind of data is Navigate looking for? Center said users can upload data points captured by the Internet of Things (IoT) devices tracking air pollution, carbon emissions, water pressure, noise levels, utility efficiency, airspace activity, or even network signal strength.

“While the goal of the Navigate Platform is to be the ultimate destination for contributing and sourcing several different types of critical data, initially, the marketplace will offer data vaults for predefined data types,” Center said. “These will include drone imagery, dashcam and street-view footage, mobility data, and weather monitoring data, among others.”

How will Navigate work?

The Navigate platform will consist of Navigate Marketplace and Navigate Dapps. The marketplace will allow users to share data and Navigate Dapps will allow developers to use that data and build decentralized applications on Navigate.

Navigate said its first application will be Navigate Maps — a map of major cities. Unlike traditional satellite-based map offerings, Navigate claims that Maps will be a community-owned app that is constantly updated using data uploaded by users.

Navigate’s platform will be rolled out in phases, said Center. A beta version of its marketplace is planned to launch later this month and mainnet later this year. As for Navigate Maps, its first version is expected to launch in the third quarter of this year, said Center.

Navigate plans to launch more such applications that could be used by various types of clients, Center said. These include software companies searching for annotated images to improve machine learning algorithms, auto manufacturers willing to pay for dashcam images, climate change researchers looking for live carbon dioxide emissions or air quality index statistics and advertising firms searching for consumer feedback on products or services.

As for Navigate’s business model, if the Navigate ecosystem grows, it will increase the demand for its native NVG8 token and that could increase its price.

There are currently 12 people working for Navigate and the startup plans to stay lean for the time being, said Center.

© 2022 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.

US Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) unveiled the full version of their long-awaited crypto regulation bill on Tuesday. 

Among many proposals, the legislation impels digital asset firms to make disclosures so users can make informed decisions, according to The Washington Post. It also defines which US regulators are responsible for which digital assets and requires a study on crypto’s energy consumption.

Last month, The Block obtained a draft version of the bill that offered key details about its scope and impact.

Lummis joined forces with Gillibrand in March when the two teased they were collaborating on the forthcoming bill. Lummis, a staunch conservative and ally of Donald Trump, faced an uphill battle getting Democratic support for the bill.

© 2022 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.

Wild West-themed gunslinger game Grit will become the first web3 game hosted on the Epic Games Store, the game’s publisher Gala Games announced on Monday.

The company described Grit as a ride-or-die battle royale set in the Wild West. In it, players face off in showdowns and shootouts, and different modes allow for teaming up with other players and squads.

Developed by Team Grit, the game will become available to players later this year and marks another attempt by web3 gaming developers to go mainstream. According to a DappRadar report in April, blockchain gaming activity grew 2,000% in Q1 over the previous year. But it still faces challenges when it comes to mass adoption.

Part of that comes from the reluctance of storefronts to host web3 games. While Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney has said he is open to web3 gaming, competitor Valve banned games that use blockchain technology on its distribution platform Steam last year.

However, John Osvald, president of games at Gala Games, hopes that its titles being available on Epic will bring legitimacy to web3 gaming. 

“Easy access to web3 games is a turning point for those players who have not yet seen how digital ownership can enrich the gaming experience,” Osvald added.

The cost of playing has also been associated with turning would-be players off of web3 gaming, particularly when it comes to the costs associated with getting set up and purchasing unique avatars — and Grit may be no exception to this issue. Its NFT collection of 10,000 gunslinger avatars doubled in price from $600 on Monday to $1,200 on Tuesday, and on June 9 the public sale will kick off with a minimum price of $1,500 per NFT.

© 2022 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.