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American football star Tom Brady has been appointed as a brand ambassador of crypto exchange FTX. As part of that deal, Brady will become a shareholder in the company.

Brady share’s in FTX is unknown, but the exchange operator said he will receive his signing bonus in cryptocurrency — although it is unclear which one. FTX declined to comment to The Block to provide specific information when contacted.

Besides Brady, FTX has also partnered with the Brazilian model and activist Gisele Bündchen. She will also become an FTX shareholder, get a signing bonus in crypto and become FTX’s environmental and social initiatives advisor.

As an ambassador, Brady will be responsible for introducing all FTX brands to a new audience through various initiatives, while Bündchen will focus on charitable aspects of the exchange operator. Last month, FTX committed to becoming carbon neutral through donations.

Both Brady and Bündchen have also opened their Blockfolio accounts to invest and trade in cryptocurrencies, said FTX, which acquired Blockfolio for $150 million last year.

FTX has been spending millions of dollars recently to reach non-crypto natives. Earlier this year, FTX struck a $135 million deal with the Miami Heat basketball team to rename the Heat’s home stadium to “FTX Arena.” In a similar deal this month, FTX spent $210 million to rename a professional e-sports team from TSM to TSM FTX.

As for Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl Champion has been more engaged in the crypto sector lately. He recently added laser eyes to his Twitter profile picture (although later admitted that it might not have been a good idea). Brady is also set to launch an NFT platform called Autograph. The platform is expected to bring together some of the biggest brands and names in sports, entertainment, fashion, and pop culture to create non-fungible tokens.

© 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.

A piece of land in virtual world Decentraland — which was the highest sale yet in dollar value — will be turned into a virtual shopping district.

New York-based digital real estate firm Republic Realm acquired the estate on June 18 for a record-breaking $913,808 worth of MANA, the game’s Ethereum-based cryptocurrency.

Decentraland is a virtual reality game that allows users to buy, sell and develop virtual land plots. Land, goods, and services come in the form of packages called LAND, which users can purchase with MANA. 

The estate comes in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT). These are collectibles that exist on the blockchain and represent different types of digital files, such as audio or video files, or in this case even virtual land.

Buying clothes in a virtual world

Republic Realm is calling the virtual shopping district Metajuku. It’s modeled after Harajuku, a district in Tokyo known for its street fashion. The district takes up 16,000 square feet and will have two main tenants that sell digital-only items: Dress-X and Tribute Brand. 

Digital wearables are items users can wear in the virtual world and also display on their social media. The products are never actually physically created, but they are sold virtually. These wearables can include clothing, accessories, footwear, as well as customized items.

According to managing director at Republic Realm Janine Yorio, the pandemic accelerated the trend towards digital socialization that was already underway. 

“We saw the ways that people in the metaverse were interacting with other things like casino gambling and digital events,” Yorio told The Block. “We knew the next step was figuring out a way for people to do product discovery in the metaverse.”

“The same way that every consumer products company has a website today, they will all have virtual stores in 3D immersive environments in the future, and those stores will be in the metaverse,” she added. 

According to Yorio, younger and newer users are drawn towards experiencing life online in a more 3D, immersive way, citing the rise of e-commerce and the popularity of games like Minecraft. 

Yorio said the concept of digital wearables is appealing because according to her, consumerism is no longer just about owning the actual physical item, but being able to share the purchase with others.

“Not everyone needs the wearables for real life,” she said. “They may not want to buy the item to wear forever, just want to be seen wearing it a few times.”

Metajuku isn’t Republic Realm’s first real estate purchase on Decentraland. The company owns a plot of land named after itself, as well as several “parcel” properties. It also owns land in other virtual worlds. But its properties in Decentraland are the most developed, Yorio said.  

Image courtesy of Republic Realm

© 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.

Blockchain data analytics firm Nansen has raised $12 million in a Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Other investors in the round included Skyfall Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, imToken Ventures, Mechanism Capital, and QCP Capital.

Founded last year, Nansen analyses blockchain data to help its clients, including hedge funds and trading firms, understand what’s going on and provide insights, such as identifying the best yield farming platforms. Nansen says its data helps market participants make informed decisions on project discovery, due diligence, and trading.

