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GIC, the sovereign wealth fund managing Singapore’s foreign reserve, has invested HK$543.19 million (or $70 million) in Hong Kong-listed BC Group, the parent company of regulated crypto exchange OSL.

The investment was made through a new stock top-up placement where BC Group issued 31,952,500 shares at a price of HK$17 per share to GIC, according to BC Group’s public disclosure at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday.

BC Group said the proceeds will be used to cover technology-related and capital costs for developing and enhancing its digital asset platform business. Part of the proceeds from the raise will also be retained as reserves “for future expansion in markets including UK, Singapore and America,” the exchange said in the disclosure.

“This investment is a major milestone for our business, reconfirming our strategy to the market,” BC Group CEO Hugh Madden said in a statement shared with The Block. “It’s also a massive win for digital assets adoption in Asia Pacific, particularly the growing digital asset hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore.”

This isn’t GIC’s first known investment into the cryptocurrency space. It was reported in 2019 that GIC participated in Coinbase’s $300 million Series E fundraise in 2018.

In January, BC Group raised $90 million in a stock top-up. Before that, it also raised $20 million from Fidelity International through two phases of equity placement.

© 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.

CO2 tracker and supply chain traceability provider Circular announced Thursday that it closed $14 million in Series A funding, according to a release from the firm.

The most recent funding round is intended to expand Circulor’s presence in North America and Asia. 

This funding round was led by The Westly Group, a California-based venture firm focusing on sustainability-minded startups. The venture firm’s founder Steve Westly is also joining Circulor’s board, according to the release. 

Big-name investors including Boeing HorizonX, Jaguar Land Rover, and LG Energy Solutions were a part of Circulor’s funding. Others include Bolbo, BHP, Polestar, Vulcan Energy Resources, Salesforce Ventures, Future Positive Capital, 24Haymarket, Sky Ocean Ventures, InMotion Ventures, SYSTEMIQ, Plug and Play, and TotalEnergies Ventures. 

Circulor helps its clients reach environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) goals by analyzing client emissions and supply chains. Among other tools, Circulor uses blockchain tech to help clients reduce emissions from their business. 

More industries are incorporating blockchain into their practices for streamlined transparency, traceability, and lowered cost — the insurance industry being one example.

“We are on a mission to make the world’s most complex industrial supply chains more transparent, and help prevent the exploitation of people and our planet,” said Circulor CEO Douglas Johnson-Poensgen in the statement. “Traceability-as-a-Service is fast becoming a requirement for the world’s leading brands and this funding will help us accelerate our impact and revenue growth.”

© 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

• The public debate over crypto networks’ energy consumption is shaping the mining sector.
• This trend is expressed in recent announcements around renewable energy investments and carbon offsetting initiatives, as well as a drive to collect more reliable data about power consumption.

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France’s and Switzerland’s central banks, along with the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, announced Thursday the commencement of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) experimentation for international payments, according to a release.

“The Eurosystem is engaging in innovation and adapting its actions to the strong trend towards the digitalization of payments. The Banque de France is convinced of the potential benefits of wholesale central bank digital currency to provide maximum security and efficiency in financial transactions,” Deputy Governor of the Banque de France Sylvie Goulard said in the statement.

Specifically, the cross border payments will occur between France and Switzerland banks.  While the CBDC testing process commences, the statement also makes clear that the experiment does not suggest either the French or Swiss Central banks will publicly release a CBDC anytime soon.

This news comes months after France’s central bank, Banque de France, transacted with its own CBDC, and appears to be on time with its prior plans to conduct use case tests with its CBDC, which were supposed to occur this spring.

© 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.

In a June 10 notice, the Texas Department of Banking gave state-chartered banks the go-ahead to custody crypto assets. 

The notice is a simple affirmation that standard risk-based assessments by the banks themselves are adequate to provide cryptocurrency custody.

The Department of Banking wrote: 

“What virtual currency custody services a bank chooses to offer will depend on the bank’s expertise, risk appetite, and business model. For instance, the bank may choose to allow the customer to retain direct control over their own virtual currency and merely store copies of the customer’s private keys associated with that virtual currency. Alternatively, the bank may cause the customer to transfer their virtual currency directly to the control of the bank, creating new private keys that are then held by the bank on behalf of the customer.”

If the news sounds familiar, the U.S.’ national banking regulator made a similar announcement last year, greenlighting crypto custody as an interpretation of existing law. A subsequent change in federal administration has, however, cast doubt on the future of that interpretation. 

Texas has, meanwhile, been growing especially favorable to the crypto industry. Governor Greg Abbott recently took to Twitter to promote a new law to promote the state’s engagement with blockchain. 

Bitcoin miners have been rushing in to take advantage of the regulatory environment as well as abundant supplies of wind energy in West Texas. 

© 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.

Crypto-friendly Silvergate Bank has abruptly cut ties with crypto exchange operator Binance, The Block can confirm.

Binance sent an email to customers on Wednesday, two separate copies of which have been seen by The Block — one in English and one in Spanish. The email says that Binance will no longer support USD deposits and withdrawals via Silvergate Bank over SWIFT from June 11.

“USD deposits made to our Silvergate Bank account after 11 June 2021 (UTC 23:59) will be returned to your account within 21 working days,” the email reads. “The returned amount may be lower due to external bank fees involved.”

“Rest assured, we are working hard to provide an alternative USD solution,” reads the email.

Binance declined to comment to The Block on Silvergate-related questions when reached.

Stuck in limbo

Renzo Morales Díaz, a Binance customer from Columbia, who received the Spanish copy of the email, told The Block that his funds have been stuck for “two weeks.”

