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Crypto exchange Kraken has opened the waitlist for its non-fungible token platform.

Rumblings of a Kraken NFT platform first began in December of last year, when a spokesperson told The Block that Kraken would begin offering NFT services in the very near future. Today, the firm announced some of those services in a blog post today, saying Kraken NFT will be a “complete solution for exploring, curating and securing your NFT collection.” 

The idea is to create a seamless integration for the trading and custody of NFTs. The platform will integrate the buying and selling of NFTs with users’ Kraken accounts, which allows traders to execute transactions with cash or crypto. Sellers can list NFTs in any of the fiat or cryptocurrencies Kraken supports and buyers can bid in their preferred currency.

Kraken also plans to offer Creator Earnings, which will reward artists with a portion of each secondary market sale price of their NFT. 

The platform will sport built-in tools to analyze and describe the rarity of individual NFTs compared to other tokens in the same collection. The announcement did not elaborate on what these metrics will encompass.

Users who custody NFTs with Kraken will consequently enjoy zero gas fees for trades, though they will incur gas fees when transferring NFTs and crypto off the Kraken platform. The platform will support collections across multiple blockchains using a single interface, however it will only support Ethereum and Solana at launch, with more integrations to come.

In late December of last year, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said the platform would provide services to allow customers to extract additional value from their NFT collections. At the time, he proposed the platform would include NFT-collateralized loans. Today’s post did not mention those functional capabilities of NFTs. 

© 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

• Stargate, a cross-chain stablecoin swap protocol, was launched in March 2022 and has attracted $2.7 billion in Total Value Locked as of this writing
• Stargate’s main value proposition is to enable cross-chain transfers of stablecoins in a decentralized and permissionless manner
• Stargate leverages LayerZero’s interoperability mechanism, which enables the decentralized dissemination of information across multiple blockchains
• Stargate’s native token, STG, is being used to bootstrap liquidity and also for governance via the Stargate DAO
• Fundamentally, Stargate and LayerZero are meant to enhance cross-chain interoperability without sacrificing decentralization

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High-end health and fitness club Equinox will accept payments with cryptocurrency in New York City starting today.

The club is partnering with crypto payment services privder BitPay so that customers can purchase an annual membership using cryptocurrency. Members will be able to use any of the coins that BitPay supports: bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, wrapped bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin, Shiba Inu or one of five US dollar-pegged stable coins. 

“More than ever, consumers are making luxury purchases through cryptocurrency, and offering cryptocurrency as a form of payment enables Equinox to continue to meet their community where they are,” the company said in a statement. 

Crypto payments are currently only available in the club’s New York locations. Information on other markets will be available at a later date, a company representative told The Block in an email. Equinox currently has 105 clubs around the United States, with 35 of them in New York City. 

© 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 brought in a total of $1.16 billion in April, a 4.3% decrease compared to the previous month, while Ethereum miners grew their revenues by 6.2% for a total of $1.33 billion.

Ethereum miners generated about 1.08 times more revenue than Bitcoin miners in April, according to data compiled by The Block Research. 

Revenues from Ethereum mining have been consistently higher than Bitcoin’s since May of last year. 

Most bitcoin revenues came from the block subsidy ($1.14 billion) and only a small portion from transaction fees ($12.98 million).

Similarly, a larger portion of the Ethereum revenues came from the subsidy ($1.25 billion). Transaction fees totaled $82.88 million and uncle rewards $58.85 million.

The daily average gas price increased and came in around 54.7 gwei on a 30-day rolling average at the end of April.

© 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.

Jane Street Capital, one of the world’s biggest market makers, is pushing into decentralized finance (DeFi) as it plans to borrow up to $25 million in the stablecoin USDC.

According to a statement on Tuesday, the funds will be borrowed from BlockTower Capital through Clearpool, which launched in March. Clearpool is a decentralized capital markets ecosystem which provides uncollateralized liquidity from a group of lenders. 

Jane Street – known for its position in markets such as exchange-traded funds and corporate bonds – plans to scale up the position to $50 million, subject to market conditions.

This is the first time a major Wall Street institution has borrowed through a DeFi protocol, Clearpool said in the release.

Clearpool already has five permissionless pools launched by crypto market-making and trading firms, including Amber Group, Auros Global, FBG Capital, Folkvang and Wintermute.

This isn’t the first time Jane Street has dabbled in crypto. In March, it made an investment in Bastion, a decentralized lending protocol built on the NEAR blockchain. In a statement shared with The Block at the time, the project’s anonymous founder N^2 reported that the project has experienced “explosive growth,” pointing to $200 million in total value locked in the protocol within the first 24 hours of its launch.

Historically, Jane Street has refrained from speaking to the press and has mostly flown under the radar despite trading more than $17 trillion worth of securities in 2020, as noted by Robin Wigglesworth at The Financial Times. 

© 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.

Syndicate, a decentralized asset management platform that also works as a social network, just raised $6 million in funding from over 50 investors including DAOs, non-profits, partners, customers, and individual investors.

This round brings the startup’s total funding to $28 million since its launch in January 2021. Investors for this round include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), South Park Commons, Carta Ledger, OpenSea, Circle Ventures, Polygon, United Talent Agency, CoinList, FalconX and others.

A16z also led the company’s Series A last summer. “We have been and continue to work with [a16z] closely across a wide number of initiatives for DAOs and the industry,” said Lee. 

© 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.

Gemini has launched a research and design studio called Superlunar as the crypto exchange operator aims to increase adoption of web3 products.