“As participation in the first truly open global financial markets grows, traders and collectors of all kinds — retail novices, institutional professionals, independent experts, and more — will want to understand what the smart money is doing across all blockchains,” said Chris Dixon, general partner at a16z.

With fresh capital at hand, Nansen, which currently traces the Ethereum blockchain, plans to add support for Layer 2 blockchains as well, including Polygon (formerly Matic Network), Optimism, and Arbitrum. Part of the funding will also go toward expanding the firm’s team.

Venture capitalists are lately pouring money into blockchain data analytics startups. In recent weeks, several firms in the sector, including Chainalysis and TRM Labs have raised funds. These firms are making bank as ransomware attacks make headlines, as The Block reported recently.

As for Nansen, the firm’s Series A brings its total funding to date to over $13 million. Last year, the firm raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round.

© 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.

TP ICAP, the world’s biggest interdealer broker, is set to launch a crypto trading platform for institutional investors.

The platform is being developed with crypto custody providers Fidelity Digital Assets and Standard Chartered’s Zodia Custody, alongside liquidity provider Flow Traders. The idea is to provide clients a separate but interoperable model for execution and settlement.

Simon Forster, co-head of digital assets at TP ICAP, said the current crypto market infrastructure prevents many institutional clients from trading because most execution venues require pre-funding and also act as custodians.

“This poses challenges from a conflict of interest perspective and results in fragmented liquidity,” said Forster. “Our partnership, and resultant new platform, is a natural evolution in market structure that will make digital assets, such as Bitcoin, more accessible for the wholesale market.”

The platform is subject to registration with the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority and is expected to launch by the end of this year. It will allow institutional clients to spot trade in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

TP ICAP is the latest traditional financial services firm to enter the crypto spot trading market. In recent months, megabanks, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup, have launched their own internal initiatives to help private wealth management clients access the crypto market. Earlier this month, Standard Chartered also announced its plans to launch a crypto brokerage and exchange platform in the U.K. and Europe, along with Hong Kong-based BC Group.

As for TP ICAP, it launched its Digital Assets business in 2019 and currently enables clients to trade crypto derivatives products on the exchange giant CME Group.

For its spot crypto trading platform, it expects to partner with more custody partners and more liquidity providers in the future. Zodia is also in the process of registering with the FCA and expects to launch commercially later this year.

© 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.

Deutsche Börse Group, the German exchange operator, has acquired a majority stake in Swiss fintech firm Crypto Finance AG.

Deutsche Börse will take a two-thirds majority shareholding in the business in exchange for an investment in “a moderate three-digit CHF million range,” according to a press release.

Crypto Finance AG offers crypto trading, storage and investment tools in over 200 digital assets for institutional and professional clients. The Zug-based business is regulated by The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the Swiss regulator.

Through the acquisition, Deutsche Börse aims to extend its digital assets capabilities by providing a direct entry point for investments, including post-trade services such as custody.

“Digital assets will transform the financial industry. There is increasing demand from established financial institutions who are looking to become active in this new asset class and want a trusted partner,” said Thomas Book, executive board member for trading and clearing at Deutsche Börse.

Book added that Crypto Finance complements Deutsche Börse’s existing digital assets initiatives, which include an investment in 360X — a digital asset marketplace for real estate and art — and centrally cleared crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs).

Crypto Finance’s founder and CEO Jan Brzezek will remain at the helm of the business. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals.

© 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.

ARK Investments has joined the line of firms waiting for the approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The firm is assisting 21Shares with a new offering: the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF.

21Shares is the sponsor of the trust while ARK will assist in marketing the ETF shares, according to the newly filed S-1.

The aim is to offer direct exposure to bitcoin through shares valued daily based on the S&P Bitcoin Index, the tool developed by S&P Dow Jones Indices. The index relies on data from Binance, Bitfinex, Bitflyer, Bittrex, Bitstamp, Coinbase Pro, Gemini, HitBTC, Huobi, Kraken, KuCoin and Poloniex to arrive at a unified price based on “a combination of qualitative and quantitative metrics,” according to the S-1.

