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Berlin-based startup Mondu has announced a $43 million Series A round led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. 

The startup aims to bring buy now pay later (BNPL) to a B2B business model, meaning that companies can access similar flexible payment options to those Klarna offers its consumer customers.

The raise, which features participation from Cherry Ventures and Fintech Collective, will be used to scale its solution and expand into new European markets, beginning with Austria in June, according to an announcement on Monday.

Mondu helps solve several problems in B2B financing, Andrew McCormack, founding partner of Valar Ventures, argued in a press release to accompany the announcement. 

“The B2B payments market is immense, and its transition to digital has been accelerated over the past couple of years. The B2B e-commerce market is larger than B2C but is underserved by current offerings, and supply chain financing is a growing need, particularly for SMBs. Online transactions with financing options are limited,” according to McCormack.

 This Series A follows only seven months after its $14 million seed round in October. The company was founded the previous month. 

The funding for Mondu follows recent difficulties for BNPL players in the consumer sector. Last week, Klarna fired 10% of its workforce citing a worsening outlook for the company in the current economic climate. 

The news followed a Bloomberg report that Klarna saw its borrowing costs climb to record levels as rising interest rates hit the company’s debt and equity valuations. 

© 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.

UK-based startup Merge announced on Monday it has raised $9.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Octopus Ventures. 

Founded by former PayPal executive Kebbie Sebastian late last year, Merge aims to provide access to banking, payments, risk management and compliance to web3 companies via an application programming interface (API). APIs are software bridges that allow businesses to more simply access each others’ systems.

“Our target customers are web3 companies that need to interface and collect funds in fiat from their customers or institutions so we’re talking crypto exchanges, wallets and DeFi gateways,” Sebastian explained in an interview with The Block, noting that many traditional banks aren’t willing to offer financial services to crypto companies. 

Through Merge’s API, the startup aims to offer such services including the enabling of collecting and holding funds for themselves and for their customers and the conversion of crypto to fiat and vice versa within a wallet. These services are offered without the business having to worry about issues of compliance as this is handled by Merge. 

While starting in the UK, Sebastian says that the startup will aim to serve customers around the world — with much of the new funding going towards procuring licensing coverage and regulatory approvals globally. The extra cash will also go toward building out its team, which currently numbers just 12. 

The bridge between fintech and crypto

For Sebastian, Octopus was a clear choice as a lead investor due to its strength in both fintech and crypto, industries with which Merge sees itself as intersecting. 

“It was very important to us to have investors that both understood the fintech world and the crypto world because we are merging these two together,” says Sebastian. “And Octopus has been a fantastic partner in that.” 

Along with Octopus, the round also features investors from crypto stalwarts such as Ethereal Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Alameda Research. 

The raise follows recent rounds from Multis, Coinbooks and Rain, three other startups that aim to bridge the crypto world with traditional banking services. 

“Merge’s vision is to build the infrastructure necessary to allow crypto businesses to operate without fear of shutdown by regulators or third-party risk teams,” said Octopus’ Zihao Xu in a statement. “We’re excited to back them as they build that.” 

© 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.

Episode 47 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Anthony Scaramucci, Founder of SkyBridge Capital and Chair of SALT.

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

As Anthony Scaramucci explained during his last appearance on The Scoop, his firm SkyBridge Capital began investing in bitcoin near the end of 2020. 

Just under two years later, Scaramucci is positioned near the center of the burgeoning crypto industry, largely due to his role as Chair of finance conference business SALT, which partnered with FTX to host the first annual Crypto Bahamas conference in April of this year.

In this episode of The Scoop, Scaramucci tells the story of how he first met FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and explains why upcoming regulatory clarity could signify “a floodgate opening” for bitcoin.

Out of the multiple structural tailwinds Scaramucci covers during the interview, he believes his prediction that a “cash bitcoin ETF will happen sometime this year” would likely have the biggest impact on the market, if it turns out to be true.

As Scaramucci hinted at during the show, “Buddies of mine have very large institutions, that unfortunately for right now have to remain nameless due to confidentiality, that are gearing up and ready to pounce on the Bitcoin cash ETF.”

According to a Nasdaq survey conducted in April, 72% of financial advisors polled indicated they would be more likely to invest client assets into crypto if there was spot ETF product available. Although the SEC has either rejected or delayed bitcoin spot ETF applications for years, Scaramucci believes that could all change soon, “given the saturation and the maturity of the market.”

