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On Sunday evening, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele tweeted that the nation will be hosting more than 40 countries this week to discuss topics including the Central American country’s bitcoin rollout. 

“Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country,” the tweet said. 

Many interpreted this to mean that El Salvador, which last year made bitcoin legal tender and passed a law requiring that most merchants accept it, is holding a bitcoin-focused conference for central bankers. That’s not quite the case, however.

While Bukele listed all of the central banks that would be participating in the talks, he did not tweet the name of the event. As it turns out, two financial meetings are happening in San Salvador between May 16 and May 19: The 25th Digital Financial Services Working Group (DFSWG) and 18th SME Finance Working Group (SMEFWG). 

These working groups are both part of the Alliance For Financial Inclusion (AFI), a Malaysia-based organization that describes itself as “a policy leadership alliance owned and led by member central banks and financial regulatory institutions with the common objective of advancing financial inclusion at the country, regional and international levels.” El Salvador’s Central Reserve Bank is jointly hosting these two working group meetings with AFI. 

But the idea that these meetings would focus mainly on bitcoin seems overplayed, especially considering that the AFI event page does not even mention crypto or bitcoin by name when describing the content the working groups will cover.

This confusion has compelled at least one country to set the record straight. Paraguay’s central bank (BCP) issued a May 16 statement saying that while it is participating in the SME Finance Working Group meeting, that event is not primarily focused on crypto. “The focus of the meeting is not related to cryptocurrencies or the like,” a translation of the Spanish-language BCP statement reads. The bank explained that it was releasing the clarification following publications stating it would participate in an “international event about cryptocurrencies.” 

The BCP then reiterated that cryptocurrency is not legal tender in Paraguay by linking back to its 2019 remarks on the topic. “Likewise, the BCP does not plan to discuss cryptocurrencies in the said environment or meeting, a matter on which an institutional position has been established at the time,” it added.

The Block asked AFI for an agenda but did not receive one by press time.

Cryptocurrency has come up during the working group meetings as central bank heads discuss financial inclusion. After all, financial leaders sitting in El Salvador are probably curious to know how the country’s bitcoin implementation is playing out there. But it’s a stretch to say this is “a conference that may best be described as the Davos for Bitcoin,” as one media outlet wrote. It is primarily focused on financial inclusion, and one of several meetings that AFI holds each year.

© 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 software provider TaxBit has netted an investment from Haun Ventures.

The venture capital firm formed by former federal prosecutor and Andreessen Horowitz general partner Katie Haun is seeking to help develop crypto firms through funding and engagement with policymakers and regulators. News broke that Haun raised $1.5 billion for two crypto-focused VC funds in March of this year. Since then, the funds have invested in non-fungible token platforms and web3 community builders among other projects.  

TaxBit is its latest strategic investment, which comes in the wake of a considerable uptick in regulatory scrutiny around crypto tax reporting. A provision in last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expanded the definition of “broker” to cryptocurrency network participants, meaning more tax standardization for crypto firms is on the table for next tax season. TaxBit provides software to help accountants and investors compliantly meet these tax burdens. 

“The Haun Ventures team shares TaxBit’s vision of working with regulators to propel responsible regulation that enables digital asset adoption at scale,” said TaxBit founder and CEO Austin Woodward in the announcement. 

TaxBit reached a unicorn valuation of $1.33 billion after a $130 million Series B round in August of last year. That came just five months after a $100 million Series A round. 

© 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.

Bitcoin miners recovered on the stock markets Tuesday, after a rough start to the week.

Some of the biggest climbs included Stronghold Digital Mining (+18.01%), Bit Digital (+11.18%), Argo Blockchain (+11.13%). Notably, Iris Energy rose +20.82%.

On the other side, Northern Data had fallen 4.02% by the end of the trading session.

Here is a look at how other crypto mining companies did in the markets on Tuesday, May 17:

© 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.

Ikigai Asset Management, a Puerto Rico-based crypto asset management startup that deploys capital for more than 275 investors, announced Tuesday that it raised $30 million in venture funding. 

Ikigai opened up the investment pool to any of its 275 limited-partner investors. The firm intends to use the venture funding for its Ikigai Trust Revolution Opportunities fund, which is designed to invest in startups or projects related to the metaverse, blockchain gaming, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and other web3 initiatives.

Another focus of the fund will be “X-to-earn” models of gaming, such as play-to-earn and move-to-earn. 

“X-to-earn is a trend in the top of the first inning that we believe can be transformative for humanity over the coming decades,” Ikigai chief investment officer Travis Kling said in a statement. “We will fund and help build the projects leading to that transformation.” 

Ikigai’s newest fund joins Framework Ventures, 6th Man Ventures and other firms establishing venture funds for play-to-earn, metaverse and other web3 projects.

© 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.

Coinbase and crypto staking firm Figment are supporting the development of a new liquid staking protocol aimed at institutional investors.

Coinbase Cloud and Figment will serve as validators on the new Alluvial protocol, according to separate statements from Alluvial and Coinbase shared with The Block on Tuesday.

