Autor Cointelegraph By Tom Mitchelhill

Binance unveils plans for world domination by buying up companies in every sector

Binance unveils plans for world domination by buying up companies in every sector

Uverejnil používateľ | mar 10, 2022 |

Binance is looking to diversify its business interests by acquiring company’s outside the scope of cryptocurrency, according to a report from the Financial Times. “We want to identify and invest in one or two targets in every economic sector and try to bring them into crypto,” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, affectionately known to his 5.3 million Twitter followers as ‘CZ’.Already holding the title of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance is aiming to bring in companies from traditional markets in an attempt to further increase broad-scale crypto adoption and diversify its own bushiness. In the interview Zhao went on to say that nudging traditional companies to embrace crypto will put pressure on the slow-movers and increase overall market competition. This announcement comes not long after Binance’s monumental $200 million investment in publisher Forbes, in early Feb, solidifying Binance as one of the two largest owners of the media company. #Binance is taking a $200 million stake in @Forbes. “This is the first step into a marketplace that has really high potential when it comes to adoption of Web 3.0 based tools”https://t.co/mDIRMHC4dT— Binance (@binance) February 10, 2022These moves continue to demonstrate the burgeoning real-world power of the cryptocurrency industry more broadly, which has seen Binance grow to an estimated valuation of approximately $300 billion and established Changpeng Zhao as the 11th richest man in the world. While crypto exchanges have previously plastered their logos on stadiums and stolen the show at the Super Bowl, acquiring such a significant stake in a legacy media company like Forbes positions Binance as a serious player in acquisitions and investments. Binance has dabbled before in buying assets and companies that sit outside of its immediate core business, having previously acquired crypto data website CoinMarketCap in Apr. 2020, as well as purchasing a majority stake in the card-payment services giant Swipe in late Dec. 2021.In terms of diversifying revenue, scooping up traditional businesses outside of digital assets seems to be a wise move, 90% of which is currently sourced from trading fees on its exchange, according to CZ. Cointelegraph contacted Binance for further comment, but it had not responded by the time of publication.The news about Binance’s ambitions beyond cryptocurrency comes as the exchange continues to fall under increasing scrutiny from regulators around the world. Three days ago, the UK Financial Conduct Authority issued a shot across the bows about a strategic partnership between Binance’s in-house card payment services Bifinity and investment firm Eqonex in which a $36 million convertible loan was provided to expand the companies’ products, including the currently FCA-registered Digivault.Related: Binance back in Malaysia via a strategic stake in regulated digital exchangeAs a result of the transaction, the FCA said, “individuals and entities that are part of the Binance Group may have become beneficial owners of Digivault for the purposes of the Money Laundering Regulations,” suggesting potential regulatory problems for Digivault. We are aware of recent statements made by Eqonex Limited and the Binance Group confirming that an entity called Bifinity will advance a US$36 million convertible loan to EQONEX. https://t.co/EV7keSHRpa— Financial Conduct Authority (@TheFCA) March 7, 2022

Binance is also reportedly in talks to obtain a licence to operate in Dubai, according to Bloomberg. This comes as the United Arab Emirates continues its push to become an “oasis” for digital assets in the Middle East.

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City-building startup Praxis secures $15M in Series A Funding

City-building startup Praxis secures $15M in Series A Funding

Uverejnil používateľ | mar 4, 2022 |

Peter Thiel-backed city-building startup Praxis has raised $15 million in Series A funding from a variety of crypto venture firms led by Paradigm Capital, Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, and Three Arrows Capital.Dryden Brown of New York University, and Charlie Callinan of Boston College, co-founded Praxis, formerly Bluebook Cities in 2019, describing their goal as: “building the city-cryptostate to realize a more vital future,” according to the company website. Praxis wants to pivot away from “artificially scarce metaverses” to build a city-state that is organized around “shared values,” rather than the “labor market principles of the Industrial Age”. The cryptocurrency-run city will reportedly focus heavily on functional architecture and environmental technology. Money made from crypto has gone into art jpegs and artificially scarce ‘metaverses’. We want to put it into beautifully-designed homes and urban environments, parks and regen. agriculture – and more. We reject scarcity. We are infinitely and definitely optimistic about life. https://t.co/ZigR1FKRpt— Praxis (@PraxisSociety) March 3, 2022The team at Praxis has yet to secure a major land deal on which to build their city but is reportedly looking to be based somewhere in the Mediterranean. In a YouTube interview, co-founder Dryden Brown said:“We are not trying to be a total sovereign nation or something like that. We want to partner with a government and build something really cool that works with us and works for them and is mutually beneficial.”Related: a16z, Google lead $20M investment in Africa Web3 game publisher Carry1stIn addition to Paradigm, Alameda Research, and Three Arrows capital, investors in this round include Apollo Projects as well as Robot Ventures. Praxis raised $4.2 million in a seed round late last year, with tech entrepreneurs Balaji Srinivasan and the Winklevoss twins among the investors.Paradigm recently dethroned a16z as the world’s largest crypto venture capital fund in November last year, raising $2.5 billion for its “New Venture Fund”.

