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French crypto website The Big Whale published an interview on Friday with President Emmanuel Macron, just two days before the conclusion of the second round of the French election that pits him against rival Marine Le Pen.

The interview was published in French along with an English translation.

Macron described to the interviewers a hopeful regulatory future in which a unified European finance sector would take a pragmatic approach that would instill confidence yet encourage innovation. “France will pay close attention that the text does not prevent innovation and remains as neutral as possible in terms of technology. What is happening should also lead us to move much faster on the subject of the digital euro.”

He also expressed concern that Europeans not be left behind in the development of web3 and the metaverse. “My desire is for Europe to be a central player in contrast to what has happened so far. I want to specifically ensure that European players master the technological building blocks associated with web3 and the metaverse so as not to depend on American or Chinese giants.” He added that European cultural institutions should develop an NFT policy.

Macron said that while he welcomes foreign investment as long as the headquarters of tech companies and start-ups remain in France, “a powerful ecosystem also means a powerful European venture capital industry.”

France must go further to develop its technology sector, the president said. “This is why I have set the objective by 2030 of emerging 100 French unicorns and 10 European giants.” He added that “French innovation, audacity and genius have made our greatness and our success.”

The Block reported earlier this month from the Paris Blockchain Week Summit that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced a 100 million euro ($108 million) investment in France and a partnership with Paris-based startup incubator Station F.

© 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.com, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, said on Friday that it has made a four-year grant to the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab.

The grant, of an unspecified amount, aims to support DCI’s research into the security of bitcoin and open-source development of protocols that underlie the network.

“MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative is playing a critical role in building a sustainable blockchain ecosystem, in particular by fortifying bitcoin’s underlying protocol,” said Eric Anziani, Crypto.com’s COO.

Crypto.com also supports the Secure Blockchain Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, advancing on-chain safety.

The Block reported last month that Crypto.com will be an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, to be held this year in Qatar.

© 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.

American crypto-mining outfit Compass Mining is selling off about $30 million worth of hardware in Siberia after the US government sanctioned rival BitRiver over its Russian operation, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

Compass is seeking buyers in Russia for equipment with 12 megawatts of capacity, CEO Whit Gibbs told Bloomberg, adding that he expects to recover most of the value and will distribute the proceeds to about 2,000 clients who own the gear. The Austin, Texas-based company operates data centers that host equipment owned by his customers.

The Block reported on Wednesday that the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added Russia-based cryptocurrency miner BitRiver and 10 subsidiaries to its Specially Designated Nationals list. “By operating vast server farms that sell virtual currency mining capacity internationally, these companies help Russia monetize its natural resources,” the Treasury’s announcement said. “The United States is committed to ensuring that no asset, no matter how complex, becomes a mechanism for the Putin regime to offset the impact of sanctions.”

Gibbs said, “I understand the sanctions; in this case the punishment is outsized for American miners,” Bloomberg reported.

Still, the Texas crypto business is booming, as Gibbs estimated that it may add 3,500 to 5,000 megawatts of capacity within two years, including at Compass sites. “The majority of our expansion is going to be in Texas,” Gibbs said.

© 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 Kraken appointed Mayur Gupta as chief marketing officer, it said in a Business Wire news release last week.

He joined Kraken from Gannett, where as chief marketing and strategy officer he guided the company’s transformation from an advertising-led media company to a subscription-led content platform.

As an engineer who evolved into a marketing executive, Gupta’s efforts to combine data, technology and storytelling have helped expand both consumer and technology brands.

Gupta has also held marketing roles at Freshly, Spotify, Healthgrades, Kimberly-Clark and SapientNitro.

Cryptocurrency companies have been increasing their marketing efforts, the Wall Street Journal reported, including through high-profile commercials by Coinbase Global and Crypto.com in this year’s Super Bowl.

The Block reported earlier this month that Kraken plans to release structured products focused on staking as part of a bid to enhance its existing offerings for institutional clients.

© 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.

Asset manager Grayscale has made a new appeal to the Securities Exchange Commission to upgrade its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an exchange-traded fund (ETF). 

In a letter to the agency dated April 18, Grayscale’s legal counsel Davis Polk & Wardwell noted that the SEC’s recent approval of the so-called Teucrium Bitcoin Futures Fund provides a basis on which it should approve Grayscale’s own spot-based ETF product. 

“We believe the Teucrium order confirms the fundamental point made in our November 29, 2021 letter in support of the above-referenced proposal: when it comes to approving ETPs, there is no basis for treating spot Bitcoin products differently from Bitcoin futures products,” the letter said. 