In addition to a potential bitcoin spot ETF approval, Scaramucci also points to Fidelity’s recent announcement that it will allow clients to gain bitcoin exposure through their 401k accounts as another structural tailwind for bitcoin in the long run.

As Scaramucci explains during the show, inflows from the $2.7 trillion in 401k assets controlled by Fidelity could have a profound and steady impact on the crypto market:

“Fidelity is about to do for bitcoin what it did for the mutual fund and the U.S. equity markets when the 401k programs came into existence in the 1980s. The under-ownership of stocks born from the Great Depression still lived in the 1980s, and Fidelity pushed that into people’s accounts, successfully for them, and successfully for Fidelity. They’re about to do that to Bitcoin.”

During this episode, Chaparro and Scaramucci also discuss:

• The obsolescence of the American financial system
• The “anti-fragility” of robust decentralized systems
• Redefining the 60/40 portfolio allocation to include a digital asset strategy

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime
Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

© 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.

Solana-based “move-to-earn” game Stepn will block users in mainland China as required by the authorities there, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday.

Stepn is an Australia-based company that offers a blockchain-based fitness app. It works by letting users buy NFTs that last for a certain amount of time. During this time, the user can exercise and earn the platform’s native GST tokens as rewards, The Block reported earlier this year.

The company will begin “checking and clearing out” mainland China users and stop providing them GPS and IP geolocation services on July 15, it said Thursday on Twitter.

Co-founded by Jerry Huang and Yawn Rong, the game’s biggest markets include Japan and the US, and it now employs about 60 people, Rong told the SCMP.

© 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.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its annual report released on Friday that it was taking a “graded approach” toward the introduction of a Central Bank Digital Currency, News 18 reported.

“The Reserve Bank is engaged in the introduction of a central bank digital currency in India. The design of CBDC needs to be in conformity with the stated objectives of monetary policy, financial stability and efficient operations of currency and payment systems,’’ it said in the Annual Report on the Working of the Reserve Bank of India 2022.

“The Reserve Bank proposes to adopt a graded approach to introduction of CBDC, going step by step through stages of Proof of Concept, pilots and the launch,” The RBI said in the report. “Accordingly, the appropriate design elements of CBDCs that could be implemented with little, or no disruption are under examination,” the report added.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her budget speech earlier this year that the RBI planned to issue a digital rupee, according to Bitcoin.com.

© 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.

Intuit Chief Executive Officer Sasan Goodarzi said his prediction that crypto investors would encounter surprise obligations this tax season proved to be true, Bloomberg reported.

Many crypto investors “have piles of documents that include all of their trading,” Goodarzi told Bloomberg earlier this week. “Not being able to make heads or tails out of ‘What does this mean to my taxes’ — so it creates fear, uncertainty and doubt.”

Intuit, maker of TurboTax and other consumer finance software, reckoned that customers filing crypto transactions with their tax returns will more than quadruple this fiscal year, the report said. Goodarzi said the company will work to educate its customers about the tax implications of investing.

© 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 exchange giant Binance said on Friday that Binance Italy had received regulatory approval through registration as a cryptocurrency service provider with the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (OAM), as required by Italian legislation on crypto assets.

The registration of Binance Italy allows it to offer crypto products to its customers in Italy and represents a milestone in Binance’s growth strategy, allowing the company to strengthen its presence by opening offices and expanding the local team, it said in a statement.

The Block reported last July that Italy’s securities regulator had issued a warning against Binance, saying that the crypto exchange was unauthorized to operate in the country.

Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Binance, said on Friday: “Clear and effective regulation is essential for mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. We thank the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the OAM for their efforts in defining and controlling the necessary requirements to operate in Italy in full transparency.”

Earlier this month, French financial regulators granted Binance a digital asset service provider license, The Block reported. The company also recently received licenses to operate in Bahrain and Dubai.

© 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 exchange FTX is ready to spend billions of dollars for stakes in other companies, Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried told Bloomberg in an interview.

The billionaire CEO, who’s also a co-founder of FTX, said on Friday that recent fundraising of more than $2 billion by the company and its US entity may be used for the investments aimed at expanding its range of services to its customers.

“FTX is a profitable company,” he said. “You can look at the amount that we’ve raised over the last year or two — it’s a few billion dollars. That gives maybe a sense of where we are in terms of cash that was explicitly viewed from a potential acquisition angle.”

In January, FTX raised $400 million at a $32 billion valuation, bringing the total raised in the prior half year to near $2 billion, Bloomberg said, adding that its US entity separately raised $400 million. 

The Block reported last week that FTX was in the process of closing a new funding round that may bring in from $400 million to $1 billion, according to sources familiar.