Superlunar, which means beyond the moon, will research, design and develop decentralized applications focused on security and usability. By simplifying the user experience, it hopes to improve their trust in the crypto space and thereby web3’s mass adoption like web2.

Rich Smith, CTO of Superlunar, told The Block in an interview that there is “quite a lot of mistrust” in the crypto space from an average user’s perspective.

“It feels very experimental, which is fantastic if you have a technical background, but if you are a normal user, it makes one feel confused about how this whole world works,” said Smith.

Superlunar aims to improve web3’s complexity and access by “enabling developers to get more things done with the underlying technology quicker and easier,” said Smith.

Smith declined to comment on specific initiatives that Superlunar is working on but said the firm will also partner with open source developers and other crypto firms to increase web3 adoption. He said Superlunar’s tools could be used internally at Gemini as well as by the industry as standalone products.

Pete Baker, VP of design at Superlunar, said in the interview that the firm will work on the plumbing and infrastructure of web3, including refining on-chain data, decentralized identity and authentication. In all, Superlunar aims to simplify the web3 space for developers as well as users.

Gemini has a dedicated fund for Superlunar, which will build upon the existing $2.25 million that the Gemini Opportunity Fund committed in December 2020, said Smith.

There are currently 14 people working for Superlunar, half of which have moved from Gemini, said Smith. Superlunar isn’t immediately looking to grow its team and wants to focus on execution, he added.

© 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.

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) announced plans on Tuesday to establish a metaverse headquarters in The Sandbox virtual world.

“Our presence in the metaverse… marks the beginning of a new phase in the Dubai government’s march for the future; one that will have a positive impact in the long run,” Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, said in a statement to the WAM news agency.

The authority has so far been light on detail about what the role of its “MetaHQ” will be, although in a statement it said it would “serve as its primary channel to engage [Virtual Asset Service Providers] across the globe to initiate applications, enable younger licensees [to] enter the metaverse, openly share knowledge and experiences with consumers and peer regulators to raise awareness, enable safe adoption, and drive global interoperability.”

The location of the HQ within The Sandbox has not yet been revealed.

VARA was launched at the beginning of March to create an advanced legal framework and regulatory system for virtual assets in Dubai and the rest of the UAE.

Firms which wish to operate in the UAE must not only have a business presence in-country, but obtain a crypto license from VARA. It also regulates the activities of custodians and asset managers in the cryptocurrency space.

However, it is additionally part of government attempts to turn Dubai into a hub for virtual assets and the digital economy. To that end, it has already had some success, having lured several large companies away from Singapore such as Bybit and Three Arrows Capital.

© 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 Securities & Exchange Commission announced plans to increase the size of its cyber unit, which investigates cryptocurrency fraud and other misconduct, with the addition of 20 new hires. 

“By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets while continuing to identify disclosure and control issues with respect to cybersecurity,” SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in a release on Tuesday.

The additional employees will see the unit’s headcount grow to 50, including lawyers and investigators focused on cryptocurrency issuers and trading platforms, as well as NFTs, DeFi platforms and stablecoins. 

The cyber unit was set up in September 2017 during the initial coin offering (ICO) boom to combat “the spread of false information through electronic and social media, hacking and threats to trading platforms,” according to the SEC. 

Over the past five years it has brought more than 80 enforcement actions related to fraud and other misconducts, with the most high profile case involving Ripple Labs and two of its executives. The SEC first brought charges for this case in December 2020.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new hires will be greeted by a change in leadership at the SEC’s cyber unit, as current chief Kristina Littman is set to step away from her role in June. Littman has been with the SEC since 2010, taking on her current role as cyber unit chief in December 2019. 

© 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.

Hedge fund giant Millennium has hired crypto veteran Hunter Merghart to lead its journey into crypto as chief operating officer of digital assets, according to sources familiar with the situation. 

The former Bitstamp executive is set to join the hedge fund, which has been slowly inching into the crypto market, to build out crypto infrastructure for the firm and make key hires. Merghart, who previously was head of trading at Coinbase and led Bistamp’s US operations, will continue to work with Castle Island Ventures as a venture partner. 

He joined Castle Island in June 2021 as the venture firm’s executive in residence and venture partner. Castle Island is among the most notable in the crypto market and is led by Fidelity alumni Matt Walsh and Nic Carter. 

Merghart got his start in crypto in 2017 when he left Barclays for Coinbase. 

Millennium, which manages $53 billion, has been eyeing crypto for several years. As The Block reported in 2020, the hedge fund was actively interviewing potential candidates for a team to invest in digital assets. A source at the time said that Millennium hit a roadblock that delayed those plans. 

CoinDesk reported in 2021 that Millennium was among a number of funds at “varying stages of standing up cryptocurrency-focused trading funds.”

Merghart, according to a source, will operate the firm’s overall crypto strategy and operations, which are in a relatively nascent stage. 

A spokesman at Millennium declined to comment. Merghart declined to comment as well. 

Hedge funds, which manage money for the world’s most wealthiest individuals, have been warming up to the crypto market lately. Steve Cohen’s Point72 has begun deploying capital into the market across the hedge fund, venture fund, and Cohen’s personal vehicles. Citadel’s Ken Griffin has also changed his tune on crypto, recently saying in an interview with Bloomberg that his original anti-crypto thesis was wrong. 

“The crypto market today has a market capitalization of about $2 trillion in round numbers, which tells you that I haven’t been right on this call,” Griffin said. 

Citadel Securities, which is owned by Griffin but is a separate business from the hedge fund, announced in January that crypto venture fund Paradigm would join its cap table following a recent fundraise that valued the company at $22 billion. 

© 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.