Blockchain Financial News

Legendary boxer Manny Pacquiao’s philanthropic foundation is set to use the Shiba Inu ecosystem’s blockchain Shibarium for fundraising and operational activities.

Commerzbank AG has received a crypto custody licence, providing more evidence that European banks are growing warmer toward the asset class. The license will allow the bank to “build up a broad range of digital asset services, with particular emphasis on crypto assets,” the Frankfurt-based bank said in a statement on Wednesday. It’s the “first German full-service bank” to get the license, it said. The move shows how Europe’s lenders are carefully entering the crypto market after initially shying away from the asset class given the associated risks and potential for money laundering. The push comes during a recovery in the price for Bitcoin, the best-known cryptocurrency, following a slump that ensued last year when a string of high-profile businesses collapsed and fraud scandals hit the industry. Other banks are making similar moves which they say reflect client demand. In July, Societe Generale SA’s blockchain unit received the first license issued under France’s new crypto rules. Earlier this month, German cooperative lender DZ Bank AG said it has started a platform for the custody of digital assets. Unlike other European countries, Germany requires banks to get a formal expansion of their existing licenses if they want to provide crypto services including custody. That requirement means the country’s crypto applications afford European banking regulators some transparency into the market.

Microsoft, Tencent and 16 other Web2 giants have partnered with Consensys on its mission to decentralize the Infura network — the key point of access to Ethereum for much of the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.

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Binance Labs, the venture capital arm and incubator arm of Binance, said on Nov. 15 that it has invested in Arkham (ARKM), the native token of the “deanonymizing” blockchain platform Arkham.

Web3, blockchain, crypto and mass adoption were major buzzwords in 2021 and 2022, but the public interest in the terms fell to the wayside over the last year as media headlines narrowed their focus to the now defunct FTX exchange and the trial of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. 

Germany introduced a new licensing regime for crypto services in 2020 along with an amendment to the EU's Money Laundering Directive, in order to encourage regulated firms to enter the crypto market.Commerzbank first applied for a licence in April 2022. German rival Deutsche Bank followed suit in June this year.Commerzbank has yet to release details of the technology stack for the venture, but says that it aims "to establish a secure and reliable platform with full regulatory compliance to support its institutional clients by providing custody for crypto assets based on blockchain technology".The initiative reognises the de-thawing of banking interest in the market following the recent 'crypto-winter'.

Dairy Queen is partnering with local nonfungible token project Weirdo Ghost Gang (WGG) to create a pop-up NFT store in Chengdu, China.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has introduced five additional industry pilots to Project Guardian to test various use cases around asset tokenization. 

Crypto exchange OKX has partnered with custody provider Komainu and asset manager CoinShares to facilitate round-the-clock trading of segregated assets to push institutional adoption of digital assets forward.

While the crypto community is still weathering the effects of the recent $100 million Poloniex hack, another cybersecurity threat that could affect billions worth of crypto assets has been discovered by a team of blockchain security experts. 

The crypto exchange Blockchain.com has successfully raised $110 million in its latest Series E funding round. This substantial financial boost was led by Kingsway Capital, a UK-based investment management firm.

Plasma, a once-prominent Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, should be revisited by teams currently working on zero-knowledge (ZK) Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs), said Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is expecting its digital token, JPM Coin, to process $10 billion in daily transactions in the upcoming year.

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Aurelien Michel, the 25-year-old designer of “Mutant Ape Planet” NFTs, pled guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday.

A South Korean blockchain-based K-pop startup has raised $8 million in its series A funding round.

The Blockchain Association, a prominent crypto advocacy and lobbying group based in the US, has strongly opposed proposed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations targeting crypto brokers.

Disney has announced a partnership with NBA Top Shot Creator Dapper Labs to launch a “digital pin” NFT platform.

The Australian Taxation Office has issued an update on its capital gains tax for crypto products, stating that it also extends to wrapped tokens or token interaction with decentralized lending protocols.

Crypto exchange OKX has launched a testnet for an upcoming Ethereum layer-2 network named “X1,” according to a Nov. 14 announcement. The network is being developed using the Polygon chain development kit (CDK) and will use zero-knowledge proofs to validate deposits and withdrawals between layers.