© 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.

Terra’s new blockchain codenamed Phoenix-1 mainnet launched today at 6 am UTC and is now generating blocks, according to Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon. The new chain aims to revive the Terra ecosystem after its UST algorithmic stablecoin imploded a couple weeks ago. The collapse of Terra’s tokens wiped out some $40 billion in market value. 

Following the fiasco, Do Kwon, CEO of Terraform Labs, the core development firm behind Terra, proposed a new blockchain. It took only a few days after that proposal was approved for Kwon to deploy another chain, the one that’s open for use today. Several applications have now migrated to the new chain, including Astroport, Prism, RandomEarth, Spectrum, Nebula, Terraswap, Edge Protocol and others.

Before today’s  launch, the governance voted to change the name of the original network to “Terra Classic,” whose tokens are now called LUNA Classic (LUNC), in order to position the newly launched Terra 2.0 as the main network. Unlike its predecessor, the new Terra chain exists without an algorithmic stablecoin and comes only with LUNA that have a fixed total supply of 1 billion tokens. These LUNA 2.0 tokens will trade separately from the original LUNA Classic tokens, whose supply amounts to more than 6.5 trillion.

The most noteworthy aspect of today’s launch is the airdrop of new LUNA coins to Terra stakeholders on the Classic chain. They have been earmarked to receive 70% or (700 million) of the total LUNA 2.0 token supply. The amount of LUNA 2.0 airdrop each person gets varies depending on whether those tokens were held before or after UST’s depeg, according to an official announcement. 

The airdrop is expected to be claimed shortly after launch, either through centralized exchanges or Terra’s own website. Several central crypto exchanges including Binance, Huobi, Kraken, Bitfinex, Bitrue, Kucoin and Bybit said they are letting Terra supporters receive their allotted tokens from within their platforms. Still, not all of the airdropped tokens are claimable at launch; only 30% of the initial supply can be immediately claimed. The remaining 70% airdrop amount has been staked directly with validators to ensure network security and those will vest in as long as two years. 

Besides 70% divided among the two investor categories, Terra’s community pool, an on-chain treasury fund, is set to receive 30% (300 million) of LUNA on the Terra 2.0 chain. The community pool is controlled by Terra governance to fund development activities. Of the total pool amount, 30 million are assigned for developers who have decided to remain and rebuild on the new Terra chain, according to earlier announcement.

© 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.

Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies approved the advancement of a crypto regulation bill to the Senate this week, despite pushback from the country’s central bank. 

In a special session on May 25, deputies voted 40 to 12 in favor of moving the bill forward with modifications. The project will now return to Paraguay’s senate for further consideration.

The bill, first introduced in Paraguay’s Senate in July 2021, aims to regulate commercial activities relating to virtual assets. This would include licensing and supervising crypto mining companies operating in Paraguay. The proposed law does not involve making any cryptocurrency legal tender. 

“The purpose of this law is to regulate the production activities and commercialization of virtual or crypto assets, in order to guarantee legal, financial and fiscal security to the businesses derived from their production and commercialization,” the bill’s first article states. 

While the majority of deputies agreed to advance the bill, not everyone is excited about the prospect of Paraguay regulating the crypto sector. The country’s central bank (BCP) submitted a comment in March saying that, in its view, it is unclear whether the benefits Paraguay would receive from regulating the digital asset industry would outweigh cons like “electricity consumption, loss of reputation and costs for the financial system, which would be significant.”

“Crypto assets do not fulfill the basic functions of money and constitute high-risk investments,” the BCP wrote in its analysis. “The intention to regulate the industry and commercialization of virtual assets, as intended in this bill, could generate a false sense of security regarding the holding of this type of asset.”

The BCP reiterated this position just last week when central bankers were meeting in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion. While many thought the event was primarily about bitcoin, the bank clarified that the meeting was not focused on cryptocurrencies and that it did not plan to discuss them at the event. The bank also reminded people that cryptocurrencies were not legal tender in Paraguay by linking to a statement it made in 2019 about their use.  

Lawmakers discussed the bill at length before voting, raising concerns about issues such as electricity usage and money laundering. Deputy Basilio Núñez, for example, claimed that the project will “favor organized crime” and raised concerns about El Salvador’s use of bitcoin as legal tender.

But Carlos Rejala disagreed. “Totally the opposite,” he said, explaining that the law would be focused on the traceability of digital assets. He also underscored that the law would not make cryptocurrencies legal tender, but rather give oversight to the digital asset industry.

© 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.