Alluvial is being developed by a team led by three founders: Matt Leisinger, former head of liquid staking products at Figment; Nicolas Maurice, the former CTO of staking platform Kiln; and Mike Taormina, former head of institutional business at the Index Cooperative DAO.

The startup’s pitch is that current liquid staking protocols do not cater to the needs of institutional investors. “What the space needs is an opportunity for enterprises and institutions to leverage composable liquidity while remaining aligned with their compliance requirements,” Leisinger told The Block.

“By working with trusted integrators who understand compliance and execute KYC / AML checks, Alluvial will be able to build seamless on-ramps into the protocol that make it easy for institutions to stake their assets,” Leisinger added. 

Mara Schmiedt, senior manager of Coinbase Cloud at Coinbase, concurred. Institutional investors, she said, “need to know their counterparties and enterprise-grade security is top of mind.”

Alluvial will initially support staking on Ethereum and has a plan of multichain support in the future, said Leisinger. The protocol is expected to launch sometime later this year.

Leisinger did not comment on whether Alluvial has raised any funds and whether Coinbase and Figment are investors in the project.

Crypto staking has grown popular over the last year, including liquid staking. Liquid staking allows investors to earn the original staking reward and also use the same capital to earn additional yield via decentralized finance platforms.

Lido, the current market-leading liquid staking protocol, has nearly $9 billion worth of assets locked by its customers, according to data from DeFi Llama.

As The Block reported recently, traditional staking platforms, including Figment and Blockdaemon, are also working on launching liquid staking services for institutional clients.

As for long-term plans for Alluvial, it intends to convert into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and hand over governance to its community, said Leisinger.

© 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.

Linktree, a platform that allows creators to include all their social media links on one page, is launching NFT features, some of which are in partnership with NFT marketplace OpenSea.

The features include an NFT Gallery, which allows users to show off the NFTs they own; NFT profile pictures and background images; and NFT “locks,” a feature that lets creators lock access to certain links on their page that can only be unlocked by visitors who own the NFT.

It will also be possible to add an interactive link to an OpenSea collection. When visitors to the page hover over the link, it generates a preview of the OpenSea page. Linktree will rely on OpenSea and Metamask to verify NFTs on the platform. 

New Linktree layout 

The new integration “allows users to prominently display the work they’ve created or proudly collected, now just one click away on Linktree,” said Ryan Foutty, VP of Business Development at OpenSea, in a statement. “We know many NFT creators and collectors already use Linktree to link to their collections on OpenSea, and we’re excited that the Linktree integration makes NFT displays that much more seamless and engaging.”

Many social media companies recently have also launched experiments in NFT profile pictures and other integrations. This month, Meta started to test digital collectibles on a select group of creators in the US. Earlier this year, Twitter also launched an NFT profile picture feature which was also supported by the API of OpenSea. 

© 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.

Blockchain analytics platform Nansen has acquired Ape Board, a tool that allows users to track their portfolio of non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi) investments. 

Ape Board will become the starting point of a new free-to-use portfolio tracker that will integrate with the rest of Nansen’s features, according to an announcement on Tuesday. Nansen will incorporate Ape Board’s 13 employees into its 120-strong team in the coming months. Ape Board co-founder and CEO Mike Phulsuksombati will switch to heading up portfolio functionality.

The acquisition was for an eight-figure sum, a Nansen representative told The Block. 

“Obtaining data from the cryptocurrency ecosystem, specifically, DeFi protocols and blockchains is complex and fragmented,” Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen, said in a statement. “Across the web3 landscape, investors are forced to utilize an assortment of different tools in order to obtain a singular piece of data that will help inform their investment strategy. With this acquisition, we take a big step towards bringing all the market intelligence a trader, institution, or business needs under one roof.”

Launched in 2020, Nansen is an analytics platform that pairs blockchain data with wallet labels. It is known for its ability to track what high-value investors are doing on-chain. Investors use the platform to assess opportunities and to stay on top of their portfolios with real-time alerts.

Nansen announced its latest funding round in December last year, raising $75 million in its Series B. Tiger Global, GIC and Andreessen Horowitz are among its most prominent backers.

© 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.

Quick Take

• Jane Street Capital recently said it would borrow $25 million in the stablecoin USDC through a little-known lending platform called Clearpool.
• Here’s a look at what Clearpool does.

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Quick Take

• Founded in 2013, Mercado Bitcoin is one of the largest crypto exchanges in Latin America – its parent company, 2TM Group, has a diversified crypto company portfolio that provides services beyond Mercado Bitcoin’s trading functions
• After completing its Undisclosed Series A and +250mm Series B in 2021, 2TM Group has actively deployed capital for strategic acquisitions, product development and business expansion in new regions

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Quick Take

• Founded in 2019 by Karl Floersch, Jinglan Wang, and Ben Jones, Optimism is a layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution utilizing optimistic rollups
• In April 2022, Optimism announced its governance token OP and a new governance structure
• In total, The Block has noted and mapped out 121 projects across 11 verticals

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