Autor Cointelegraph By Jesse Coghlan

Unizen 'CeDeFi' smart exchange secures $200M investment from GEM

Unizen 'CeDeFi' smart exchange secures $200M investment from GEM

Uverejnil používateľ | jún 28, 2022 |

Cryptocurrency exchange Unizen has scored a $200 million investment from private equity group Global Emerging Markets (GEM) which it will use to expand its business and its ecosystem.Rather than receiving the $200 million in funding all at once, Unizen noted on June 27 that the investment will come in the form of a “capital commitment’, with part of the funding released upfront and the rest will be provided later based on achieved milestones. Unizen did not disclose what particular criteria it had to achieve to receive the funding.Unizen calls itself a “CeDeFi” exchange mixing features of both centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs), it runs on the BNB Chain, formerly called the Binance Smart Chain. It aims to attract both retail and institutional investors by finding and aggregating the most cost-efficient trades across CEX’s such as Binance and DEX’s like Uniswap.GEM is described as a $3.4 billion alternative investment group that focuses on emerging markets, it selected Unizen with the aim to “have a hand in technology that will shape the future of finance.”Unizen stated that it will use the investment to expand its team, shore up its innovation and marketing pipeline, and speed up the implementation of its trade aggregation ecosystem, also hinting at an upcoming investor token release update for early July though no further details were provided.Related: Crypto brokerage FalconX raises $150M at $8B valuationAnother arm of Unizen is its ZenX Labs business, a CeDeFi incubator aimed at investing in and supporting decentralized projects by providing technical expertise and assisting with compliance.ZenX Labs most recently said it was building and launching a small satellite into orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket with the mission funded by entirely by Dogecoin (DOGE), it is expected to launch sometime this year.For GEM, it’s another investment into a blockchain-related business. In May through its digital asset investment firm GEM Digital Limited, it provided $400 million in funding to KaJ Labs to develop ‘Lithosphere’, a platform for cross-chain decentralized applications powered by artificial intelligence.

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‘Smear campaign’: Nexo responds to accusations of stealing donations, siphoning funds from charity

‘Smear campaign’: Nexo responds to accusations of stealing donations, siphoning funds from charity

Uverejnil používateľ | jún 27, 2022 |

Cryptocurrency lending platform Nexo has hit back at what it called “fake news” and rumors that its founders were part of a charity embezzlement scandal, saying the claims are untrue and defamatory. It has issued a public cease and desist notice to the originator of the allegations.In a blog post about the claims, Nexo stated:“Several anonymous Twitter accounts are using lies and distortion in yet another smear campaign against Nexo and profiting from short positions in a distressed market.”The pseudonymous Twitter account otteroooo, who calls themselves “Otter,” posted a series of tweets on June 25, claiming that Nexo’s co-founders stole funds from the Bulgarian charity HelpKarma to buy real estate and fund “lavish personal travel”.NEXO FOUNDER & FAMILY SIPHONED FUNDS FROM CHARITY FOR SICK KIDS, USED DONATIONS AS PERSONAL SLUSH FUND, EVEN BUILT A PALACE FOR THEMSELVESEvidences presented in full by otter belowno bueno!— otteroooo (@otteroooo) June 26, 2022The thread garnered a large audience on Twitter, with Otter sharing a screenshot that it had received over 9 million impressions, prompting Nexo to respond to what they say are “ludicrous allegations” and issue the cease and desist notice.The central allegation Otter makes is that the founder of HelpKarma and co-founder of Nexo “Konsta Kanchev” used funds from donations to help build a palace instead of using the money for children’s medical treatments.Konsta Kanchev (Bulgarian Boy 1) embezzled the funds and went on to build a muthaf*ckin PALACE, “the size of a high school”The money came from the donations of more than 130,000 Bulgarians who readily donated into what they thought was meant for medical treatment for children pic.twitter.com/NCd7TLbF4A— otteroooo (@otteroooo) June 26, 2022

