A fragment of an NFT by Kvi Kvi. Source: metahistory.gallery
Get your daily, bite-sized roundup of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – examine the stories flying under the radar in today’s crypto news.
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NFTs News
- Ukraine’s recently opened “NFT Museum” – Meta History: Museum of War – has already sold 1,282 artworks and raised 190 ETH ($653,000) on the first day of the sale, according to data from Ministry of Digital Transformation. They collect donations for the reconstruction of museums, theaters and other cultural institutions that were destroyed by the Russian occupiers. In addition, the team of the NFT Museum is preparing “a world auction, which will include the first 4 works of art by Ukrainian artists and the works of art of the winners of the PROSPECT100 international competition”. According to the ministry, only owners of NFTs from the Meta History Museum collection can participate in the auction.
Regulatory news
- the group of seven (G7) countries need to accelerate the creation of a common framework to regulate digital currencies, said Kazushige Kamiyama, head of the Payments and Settlement Systems Division at the G7 Bank of Japan, Reuters said. He was quoted as saying that it “wouldn’t be very difficult to create a custom global accounting system” using stablecoins.
- The USA Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned that companies listed in the country that act as custodians of crypto assets on behalf of other companies should account for those assets as liabilities and disclose the risk associated with those assets to investors. The technological, legal and regulatory risks can have a “significant impact” on the custodian’s operations and financial condition, they said.
- India will not legislate on crypto assets until a global consensus has emerged on how to regulate such assets, Bloomberg reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter. According to the report, the government is not planning any law to regulate or tighten the regulations for the time being.
Metaverse News
- In their new report financial giant city estimates the addressable target market (TAM) for the metaverse economy at more than $10 trillion, while report contributors cite a range of users of up to 5 billion mobile phone users, or just 1 billion based on virtual reality user base / augmented reality devices. However, they added that to build a planned Metaverse experience, latency needs to be improved and faster connection speeds are required.
Security News
- Decentralized Credit Network Platform Ola.Finance was exploited, resulting in around $3.6 million in profit for the hacker, while the log loss is even larger, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield called. The platform added that they have taken precautions to ensure that the attacker does not benefit even more from the attack and that they are working on creating a compensation plan.
Investment news
- Investment Management Company Galaxy Digital announced that the shareholders of the crypto custody specialist BitGo, which is in the process of acquiring the former, will now receive 44.8 million newly issued Galaxy shares, up from 33.8 million previously, resulting in BitGo holders owning 12% of the combined company, up from 10% in the original deal. Additionally, the company announced that its total net income increased 345% to $1.7 billion in fiscal 2021.
- US Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu said that banks considering launching Bitcoin (BTC)-based futures and other derivatives should “carefully consider tail risks.” He cited unreliable price histories, the current risk aggregation process and the potential for wrong-way risk as factors to consider.
- Bitcoin miner PrimeBlock announced its plan to go public through a merger with 10X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp.II, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), for an estimated enterprise value of $1.25 billion. They added that PrimeBlock had revenue of $24.4 million in Q4 2021 and had 110 megawatts of installed data center capacity.
Blockchain news
- chilli (CHZ) announced that Scoville, the testnet for their Layer 1 blockchain, is now live. More details on the mainnet launch, dubbed Chiliz Chain 2.0 (CC2), will be announced soon, they added.
- Blockchain platform fantom (FTM) announced a new $335 million ($543 million) FTM incentive program in partnership with the grant community Gitcoin Grants. They added that they will publish an eligibility guideline detailing all the required criteria in an upcoming blog post.
Legal news
- A Turkish prosecutor is seeking for 21 founders and executives of thodex Crypto exchange, per Bloomberg. Total losses due to the stock market collapse amounted to TRY 356 million (US$24 million), she added.
Adoption news
- Blockchain domain name providers Unstoppable Domains announced this crypto platform Blockchain.com supports all extensions of the former that are natively available on Brave and Opera browser and via browser extensions chrome, fire foxand edge. They currently offer nine domain extensions: .bitcoin, .coin, .crypto, .dao, .nft, .wallet, .x, .zil, and .888, with another one, .blockchain, coming soon.
Monetary News
- Gita Gopinath, the first deputy managing director of the IMF (IMF) said the financial sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine threatened to gradually dilute the US dollar’s dominance and lead to a more fragmented international monetary system, according to the Financial Times. She clarified that while the dollar “would remain the main global currency even in this landscape,” fragmentation at smaller levels is already being seen “as some countries renegotiate the currency in which they are paid to trade “.
Tax news
- Indonesia plans to levy a value added tax (VAT) on cryptoasset transactions and an income tax on capital gains from such investments at 0.1% each starting May 1, Reuters reported.