Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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NFTs news
- The popular NFT project the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), developed by Yuga Labs, confirmed that its Instagram account was hacked and warned “do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything.” No other details have been provided, while some Twitter users claim that the Discord account has also been hacked and dozens of NFTs have been stolen.
Investments news
- Digital asset investment products saw outflows cool last week, totaling USD 7.2m, bringing total outflows in this 3-week run to USD 219m, per CoinShares data. Year-to-date flows remain positive at USD 389m, they added. Bitcoin (BTC) saw inflows totaling USD 2.6m (compared with USD 72.8m outflows a week earlier), while ethereum (ETH) outflows dropped from USD 27m to USD 16.9m.
- Diversified holding company BitNile announced that it plans to fund up to USD 100m in commercial loans secured by bitcoin to small, publicly traded companies, through its subsidiary, Digital Power Lending. The company plans to “significantly expand” its bitcoin mining production capacity during 2022, growing its number of bitcoin miners to 20,600, they added.
- NFT marketplace OpenSea announced that it has acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Gem. They added that after the acquisition, Gem will continue operating independently from OpenSea as a stand-alone product and brand.
- Cryptoasset manager Hashdex announced it has received approval from the SIX Swiss Exchange to list exchange-traded products in Switzerland.
Adoption news
- The US state of Tennessee is looking for a contractor to hold cryptoassets on its behalf, asking potential vendors in a request for proposals to tell the Tennessee Department of Treasury how the company would manage currencies like BTC, per Nashville Post. Currently, the state holds no crypto but is seeking a vendor in order to “be prepared in the event that unclaimed virtual currency is remitted to the state’s unclaimed property program.”
- Media Markt, a German multinational chain of stores selling electronics, aims to install 200 BTC ATMs in 12 branches across Austria, Kleine Zeitung reported.
Exchanges news
- Uniswap Labs, the main developer of the Uniswap (UNI) decentralized exchange protocol, has begun blocking crypto wallet addresses that are found to be engaged in illegal activity from its app’s frontend. This is done in partnership with blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs, which flags crypto wallets for Uniswap that are likely to be linked to illegal behavior such as sanctions, terrorism financing, hacked or stolen funds, ransomware, human trafficking, and child sexual abuse material.
- Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, announced that Kraken has joined its virtual asset community and financial ecosystem as the first global crypto exchange to receive a Financial Services Permission license to operate a regulated virtual asset exchange platform in the ADGM to service the needs of the Middle East and North Africa region.
- In March 2022, Binance‘s spot market volumes reached USD 490bn, a 15.7% increase from the month prior, according to data from the analytics firm CryptoCompare. As a result, Binance captured 30.2% of the total spot market volumes in March, marginally below their record market share of 33.7% reached in November 2021.
CBDCs news
- The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub and Indonesia’s G20 Presidency, through Bank Indonesia, launched the third G20 TechSprint Initiative as one of the side events of Indonesia’s G20 Presidency, focusing on developing new solutions for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Regulation news
- US Senator Kevin Thomas and Assemblymember Clyde Vanel have proposed a bill to criminalize “rug pulls” and other common decentralized finance (DeFi) scams.
DeFi news
- Multi-chain operating system Celer Network (CELR) announced the mainnet launch of its inter-chain messaging (IM) framework. The framework enables developers to build inter-chain-native dapps (decentralized apps) through a single-click user experience, they added.
- Crypto-capital marketplace Maple announced its launch on the Solana (SOL) blockchain. The first pool delegate to join is X-Margin, managing an initial pool size of USD 45m, they added.
