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Antinalysis, a service designed to help dark web users identify compromised bitcoin addresses, has been suspended after drawing scrutiny from state agencies.

The tool has drawn a flurry of media interest over the past few days after blockchain analysis firm Elliptic highlighted its existence in a blog post on August 13. This morning, Elliptic’s co-founder Tom Robinson tweeted screenshots showing that the site has been suspended. 

“So after the large amount of media exposure, I’m sad to say, Antinalysis has attracted [the] attention of state agencies,” wrote the tool’s creator on a dark web forum.

The statement further explained that Antinalysis’s data source – which it used to test whether bitcoin addresses may be linked to criminal activity – has been cut off by its provider.

On August 13, Elliptic’s Robinson wrote in a tweet that the results produced by Antinalysis are “identical to those provided by AMLBot – which is itself a reseller for Crystal Blockchain, an analytics provider.”

Antinalysis’ creator, writing under the pseudonym Pharoah [sic], stated in the dark web forum post that the service has been “temporarily suspended” while they attempt to resolve the data issue. The site, which runs on the anonymous web service Tor, currently displays a “service suspended” notice.

In a statement sent to BBC reporter Joe Tidy, Pharoah wrote: “Our team believes, that in the current democratic world, every one last human being has the right to do whatever they want and possess complete overview of their privacy while not violating individual rights of others. We consider ourselves activists that dislike state agencies conducting mass surveillance under the name of national security and criminal investigations.”

© 2021 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.

Dave Weisberger is a Wall Street vet who saw market structure develop and go electronic. On this episode of The Scoop, the co-founder and CEO of CoinRoutes joined host Frank Chaparro for a walk-through on how far trading in crypto has evolved and why regulators are ignoring these improvements.

He remarked:

“Firms that are domiciled and regulated out of the United States are at such a massive disadvantage in the growing digital asset world to the point where, as a startup, we had to make a choice to become software only.”

Weisberger views the slow regulatory work by the SEC as being harmful to investors, which among factors, is causing exchanges and custodians to put fees and premiums on crypto in order for investors to enter the market.

But as the market grows and becomes more differentiated from traditional markets, the crypto “market is getting more efficient,” Weisberger said.

While the current sentiment sees larger players continuing to find themselves subject to arbitrage fees and the headaches of legal battles, Weisberger believes it won’t last forever:

“The settlement costs and the financing costs of doing certain esoteric strategies will ultimately go down dramatically as DeFi finds its sea legs and matures. We’re nowhere near that point yet, but the application of that technology is going to be profound as it grows.”

During this episode, Weisberger and Chaparro also discuss:

• Regulatory risks in the US
• Rich valuations in private crypto markets
• Outweigh benefits to firms headquartered overseas
• The completion of CoinRoutes’ Series B round of funding

© 2021 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.

Mawson Infrastructure Group, a publicly listed bitcoin mining firm in the U.S., is expanding proprietary mining capacity in the state of Georgia by up to 300 megawatts (MW).

Announcing the expansion on Monday, Mawson said the scale will allow the Georgia site to increase proprietary hash rate to 2,000 PH/s and 5,000 PH/s by the end of 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Mawson’s expansion plan is part of the ongoing infrastructure scaling in the U.S. for new bitcoin mining capacity as China’s crackdown on crypto mining has resulted in a supply shortage for hosting availability.

In July, Mawson said it was negotiating with the City of Sandersville for increasing the power capacity allocated to its Georgia site from 100 MW to 400 MW, which is said to have an electricity cost of $0.04 per kWh. 

Mawson’s chief commercial officer Nick Hughes-Jones said in the statement that the Georgia site is operational with ongoing expansion timeline. The second phase is “being built and is due for completion in September” and the third phase is scheduled for Q4 2021, he said.

In addition to the Georgia site, the Australia-headquartered firm also has facilities in its home country. Last week, it announced the purchase agreement for 17,352 units of the newest generation of equipment from Canaan. That was in addition to the 11,760 miners it pre-ordered from Canaan in April. These pre-orders are expected to ship throughout 2021 and 2022 to Mawson’s facilities in the U.S. and Australia.

At bitcoin’s current price and difficulty, Canaan’s newest generation of equipment would bring a gross profit margin of about 90% at an energy cost of $0.04 per kWh.

© 2021 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.

Walmart—America’s most ubiquitous retailer—is on the hunt for a cryptocurrency product lead, according to a job ad posted to LinkedIn five hours ago. 

The ad said the firm is “seeking a visionary leader” to fill the so-called digital currency and cryptocurrency product lead position. The person would create a digital currency strategy for the big box store. 