In a response by Nexo it points out that a “Konsta Kanchev” doesn’t exist and Otter deliberately made the name “to mimic a typo as an excuse to fact-checkers” by confusing two separate people, HelpKarma founder Constantine Krastev and Nexo co-founder Kosta Kantchev, as the same person.Speaking to Cointelegraph regarding conflating the two, Otter shared a delisted article from the Bulgarian outlet Fakti saying the two are cousins and that Constantine in Bulgarian is spelled “Konstantin” but has since not provided further commentary.Another major allegation Otter makes is that as HelpKarma’s donations increased, the payday loans company Credissimo started to report considerable increases in its capital, citing a November 2020 report by Fakti, implying that the donations were used to fund Credissimo.On how this scandal links to Nexo, Otter points out that Nexo’s white paper says it’s “powered by Credissimo.” Credissimo was founded by Kantchev, and Nexo co-founders Georgi Shulev and Antoni Trenchev were the companies’ business development and innovation officers, respectively.In response to the claims, Nexo said that it and HelpKarma “have not and never had any common operations, common beneficial owners or common management,” adding:“‘Why would a company with hundreds of millions in revenues and billions of assets under management, vetted by Fidelity, Mastercard and dozens of regulators ever have to resort to petty theft, let alone from children with medical needs?’ is the logical yet neglected question.”Cointelegraph contacted Nexo for comment on the allegations and is yet to receive a response.Related: Don’t click links: Crypto community responds to alleged Telegram ‘exposé’The main motive Nexo states as for why Otter posted the allegations is so that Otter can gain a large following and sell the account.Nexo shared images of an individual who attempted to purchase Otter’s account, to which Otter responds they want a minimum of $50,000 USD Coin (USDC) for it.But in a Twitter thread posted by Otter on June 26, they claim they suspected the messages to be a “set up” to buy the account so that Nexo could silence them. They instead “hatched a troll plan” to sell the Otter account to collect Nexo’s “silence money” and make another account to “continue exposing them.”Nexo says this isn’t the first time they’ve been part of what they call a “coordinated attack,” citing the 2020 accusations that it was behind Zeus Capital, an asset management firm that wanted to short Chainlink (LINK).

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'Brutal and unrelentingly hard': Singapore regulator's clampdown on crypto

'Brutal and unrelentingly hard': Singapore regulator's clampdown on crypto

Uverejnil používateľ | jún 24, 2022 |

Singapore’s financial regulator and central bank has pledged to be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on any “bad behavior” from the cryptocurrency industry.The comments come from Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s chief fintech officer Sopnendu Mohanty, explaining in an interview that “if somebody has done a bad thing, we are brutal and unrelentingly hard.”He also hit back at the rhetoric of certain crypto market participants who have criticized the regulator for not being friendly enough to crypto, and instead questioned the legitimacy of the market, saying:“We have been called out by many cryptocurrencies for not being friendly, my response has been: Friendly for what? Friendly for a real economy or friendly for some unreal economy?” The fintech chief believes the world is “lost in private currency” and is the cause behind the wider market turmoil. Mohanty added the city-state enacted an “extremely draconian” and “painfully slow” due diligence process for licensing crypto businesses in response to the conservative stance the regulator has towards crypto.Singapore introduced licensing for crypto firms in January 2020 and has been stringent on which companies are approved for a license. Cointelegraph reported in December 2022 that the MAS had knocked-back approvals for over 100 licenses from companies who had applied.In January cryptocurrency providers were barred from advertising their services in public areas such as public transportation which extended to public websites as well as print, broadcast and social media.MAS is extending its ability to police crypto businesses too, in April the regulator passed new requirements for firms to obtain a license and be subject to Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism requirements if they wanted to provide services outside of the country.Related: Singapore to explore digital asset tokenization on public chainsMany crypto businesses were set up in Singapore due to both its low taxes and the perception that the city-state was one of the more crypto-friendly but the regulatory tightening suggests that is changing as the country focuses on its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).On June 21 payment systems provider, the Mojaloop Foundation opened a CBDC Center of Excellence (COE) in Singapore which sees MAS on its Working Group and Mohanty as a board advisor.With the opening of the COE Mohanty thinks a state-backed alternative cryptocurrency could be launched within three years.The COE is aimed at reducing costs and inefficiencies of payment platforms and cross-border payments, Mohanty said he welcomed the move as a “step forward into the future of financial services”.

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Moody’s downgrades Coinbase due to bear: Warns it may not be the last