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Russian crypto volume across major exchanges plunges by 50%

Russian crypto volume across major exchanges plunges by 50%

Uverejnil používateľ | mar 4, 2022 |

Data from blockchain-analysis firms show that Russian denominated crypto purchasing and trading on major exchanges have faltered, debunking theories that the country will pivot to digital assets to circumvent sanctions. When Bitcoin rallied over 15% last week, some industry experts attributed the surge to Russians buying cryptocurrency in the face of increasing economic sanctions. This theory seems to be proved false, however, as data from Chainalysis showed that ruble-denominated crypto trading volume was just $34.1 million on March 3, around half of a recent peak of $70.7 million a week ago on Feb. 24. Speaking on the matter of sanctions-fueled crypto purchasing to Bloomberg, Citigroup analyst Alexander Saunders said, “Russian volumes have been relatively small so far, suggesting that the price action is more due to investors positioning for an expected uptick in demand from Russia, rather than Russian demand itself.”Despite experts rejecting the idea that crypto could be used to help Russia skirt economic sanctions, the U.S. and the E.U. are still increasing their regulatory scrutiny of digital assets. Recently, New York state increased its blockchain surveillance capacities to further prevent cryptocurrencies or digital assets from being used to support Russian interests. NY Governor, Kathy Hochul issued an executive order on Feb. 27 directing state agencies to divest from Russian institutions and companies, as well as entities that provide them with support. She said:“New York is proudly home to the nation‘s largest Ukrainian population and we will use our technological assets to protect our people and show Russia that we will hold them accountable.”Highlighting the other side of the narrative, Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at the Blockchain Association in the U.S., went as far as to call these concerns about crypto “totally unfounded”. 1/ Russia can’t & won’t use crypto to evade sanctions.Concerns about crypto’s use for sanctions evasion are totally unfounded. They fundamentally misunderstand:- how sanctions work- how crypto markets work- how Putin is actually trying to mitigate sanctionsI’ll explain — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) March 1, 2022Further echoing this sentiment was Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs at crypto crime investigator TRM Labs, stating that it’s too late for crypto assets to be able to provide enough liquidity for Russia and that the public nature of blockchains is already a sufficient deterrent for those seeking to circumvent sanctions. “Russia cannot use crypto to replace the hundreds of billions of dollars that could be potentially blocked or frozen.”Related: European Commission to remove Russian banks from SWIFT cross-border networkIn the face of looming regulatory action from the international community, many of the world’s leading crypto exchanges have decided to blacklist sanctioned individuals and organizations. Binance, however, has refused requests to censor the accounts of “innocent” Russian customers.

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OpenSea updates banned countries list sparking decentralization debate

OpenSea updates banned countries list sparking decentralization debate

Uverejnil používateľ | mar 4, 2022 |

U.S.-based NFT marketplace OpenSea has reportedly begun barring Iranian users from its platform, sparking outrage from NFT collectors and raising fresh debate about decentralization in the crypto space. On Thursday morning, Iranian OpenSea users started posting on Twitter that their accounts were being deactivated or deleted with no prior warning. Iranian NFT artist “Bornosor” vented frustrations to their 4,700 followers, in a tweet that quickly gained traction, garnering 342 retweets and over a thousand likes within a few hours. Bornosor stated, “NOT A gm AT ALL. Woke up to my @opensea trading account being deactivated/deleted without notice or any explanation.”NOT A gm AT ALLWoke up to my @opensea trading account being deactivated/deleted without notice or any explanation, hearing lots of similar reports from other Iranian artists & collectors.What the hell is going on?Is OS straight up purging its users based on their country now?— Bornosor.eth (@Bornosor) March 3, 2022An OpenSea spokesperson said to Cointelegraph that it reserves the right to block users based on sanctions. “Our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit sanctioned users or users in sanctioned territories from using our services. We have a zero-tolerance policy for the use of our services by sanctioned individuals or entities and people located in sanctioned countries. If we find individuals to be in violation of our sanctions policy, we take swift action to ban the associated accounts.” The current U.S. sanctions outline that American companies are not allowed to provide goods or services to any user based in countries on the sanctions list, including Iran, North Korea, Syria, and now Russia. OpenSea is a U.S. company with its headquarters in New York.These actions from OpenSea have sparked fresh debate about whether large blockchain-based firms and services are adequately decentralized, with MetaMask joining in on enforcing sanction-based crackdowns. I saw #OpenSea and #Metamask blacklisting and shutting down users on the sanction list.(countries like Iran, Cuba, Syria and so on)This was not the decentralized system! This was not the deal!— Khashayar sharifaee (@sharifaee) March 3, 2022