Like other offerings before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF is looking to trade on the Cboe BZX Exchange. Cboe has filed multiple 19b-4s — the filing an exchange submits to list the shares of an ETF-hopeful’s new fund — to launch other similar funds like VanEck and WisdomTree among others. 

Coinbase is slated to custody the bitcoin for the newly proposed ETF, while Bank of New York Mellon will serve as administrator and transfer agent. 

Recently, bitcoin ETF applications have seen a wave of extensions as the SEC seeks more time to examine the proposals before it. The clock will start on a decision for the ARK 21Shares offering when Cboe files the companion 19b-4 and it hits the public register.

© 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.

Morgan Stanley’s Europe Opportunity Fund has snapped up more than 28,000 shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust product, according to a filing by the firm with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The fund, which seeks exposure to many European companies as well as other assets, owns 28,289 shares of GBTC — equal to about $1.3 million around the time of the filing. The allocation follows an April filing by Morgan Stanley showing that the firm had given the green light to certain funds — including the European Opportunity Fund, the firm’s Institutional Fund, and Insight Fund among others — to gain exposure to bitcoin “indirectly.” 

According to that filing, each fund can invest as much as 25% of its total assets into bitcoin-related products. 

Grayscale — the largest asset manager in the crypto space — touts its bitcoin trust as a way for large institutions to allocate to bitcoin through a product structured as a security. Sometimes its products trade at a discount or premium relative to the cryptocurrency it is meant to track. 

Still, Grayscale’s assets under management have slid lately along with broader crypto prices. Its Bitcoin Trust has around $21 billion under management, according to The Block’s data dashboard. 

© 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.

Mexican financial authorities issued a statement on Monday reiterating that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in the country and warning that financial institutions could face sanctions if they use them, reports Reuters. 

The statement by the nation’s central bank, finance ministry and banking regulator appears to be a response to the announcement by Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego that his bank would accept bitcoin. “Sure, I recommend the use of Bitcoin, and me and my bank are working to be the first bank in Mexico to accept Bitcoin,” Salinas, who owns Banco Azteca, tweeted on Sunday. 

In 2018, Mexico passed a law that stating that under no circumstances would cryptocurrency be considered legal tender. According to Reuters, finance minister Arturo Herrera said during a news conference on Monday that the current rules prohibit the use of cryptocurrencies in the financial system and that this would likely not change in the near term.

“The financial authorities reiterate their warnings … on the risks inherent in the use of so-called ‘virtual assets’ as a means of exchange, as a store of value or as another form of investment,” the new statement read. 

© 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.

Music streaming service Tidal is interested in exploring non-fungible tokens (NFTs), potentially as a new way to compensate artists. That’s according to Jack Dorsey, CEO of social media platform Twitter and fintech firm Square, which acquired a majority stake in Tidal earlier this year.

The remark came during a live-streamed conversation Monday between Dorsey and Shawn Carter, the rapper also known as Jay-Z, who purchased Tidal in 2015 and now sits on Square’s board of directors.

Early in the conversation, Carter mentioned support for blockchain technology. He referred to a visual artist he knew who had sold a painting for $2,500 in 1983, which was resold for over $100 million recently. 

“His family or no one involved [in the art’s creation] had seen any sort of profit from that. I just don’t think that’s right. With these blockchains and these smart contracts, you can write the contract today to say ‘any sale that happens, I want to receive 10% or 30%, or it could 50% on the first one or 40% on the next,’” Carter said. “And it’s recorded there so it’s very transparent.” 

He added that the NFT’s ability to forgo lawyers or labels also appeals to him. “I’m pro-artist,” Carter added. “Anything that benefits the people who consume and love art and the people who are making it, that’s what I’m interested in.”

Then Dorsey weighed in. 

“You look at Bitcoin and how it enables people anywhere in the world to contribute and to become artists themselves and also to receive tips or grants or donations without having to go through any third-parties, there’s a lot of power in that,” he said. “And I think the spirit of what NFTs represent, the spirit of just looking critically at how artists are compensated and improving that is something that we want to spend a lot of time and a lot of our focus going forward to make sure that we’re just looking deeply at entirely new ways to give artists the right tools to help them and to build.”