The agency has yet to approve a spot ETF, citing concerns about market manipulation among exchanges that facilitate the trade of spot bitcoin. Bitcoin futures, however, trade on US-based exchanges, which are under the regulator purview of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

Still, the approval of the Teucrium product is striking given it was approved under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 — as opposed to the Investment Act of 1940. The ’34 Act is the same framework under which would Grayscale would launch its ETF.

“So SEC can’t use the distinctions between the ‘40 Act (which is what all prior futures ETFs were approved under) anymore,” a well-placed source commented.

In Grayscale’s view, the agency would be acting arbitrary and capricious if it approves a futures-based fund under the ’34 Act and not a spot-one.

From the letter: “The Teucrium order confirms that 1940 Act registration is not a basis for the Commission to approve one product and reject another.“

Grayscale also contends that a futures-based fund is not necessarily exposed to less risk than a spot fund since pricing for futures is based on data compiled across spot exchanges.

“Because both spot and futures-based Bitcoin products face exposure to the same underlying Bitcoin market, any fraud or manipulation in the underlying market will affect both products in the same way,” the letter reads. “The existence of these risks therefore cannot serve as justification for denying approval to one product once approval for the other product has been granted.”

© 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.

Binance posted a denial yesterday of a Reuters report saying that it had agreed to share user information with a Russian financial intelligence agency called Rosfin that collects and analyzes data, and added that it would be making a formal complaint to Reuters citing the media company’s own editorial code.

The post by the crypto exchange noted that “a recent article by Reuters has sought to portray – falsely – that Binance has close ties with FSB controlled agencies and Russian regulators.”  

The Reuters report, citing text messages, said: “Binance’s head of Eastern Europe and Russia, Gleb Kostarev, consented to Rosfin’s request to agree to share client data, the messages showed.”

At the time, April 2021, Rosfin was seeking to trace millions of dollars in bitcoin raised by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, according to the report. 

The Binance denial contained a series of bullet-pointed items including: “Suggestions that Binance shared any user data, including Alexei Navalny, with Russian FSB controlled agencies and Russian regulators are categorically false.”

The Block reported yesterday that a Binance representative said the company did not assist the Russian state in its attempts to investigate Navalny.

Binance went on to say that prior to the current conflict in Ukraine, its “engagement in Russia was no different from that of any other international organization.”

It added that after the war began, Binance stopped working in Russia and has “aggressively implemented sanctions,” noting that is has also donated more than $10 million to the humanitarian effort to help Ukrainians.

© 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.

An NFT project called AkuDreams was hit by a griefing exploit through its refundable Dutch auction Friday in which the hacker did not profit, but the project’s smart contract was subsequently locked with $34 million of funds.

Crypto developer Foobar posted coding showing that “$34 million, or 11,539 eth, is permanently locked into the AkuDreams contract forever. It cannot be retrieved by individual users or by the dev team.”

The Twitter account for AkuDreams, Aku::Akutars, noted the exploit and said: “We are locked down and consulting with some of the best on next steps. We will mint your NFTs, and reveal them as soon as humanly possible. We will also be working to issue funds for those passholders who bid with the intention of securing a price .5 ETH below the final price.”

This was followed several hours later by a tweeted update saying: “.5E Refunds for Pass Holders – Will be honored – ETA: Monday/Tuesday – Why? Bank opens Monday. Money from Chapter treasury will be used. Akutars – Will be airdropped – Auditing contract to ensure accuracy – ETA: Sunday – Wait for the official Akutar OpenSea link.”

An email sent to AkuDreams’ publicist asking for comment was not returned prior to publication of this story.

© 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.

New legislation filed this week in the US state of New York takes aim at so-called rug pulls and other crypto-specific forms of fraud.

Senate Bill S8839, according to public records, “[e]stablishes the offenses of virtual token fraud, illegal rug pulls, private key fraud and fraudulent failure to disclose interest in virtual tokens” per the text of the measure. A companion bill, Assembly Bill A8820, was filed in the New York State Legislature’s lower chamber.

The bills were introduced by State Sen. Kevin Thomas and Assemblymember Clyde Vanel, respectively.

The focus on rug pulls — a term that refers to the sudden exit of a developer or founding team and the theft of investor funds — is a notable one, given the prevalence of such moves in the crypto space, particularly around non-fungible tokens. Last month, federal prosecutors in New York unveiled charges against a pair of defendants in connection with the rug pull of Frosties, a fraudulent NFT project.