“I just have a pending withdrawal in USD through Silvergate, and it is delayed. But surely it will not arrive there. We do not know how Binance will now return that withdrawal,” said Díaz.

Silvergate-related issues for Binance users appear to have existed for at least a few months. In late March, one user on Reddit posted that they had a problem with deposits via Silvergate Bank on Binance.

“Around three weeks ago I transferred using (SWIFT) Silvergate Bank an amount of USD $30.000 to the Binance Company Key Vision Development Ltd. Till today the funds are not credited to my Binance account. The funds not sent back to my bank account,” the user said. Another user posted a similar message on Reddit about two weeks ago.

Binance launched the Silvergate funding option for international users last December. (The exchange claims to block U.S. users). The option allowed users to deposit and withdraw USD to and from their Binance accounts for buying and selling crypto on Binance using local bank accounts.

While Binance looks for an alternative USD solution, the exchange’s international users have other bank transfer options available in other fiat currencies, including the euro, British pound, and Australian dollar, per the email. Other local payment methods, debit and credit cards, and peer-to-peer methods are also available, according to the email.

It is unclear why Silvergate Bank ended the partnership with Binance and whether it also affects Binance.US. Both Silvergate and Binance.US have not responded to The Block’s requests for comment by press time. 

© 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 spokesperson for the International Monetary Fund said ahead of a meeting with Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, that the country’s newly enshrined bitcoin law “raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require very careful analysis.”

Early Wednesday, El Salvador’s Congress approved a law proposed by Bukele that declares bitcoin as legal tender in the country includes mandates for bitcoin acceptance as payments. It also lays the groundwork for government involvement in fostering the use of bitcoin in El Salvador. Bukele has made plain in a series of public statements that he aims to attract crypto companies to El Salvador. 

Speaking during a Twitter Space appearance, Bukele said that the bitcoin law would be discussed in a meeting with the IMF. 

According to Reuters, IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice told reporters on Thursday that “[a]doption of bitcoin as legal tender raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require very careful analysis. We are following developments closely, and we’ll continue our consultations with the authorities.”

El Salvador is said to be seeking more than $1 billion in loans from the IMF as part of a proposed, three-year credit facility, according to a Reuters report from March. The effort followed legislative victories by Bukele’s political party that gave it majority control over the country’s legislature.

© 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 Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, the global standards body for bank regulation, published a consultation on Thursday that, if ultimately put into effect, would impose strict capital requirements for banks that have exposure to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

It’s a notable release, given that major banks around the world pursue custodial services in response to demand from their clients and customers. But the consultation — which has a September response date attached — signals that the world’s banking regulators intend to take a conservative approach to oversight, requiring that banks hold enough capital to cover the entirety of potential losses. 

The paper outlines two areas. One group includes tokenized assets and stablecoins, with another encompassing bitcoin and others. It’s the latter group, as shown in the chart below, that would carry with it the strict capital requirements due to the perceived risks.

The Basel Committee first indicated that it wanted to bring forward prudential rules for crypto assets in late 2019. That December, the group published a discussion paper, declaring at the time that the growth of cryptocurrencies could pose risks to financial stability and banks. A “conservative prudential” treatment to cryptocurrency exposure should therefore be put in place for banks, per the paper.

In the consultation paper’s introduction, the Committee noted that the proposals would constitute a “minimum,” opening the door to even tighter requirements at the discretion of banks themselves.

“Any Committee-specified prudential treatment of cryptoassets would constitute a minimum standard for internationally active banks. Jurisdictions would be free to apply additional and/or more conservative measures if warranted. As such, jurisdictions that prohibit their banks from having any exposures to cryptoassets would be deemed compliant with a global prudential standard,” the group said. 

© 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.

Crypto exchange operator Coinbase has partnered with ForUsAll, a 401(k) advisor, to offer crypto investments for retirement accounts.

The partnership will allow ForUsAll clients, i.e. small to medium-sized employers, to offer their employees an option to invest up to 5% of their portfolio into cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether. Coinbase Institutional will manage trading and custody of those cryptos.

This is a “first of its kind” initiative, according to ForUsAll, which manages over $1.7 billion worth of assets for over 70,000 employees. That figure, however, represents only a tiny portion of the $22 trillion retirement account market.

The initiative comes at a time when crypto’s mainstream adoption is growing. Earlier this week, El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal lender. Several megabanks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have also started offering crypto services to their clients in recent months.

Currently, no 401(k) providers, including giants Charles Schwab and Fidelity, allow direct crypto purchases in retirement accounts. Although they do offer investments in Grayscale investment products that are tied to cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

A higher level of risk

According to ForUsAll CIO David Ramirez, allocating a small portion of a portfolio into cryptocurrency can help improve portfolio diversification and expected returns.

Still, one needs to be mindful of volatility. Bitcoin, for instance, has lost around 40% of its value in just two months after hitting a record high of around $64,000 in mid-April. Bitcoin is currently trading at about $37,800.

Keeping in mind crypto’s gyrations, ForUsAll would automatically alert participants of its crypto 401(k) plans, called Alt 401(k), when their allocations exceed 5% of their portfolio. When the portfolio balance in crypto exceeds 5%, participants won’t be allowed to put more money in crypto.

ForUsAll will begin offering Alt 401(k) plans from July and charge 0.5% in transaction fees and 0.5% in asset management fees.

© 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 research includes the first third of all DeFi attacks
• There weren’t a lot of copycats among DeFi attacks for the first six months
• Until November 2020, about $34M was irretrievably stolen from DeFi projects

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