THIS NEWSLETTER IS SPONSORED BY |  |  | - America's stablecoin policy comes into view. A long-awaited report from the Biden administration on the topic of stablecoins gives the clearest picture yet of how the U.S. government plans to regulate this particular corner of the crypto industry. The central point of the report is a request for laws that would expand regulatory oversight over stablecoin issuers, with new registration and licensing requirements. But don't hold your breath waiting for immediate action: the bulk of the report argues for Congressional action, an approach that's easier said than done. And some of the loudest voices on crypto in the Senate aren't exactly wild about the report's contents. Still, the report stresses that agencies like the CFTC and SEC can pursue actions on this front as part of their existing mandates. TL;DR — a firmed-up stablecoin policy in the U.S. is still a ways away.
| - Coinbase plays with retail subscriptions. In what could be a major shift for the publicly-traded, U.S.-based exchange business, Coinbase is testing a new subscription-based service that would give users access to enhanced features. In a sense, Coinbase is taking a leaf from the playbook of other retail-oriented brokerage firms. For example, Robinhood offers a service dubbed Robinhood Gold, a monthly subscription service that gives users access to higher-quality market data and margin investing.
| - Much-maligned crypto tax provisions in a bipartisan infrastructure bill out of Congress are now law. Following a months-long struggle to reach consensus, Democratic lawmakers in Congress have passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a major spending package. One of the revenue components of the bill was a new definition of "broker" in the context of digital assets. Crypto industry advocates raised heckles during the process, scoring allies in the halls of the Senate in the process, but the provisions ultimately stayed in. After a narrow passage in the House on Saturday, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law. What's next? Tough to say, but potential court actions could shape how the legal language is put into practice.
| - Stani Kulechov on the ins and outs of Aave. During a new episode of The Scoop, Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, discussed his entry into the world of decentralized finance (DeFi). Kulechov said that he believes smaller banks and private firms will be among the institutional world's early adopters of DeFi.
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The curtain will be raised on some of Switzerland's most significant digital assets projects by year-end, according to a key figure at its central bank. Thomas Moser, alternate member of the governing board of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), told The Block in an interview that SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) — the hotly-anticipated digital asset bourse spearheaded by Swiss stock exchange operator SIX Group — will launch before the end of the year.
"They intend to go live probably this month, certainly before the end of the year," said Moser. A spokesperson for SIX Group declined to comment, but The Block understands that the timeframe is accurate. SDX is built on enterprise software firm R3's Corda, a private blockchain targeting regulated markets.
Todd McDonald, co-founder and chief product officer at R3, said in a written statement that the impending launch of SDX "is the combination of many streams of work converging."
That includes "the technology build-out of mission-critical infrastructure of SDX and Corda, the education of the wider ecosystem on how this works and what it means to them. And, most importantly, the regulatory approval," said McDonald.
-- Ryan Weeks |  |
October was a quieter month for the typically bustling crypto hiring scene. But there were still some key hires and moves.
One interesting change was Brett Redfearn -- part of the spate of regulators suddenly leaving crypto firms in the last couple of months -- who has joined Securitize. This could be seen as an endorsement of digital assets that are designed to work within the securities framework (something that State Street is particularly interested in).
Crypto exchanges have also continued to make big hires with Binance, Robinhood Crypto and Bitpanda Pro onboarding new heavy-hitters.
These companies, and others, have picked up talent focused on editorial content and communications, both showing a focus on competing brand awareness.
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| | | - Solidus Labs, a New York-based firm seeking to reduce risk in crypto-native markets, announced Friday that it raised $15 million in strategic funding. The investment firm Liberty City Ventures led the strategic funding, which drew additional participation from the early stage-focused venture firms GSR and Exor Seeds.
| - Solana Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and FTX announced Friday a $100 million fund to invest in startups focused on building blockchain gaming studios. The announcement comes at a time when the concept of metaverse or virtual worlds is growing in popularity.
| - Blockchain gaming studio Faraway has raised a total of $30 million in early-stage backing to develop browser-based games on the Solana network. The Miami-based firm announced Thursday that it secured $21 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and crypto exchange platform FTX.
| - Payments company Square said Thursday that it made $1.82 billion in bitcoin revenue during the third quarter of 2021 via its Cash App, producing $42 million in gross profit from that activity.
| - Mythical Games, a game development company based in Los Angeles, announced that it raised $150 million in Series C funding, bringing the startup's total valuation to $1.25 billion. Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz led the funding round.
| - CoinShare's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose to £88.8 million ($120.2 million) in the third quarter of 2021, up from £62.8 million ($85 million) in the previous quarter.
| | | - Some late-breaking news on Friday to keep in mind: Matt Huang, co-founder and managing partner of the crypto-centric investment firm Paradigm, has joined the board of directors for the payment startup Stripe. It's a notable tapping of people power by the payments company, and will likely translate into a more robust crypto strategy from Stripe. Simply put: keep an eye out for future developments on this front.
| - Press releases strike again! In a more muted repeat of the now-infamous Walmart/Litecoin incident, a fake press release stating that American grocery retail giant Kroger would accept Bitcoin Cash briefly made waves on Friday. As this editor told Cheddar back in September, copycat attacks were very likely, given vulnerabilities around how information moves and a bias among some for news about the mainstreaming of crypto. Simply put: keep your eyes peeled for anything that might be too good to be true.
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