“You will be responsible for developing the Digital Currency strategy and product roadmap,” the ad said. “As an expert in Digital Currencies/ Cryptocurrency and Blockchain related technologies, you will drive the vision for the product and capabilities roadmap.”

The person would also ” identify crypto related investment and partnerships,” the ad said. 

It’s not exactly clear from the ad what products the person would launch. The job ad was released weeks after rumors swirled that Walmart rival Amazon was poised to make a big entrance into the crypto market. Amazon has its own job ad for a digital currency and blockchain product lead.

Still, Amazon denied reports that it would accept  bitcoin as a form of payment. 

© 2021 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.

Trading volumes on the a16z-backed NFT marketplace OpenSea have surged since the start of August.

The exchange has seen nearly $800 million in volume since the beginning of the month, according to data collected by The Block Research and shown in the chart below. In July, the marketplace saw $284.2 million in July volumes and $125.2 million during June.

Data published by DappRadar shows the extent of OpenSea’s growth in recent days. According to the site, OpenSea saw roughly $10.8 million in trade volume and ~20,000 transactions. 

By comparison, the marketplace posted $75 million in volume with nearly 80,000 transactions. Per DappRadar, OpenSea has done $1.17 billion (or 369,300 ETH) in volume in the past 30 days. 

Last month, OpenSea raised a $100 million funding round led by a16z, valuing the firm at $1.5 billion. 

© 2021 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

• This continuing series breaks down some of the latest developments from L1 chains, from DeFi and bridges to network activity and funding
• In week 4 of Layer by Layer, we look at Avalanche, Tezos, Fantom, and Polkadot

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The digital asset investment firm CoinFund has hired Christopher Perkins, formerly an exec at Citigroup, to serve as its new president and managing partner, Bloomberg first reported.

Perkins previously worked as Citigroup’s global co-head of futures, clearing, and foreign exchange prime brokerage. In his new position, Perkins is expected to scale up CoinFund’s reputation as a digital and traditional asset financial firm, CoinFund CEO Jake Brukhman was quoted saying.

“Chris joining CoinFund is not only a major milestone for our firm, but is also indicative of a broader trend as Wall Street turns its attention to the opportunities within the blockchain-technology space,” Brukhman added.

CoinFund itself manages several crypto venture funds, announcing in July a new $83 million venture fund for DeFi and NFT projects.

CoinFund primarily invests in crypto infrastructure projects like The Graph and Blockdaemon, according to The Block Research. In addition to DeFi and NFTs, the firm has shown interest in crypto exchanges, investment, identity, rewards, and gaming projects.

© 2021 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 U.S. Treasury is preparing guidance on the crypto tax reporting provisions in the infrastructure bill, which recently passed the Senate and is heading for the House, according to a Bloomberg report published Friday. 

The provisions provoked a mass outcry from the cryptocurrency industry, which saw the definition of “broker” as excessively broad. Per an unnamed Treasury official cited by Bloomberg, new guidance is in production as to how the Treasury will define a digital asset “broker” in practice. 

The guidance will, however, not grant “blanket exemptions,” instead focusing on whether the Treasury considers the activities undertaken to be those of a broker, per the report.

In some way, the reported guidance could be viewed as an olive branch to the crypto industry. Indeed, Senator Rob Portman, who wrote the original language, has said that the intention was not to target players like miners and software developers. The Treasury has echoed this sentiment and backed an amendment to the bill that would add more specificity. 

That amendment, however, died before entering the bill due to the objections of Senator Richard Shelby. The House, meanwhile, is not keen to amend the bill, as that would extend the timeframe for dissent on both the infrastructure package and a $3.5 trillion spending package also headed its way.

Despite the Treasury’s attempts to mollify the outraged crypto industry, regulators can reverse course on guidance, particularly given that management changes along with the presidency. 

A representative for the IRS declined to comment on the ongoing legislation or the current crypto reporting expectations. 

© 2021 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.

Chime Financial, a banking app company, has raised $750 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital Global Equities.

The round, which drew support from the likes of SoftBank, Tiger Global and General Atlantic, among others, values the company at $25 billion, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The latest round of funding is said to set the stage for a possible initial public offering sometime next year, the Journal said, citing a source. To date, Chime has raised more than $2 billion across a series of funding rounds since its founding in 2012. Indeed, Chime is one of a number of fast-growing, so-called neobanks that have drawn the attention of venture capitalists and sought to challenge the supremacy of traditional banking companies. 

Chime’s core offering is a mobile app that provides checking and savings accounts as well as Vias debit and credit cards. 

© 2021 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

• Ethereum’s latest upgrade should help to make transaction fees easier to price.
• But it comes at a cost: transaction fees are even more complicated to understand.

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