The New York legislation proposes limits on the ability of such founding development teams to sell significant percentages of their token holdings within a five-year period.

Per the text:

“ILLEGAL RUG PULLS:

1. A DEVELOPER, WHETHER NATURAL OR OTHERWISE, IS GUILTY OF ILLEGAL RUG PULLS WHEN SUCH DEVELOPER DEVELOPS A CLASS OF VIRTUAL TOKEN AND SELLS MORE THAN TEN PERCENT OF SUCH TOKENS WITHIN FIVE YEARS FROM THE DATE OF THE LAST SALE OF SUCH TOKENS.

2. THIS SECTION SHALL NOT APPLY TO NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS WHERE A DEVELOPER HAS CREATED LESS THAN ONE HUNDRED NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS THAT ARE REGARDED AS PART OF THE SAME SERIES OR CLASS OF NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS OR WHERE SUCH NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS REGARDED AS PART OF THE SAME SERIES OR CLASS ARE VALUED AT LESS THAN TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS AT THE TIME THE RUG PULL OCCURS.”

In the Senate, the bill has been referred to the chamber’s Codes Committee, as has it in the Assembly.

If approved and signed, the proposed law would take effect thirty days after passage. 

© 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.

Two days after the beta launch of its new NFT marketplace, Coinbase’s stock fell to an all-time low during Friday’s trading session.

The company announced plans to enter the NFT space back in October of last year and over 1.5 million people signed up for the waitlist. The beta launch kicked off on April 20.

Meanwhile, Coinbase’s stock has been consecutively dipping lower since the beginning of the month, according to data from Yahoo! Finance, and the beta launch this week did not change that trajectory. On Friday, $COIN touched a low of $131.25 and ultimately closed at $131.52.

While everyone can access the website at this point, with the beta launch only a few select clients can buy and sell Ethereum-based NFTs with payments in ETH. The company plans to integrate other blockchains in the future, as well as add some unique features that would allow users to engage more.

John Todaro, a senior research analyst at Needham & Company, said the real question is whether or not the NFT marketplace will succeed. Everyone has known for months that it was coming. 

“Investors are now looking for ‘can you really scale it, can it do volume, can it really compete with Open Sea?” he told the Block. “Is this really going to add to revenue versus is this just going to launch and maybe fizzle out.”

Coinbase is facing competition not only from OpenSea and LooksRare, which dominate the market but also from major crypto exchanges FTX.US and Binance, which have also launched NFT marketplaces last year.

Todaro said Needham & Company put out a note stating that, once it got to scale, Coinbase’s NFT marketplace could very incrementally add to revenue.

“We remain bullish on the stock, we think it’s fundamentally very attractive,” he said. “If they can get it to scale I think it’s really gonna add to the stock.”

In a report published in February, JMP Group indicated similarly that Coinbase might benefit from the NFT marketplace in the long run.

“The company is investing in a number of areas that may not have as much of an immediate impact, but should contribute materially to longer-term revenues, including its forthcoming NFT platform,” the report said. 

Jeff Dorman, co-founder and chief investment officer of crypto asset management firm Arca, also said that it’s still too early for Coinbase’s NFT marketplace to prove its worth to investors.

“Since NFTs as a whole are still not widely loved or accepted by TradFi, we believe you’ll need to see real traction for numerous quarters before any equity analysts give Coinbase credit for it,” he told The Block over email.

According to Dorman, Coinbase’s “lower than expected multiple” is in part due to the expectation that their trading fees will keep going down. The decline in retail has added extra pressure, he argued.

“Until Coinbase’s subscription and services business lines make up a larger portion of their revenues, Coinbase will continue to suffer in low volume/low retail environments,” Dorman said.

Todaro said that Coinbase’s stock performance in the past few months has also reflected broader market trends. He pointed out that interests rates have impacted tech stocks in general and that, more specifically, retail crypto and trading volumes have been down.

“So investors are also trying to understand ‘are we in a new environment here where retail crypto trading activity is much lower than it was for 2021,” he said.

© 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.

Uno Re, a decentralized insurance platform, launched a cover portal today that enables DeFi users to immediately insure their crypto-assets, it said in a news release.

The company said it is addressing a need in the DeFi space—accessible insurance amid the potential for hacking attacks, which increased in the first quarter of 2022 multiple times compared with the year-earlier period.

The cover portal can scan users’ wallets, detect insurable assets within, measure possible risks using an AI-based algorithm and allow users to secure their on-chain assets, the company said. It allows users to pay their premiums in USDC. 

© 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.