© 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.

LOS ANGELES – June 28, 2021 — How epic would it be if a cult classic like American Psycho were immortalized on the blockchain? 

If you are euphoric by even the thought, you’re in luck! Thanks to Evolution USA, a leading licensing and brand monetization agency, and Digital Collectibles Agency (DCA), the cinematic favorite American Psycho will be coming to the world of NFTs.   

Starting today, Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 12 PM PDT, you’ll be able to own elements of the masterpiece by participating in a one-of-a-kind NFT drop. The drop features a collection that fuses 1980s materialism with an equally pervasive counterpart: 2020’s crypto gluttony. The NFTs are available exclusively on Curio, the premier NFT platform for entertainment brands and musical artists. 

This drop not only leverages licensed work but it features official photography and creative assets from the film itself. NFT collectors in particular will appreciate the strategy behind the collection, as it maintains exclusivity while delivering on the authenticity of the American Psycho mythology.

The experience begins with the sale of 50 iconic business card NFTs from characters Patrick Bateman and Paul Allen each day for five days. These cards will give collectors a “reservation at Dorsia” — a reference to the impossibly exclusive restaurant in the film — and unlock access to the complete American Psycho NFT Gallery. Each business card purchased also earns a collector 25 raffle tickets for the chance to win one of nine #1 edition American Psycho Legendary NFTs in the daily raffle. 

Upon entering “Dorsia,” collectors will have the ability to view, purchase and bid on 29 officially licensed American Psycho NFTs that include movie stills, iconic accessories, and three Ultimate one-of-one animations — including Bitcoin Psycho — that will be auctioned off.    

With 50 editions for the Epic NFTs and 10 of the Legendary NFTs, fans can be assured that they’re buying limited edition collectibles. Exclusive reservation access expires on July 9th or when the collection sells out.  

Travis J. Rutherford, Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer at Evolution, one of the project managers, sees this platform as an amazing opportunity to “launch the first NFT auction featuring a top-tier film with unique art and original photography.” Rutherford goes on to say that he’s been “impressed with Curio’s ability to transform the entertainment space through groundbreaking technology, exclusive partnerships and innovative fan engagement.” 

To date, the industry has seen successful auctions, galleries and exhibits featuring unique artists and entertainers but this drop takes novelty to the next level. Celebrating historical American cinema while emphasizing gamification and exclusivity of NFTs that have propelled the space to new heights, the American Psycho NFT collection is set to be another classic hit.  

The American Psycho NFT collection will launch officially on June 28, 2021 on www.oncurio.com. 

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ABOUT EVOLUTION

Evolution is a leading brand monetization agency headquartered in Calabasas, California, servicing the popular culture, media, gaming, toy, personality, celebrity, character, publishing and lifestyle industry verticals. Evolution offers bespoke turn-key solutions, including strategic brand planning, market analysis, contract negotiations, legal support, product development, retail development, royalty collections, contract compliance, inventor relations as well as providing manufacturers a full service licensing acquisitions team. Evolution monetizes and enhances brand value via licensing, direct to retail partnerships, collaborations, experiential retail, direct to consumer sales and location based entertainment.

The agency’s clients include: Gaumont Television USA, Meredith Corporation, Stampede Ventures, Patricia Nash, Camden Media, The Dali Universe, ITV Studios, Morgan Creek Productions, Activision, TinyBuild Games, System Era Softworks, Tilting Point, OLO Industries, and The Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, among others.

https://evomgt.com

licensing@evomgt.com

ABOUT DIGITAL COLLECTIBLES AGENCY

Digital Collectibles Agency (DCA) brings intellectual property and entertainment franchises to the NFT market. DCA assists brands in generating revenue and engaging fans in this new and rapidly changing space. To learn more, please visit: https://dcagency.io 

ABOUT CURIO

Curio delivers a new universe to serve fans through digital collectibles, driven by state-of-the-art non-fungible token (NFT) technology. Working with the biggest names in the entertainment industry, Curio brings innovative, cutting-edge engagement opportunities to delight fans and provide new ways to enhance their relationship with brands. To learn more, please visit: https://oncurio.com/     

© 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.