Moody’s downgrades Coinbase due to bear: Warns it may not be the last

Uverejnil používateľ | jún 24, 2022 |

Credit ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded the Corporate Family Rating (CFR) and guaranteed senior unsecured notes of crypto exchange Coinbase, and stated that both ratings have been placed under review for further downgrade.The CFR, a rating assigned to reflect Moody’s opinion of a company’s ability to honor its financial obligations, was downgraded from Ba2 to Ba3 which is considered as below non-investment grade.Senior unsecured notes are a type of debt a company holds that is not backed by any assets and in the event of bankruptcy must be repaid before any others. Moody’s downgraded Coinbase’s from Ba1 to Ba2.Earlier in May, Cointelegraph reported Coinbase’s junk bonds tanked in response to an underwhelming first quarter and since the report, the bonds have continued to fall a further 9.5%.In its rationale for the downgrades, Moody’s highlighted Coinbase’s revenue model “is tied to trading volumes, transaction activity per user and overall crypto asset prices.” It said the steep price decline in crypto over the past months has caused customer trading activity to wane, which in turn caused weaker revenue and cash flow to the company.The uncertain environment forced Coinbase to layoff about 18% of its staff on June 14. But even with this measure, Moody’s said it expects Coinbase’s profitability to “remain challenged in the current environment”.Competition for customers has also been heating up in the United States after Binance.US began offering zero-fees spot trading for Bitcoin (BTC). The offer follows in the footsteps of trading platform Robinhood which pioneered no-commission crypto-trading in 2018.In a bid to attract users to the platform, on June 23 Coinbase added five new Ethereum (ETH) ERC-20 tokens plus the ability for users to send and receive some assets on the Polygon (MATIC) network along with USD Coin (USDC) on Solana (SOL).Related: Coinbase to shut down Coinbase Pro to merge trading servicesMoody’s said it could call out for further downgrades should crypto prices continue to fall and if trading volumes on the exchange remain the same or fall further. It will also look at whether the firm can reduce expenses, its ability to maintain talent as well as potential “crypto asset regulatory developments.”The ratings agency added that Coinbase’s ratings could be upgraded again in the future if it can generate a profit even during a bear market and diversifies its revenue through other streams not associated with trading and cryptocurrency prices, noting that crypto transaction-based revenue represented 87% of Coinbase’s net revenue in Q1 2022. Coinbase’s shares were up 13.4% to close at $58.88 on Thursday, but fell just over 1% in after hours trading. Year to date, its shares are down nearly 77%.

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A ‘very ambitious’ $100M Metaverse R&D hub is being built in Melbourne

A ‘very ambitious’ $100M Metaverse R&D hub is being built in Melbourne

Uverejnil používateľ | jún 23, 2022 |

Thailand based metaverse startup Translucia Global Innovation has partnered with the Australian software development firm Two Bulls and set aside an initial budget of $100 million to build a Metaverse Research and Development Center (MRDC) in Melbourne.Translucia is a subsidiary of art and entertainment company T&B Media Global which in October 2021 launched its “Translucia Metaverse” project, with a first stage investment of $283 million for the virtual world.Now, T&B are partnering with Two Bulls to build the MRDC to bring the project to life with a slated soft-launch for November this year.Two Bulls Founder and CEO James Kane told Cointelegraph that T&B undertook a worldwide search for a partner that could help realize the Translucia Metaverse project“There was an understanding there would need to be significant research and development,” he said. “It’s a very ambitious project.”A series of conversations between the two organizations this year resulted in the realization that Two Bulls’ best role would be in as a hub for research and development (R&D) to help build it.“We’ve been there really early on in the conversations around the innovative elements of this metaverse project. What it’s going to look like, what the experience is going to be and what sort of technology platforms it’s going to run on.”“The center itself is really an extension of what Two Bulls already does,” added Kane.Melbourne’s skilled local workforce and an R&D tax incentive of up to 45c for every eligible $1 spent helped seal the deal. “The R&D incentives we receive is a decisive factor in T&D setting up a center like this in Australia”What they need to researchA lot of new areas will need to be explored for the project not only in terms of hardware and software, but in the system’s economics and gamification also. Part of the project will focus on improving the energy consumption of the metaverse also.The MRDC will focus on the technology, creating demonstrations to get feedback from users and creating what he calls a “GDD”, or Game Design Document.“It’s much bigger than that because we’re really designing a whole world. It has to have a functional economy, it has to be properly moderated, it has to have all of these different components that is going to make it an enjoyable place to be.”Related: Metaverse could be worth $5 trillion by 2030: McKinsey reportDespite much work to be completed before the MRDC and the metaverse opens, Kane says there’s already plenty of interest. He gave the example of Magnolia Quality Development Corporation, a large Thai property development company who have already signed on to be a “galaxy”.“Within the metaverse there will be ‘galaxies’ and some businesses have already signed on to be galaxies within that larger metaverse […] T&B are having conversations with dozens of others and there’ll be announcements around that.”Kane said a notable difference to other metaverses like Decentraland and Sandbox was that the Translucia metaverse was committed to sustainability, and has a more people friendly vision. He discussed some of the concerns about the philosophy and vision of some other unnamed metaverses, saying:“A lot of metaverses are around profiteering and opportunism, whereas in this metaverse there really is a strong central vision around putting people first before coins, putting people before profit, and putting the environmental concerns before profit.”

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