According to MetaMask’s Twitter account, Venezualan users were accidentally banned from accessing their MetaMask wallets, after blockchain development company Infura accidentally broadened the scope of its sanctions-related crackdowns. MetaMask is a client-side wallet that strives to make the blockchain maximally accessible to everyone. Infura had a misconfiguration this morning, but it has been corrected now. https://t.co/CYAhvGunHo— MetaMask (@MetaMask) March 3, 2022

Cryptocurrencies and digital assets like NFTs continue to come under increasing regulatory scrutiny from the U.S. government, as it increases the severity of economic sanctions against Russia. OpenSea remains the world’s largest NFT marketplace, hosting over $22 billion in sales since its inception. Related: New York state ramps up blockchain monitoring to enforce sanctionsThis isn’t the first time the cryptocurrency industry has been involved in turmoil surrounding the intricacies of international sanctions – with multiple crypto exchanges embroiled in the debate around freezing Russian crypto assets. The world’s largest exchange, Binance, refused to block accounts for “innocent” Russian customers.

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Tencent files for patent related to virtual concerts in Metaverse

Tencent files for patent related to virtual concerts in Metaverse

Uverejnil používateľ | mar 3, 2022 |

Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent has filed for a virtual concerts patent with the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) according to business data-tracker Qichacha. The application comes as Chinese companies race to secure Metaverse trademarks.Even though the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) took a strong stance against the Metaverse and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in November, stating that it would track them with Anti-Money Laundering tools, more than a thousand Chinese companies have submitted over 16,000 metaverse-related trademark applications according to a report from Chinese news outlet, The Paper. Despite the warnings, the Chinese multinational technology and video-game colossus Tencent, has been leading China’s charge into the Metaverse. According to the South China Morning Post, sources claim that Tencent sent out an internal letter to its employees in October last year, concerning the creation of a new “F1” studio under its subsidiary TiMi Studios that will involve employees from China, the United States, Canada and Singapore. On December 31 last year, Tencent held China’s first ever virtual concert in the Metaverse, a New Years celebration called TMELAND which saw over 1.1 million fans join in over the duration of the festival. Tencent has also acquired Los-Angeles-based animated concert company Wave, which uses a motion-capture technology to create realistic virtual concerts. Ring in 2022 in #TMELAND, China’s first virtual #MusicFestival. Groove to the music on #NYE from your couch while your #avatar meets world-renowned DJs and artists with other partygoers. Dive in via #QQMusic, #WeSing and other Tencent Music apps. Happy #NYE2022 pic.twitter.com/hLrqvjX1Yn— Tencent 腾讯 (@TencentGlobal) December 31, 2021Wave concerts have been extremely successful in the past, and grew in popularity during the pandemic as a new way for musicians to engage with fans. When the The Weeknd used Wave services to broadcast a virtual concert live on TikTok in August last year, it drew approximately 2 million viewers globally and raised $350,000 for the Equal Justice Initiative. It remains to be seen whether the ambitions of the Chinese multinational will be affected by local regulators. Speaking at a national financial security summit on Nov. 26, Gou Wenjun, director of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) unit at the PBoC, warned of the dangers associated with the new trends of the crypto ecosystem, such as NFTs and the Metaverse. He claimed that if left unregulated, these assets could be easily used for illicit purposes such as money laundering and tax evasion.Related: China’s central bank proposes to monitor metaverse and NFTsThe People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, has also issued a warning about the Metaverse back on Dec. 9, stating that, “regulation should be encouraged to come before innovation.” Despite the ominous foreshadowing from national media and state-controlled banks, China has still not provided any further clarity on related regulations.

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