Danny Park / The Block: A Texas District Court rules against Tornado Cash sanctions, ordering a previous decision to be reversed; the US sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 — - A U.S. District Court has ordered the sanctions on Tornado Cash to be reversed. — The price of TORN jumped over 140% following the news.
The Block: The GMCI Meme index, which tracks leading memecoins by market cap, delivered 320% returns in 2024, outpacing AI at 91% and the top 30 cryptocurrencies at 88% — - The GMCI Meme index represents broader market trends rather than specific token performance. — The following is an excerpt …
Zack Abrams / The Block: Three industry groups sue the IRS, challenging a rule that would require some DeFi brokers to report users' personal information to the agency starting in 2027 — - The Blockchain Association and two other groups sued the IRS to challenge a recently-finalized rule that would require DeFi front-ends …
Zack Abrams / The Block: Memecoin MIRA, created to fund research into a brain tumor affecting tech CEO Siqi Chen's daughter, hit an $80M market cap before falling as Chen began selling — - After his young daughter, Mira, was diagnosed with a type of rare brain tumor, tech CEO Siqi Chen turned to X with a heartfelt plea …
The Block: Analysis: Coinbase International saw its total trading volume grow 124% week-over-week to $119B+ this past week, up from $2.5B per day average in November 2024 — - The weekly total is 124% higher than the previous week's total. — The following is an excerpt from The Block's Data and Insights newsletter.
MK Manoylov / The Block: Data shows open interest on Polymarket fell 64% from $510.95M on November 5 to $184.16M by November 8, highlighting the platform's reliance on political betting — - Open interest on Polymarket soared to $510.95 million by Nov. 5 and subsequently fell to $184.16 million by Nov. 8, The Block's data shows.
MK Manoylov / The Block: Filing: Microsoft puts an “assessment of investing in bitcoin” as a voting item for its December 10 shareholder meeting; its board recommends voting against it — - Microsoft placed an “assessment in investing in bitcoin” on the voting ballot ahead of its 2024 annual shareholder meeting in early December.
Vishal Chawla / The Block: DefiLlama: Coinbase's L2 Ethereum network Base stands at $2.08B in total value locked, up from $430M at the start of 2024, marking a 370% growth year-to-date — - Base has surpassed a total value locked of $2 billion for the first time — a 370% increase year-to-date.
Vishal Chawla / The Block: Singapore-based crypto exchange BingX suffered a security hack on its hot wallet, resulting in a “minor” loss; PeckShield: the loss was $43M in cryptocurrencies — - BingX suffered an apparent security exploit on its hot wallet. — Security analysts at PeckShield estimated …
Jason Shubnell / The Block: Trump launches World Liberty Financial, a DeFi lending project on Ethereum underpinned by the WLFI governance token; up to 63% of WLFI to be sold to the public — - Donald Trump helped unveil a few details of his highly anticipated cryptocurrency project, World Liberty Financial, on Monday night.
Zack Abrams / The Block: Dune Analytics: Pump.fun has generated over $100M in cumulative revenue from more than 1M memecoins created on the platform since its launch in January 2024 — - Popular memecoin launchpad Pump.fun has made $100 million in cumulative revenue from more than one million memecoins since it launched in January of this year.
Zack Abrams / The Block: Celsius sued Tether on Friday in an attempt to claw back ~40K bitcoins, now worth ~$2.4B, that Celsius claims Tether sold improperly at the bottom of the market — - Celsius filed a lawsuit against Tether on Friday in an attempt to claw back Bitcoin worth $2.4 billion that the company …
Adam James / The Block: Indian crypto exchange WazirX plans to undo all trades that occurred following its withdrawal freeze on July 18 “over the next few days”, after a $230M+ hack — - WazirX announced plans to undo all trades following its withdrawal freeze on July 18.
Sarah Wynn / The Block: Court filing: FTX and the CFTC agree a $12.7B settlement after months of negotiations, pending a judge's approval; FTX will return up to $12.7B to creditors — - The two have been negotiating over the past few months, according to a court document filed on July 12 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Sarah Wynn / The Block: Coinbase files two lawsuits against the US SEC and the FDIC for not complying with FOIA requests; one of the FOIA requests is about how the SEC views ether — - Coinbase, which retained consultant firm History Associates Inc. to file the FOIA requests, took aim at the SEC and FDIC …
James Hunt / The Block: As the EU's MiCA crypto regulation takes effect on June 30, the industry remains uncertain about the ramifications; some stablecoin rules arrive in late 2024 — - A key MiCA deadline in the European Union is approaching on June 30, impacting the regulation of the cryptocurrency and digital asset market across member states.
Zack Abrams / The Block: FTX sells its remaining 15M Anthropic shares, netting $450M+ and taking its total haul to $1.3B from its original $500M investment, as legal costs pass $500M — - The FTX estate has sold its remaining shares in Anthropic, a valuable AI startup, as the total cost of the bankruptcy surpasses $500 million …
Sarah Wynn / The Block: President Biden vetoes a bill overturning SAB 121, a controversial SEC bulletin that establishes accounting standards for companies that custody crypto — - U.S. President Joe Biden vetoed a bill to overturn a controversial Securities and Exchange Commission bulletin, SAB 121 …
Sarah Wynn / The Block: Crypto exchange Gemini says Gemini Earn users will get $2.18B in crypto back in kind, after the lending program folded in November 2022 — - Those funds will be distributed in kind, meaning Gemini Earn customers who lent one bitcoin will receive one bitcoin back.
Timmy Shen / The Block: Chinese police in the Sichuan province dismantle an underground bank that used USDT for foreign currency exchanges worth $1.9B+, mainly to smuggle medicine — - Police in China have busted an underground bank that conducted foreign currency exchanges using USDT.
RT Watson / The Block: Immutable Games launches Guild of Guardians, its flagship mobile fantasy RPG that let players win GOG tokens, NFTs, and more; Immutable raised $200M in 2022 — “Guild of Guardians” is launching worldwide on both Apple and Android devices. — Immutable Games is offering up to $1 million in prizes.
James Hunt / The Block: Bitcoin's fourth halving is now complete, lowering miners' block subsidy rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC; the third halving was in May 2020 — - Bitcoin's fourth halving event has completed, ushering in a new epoch for the network. — Bitcoin's block subsidy reward for miners has dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
MK Manoylov / The Block: NYC-based Web3 infrastructure company Xion raised $25M, reportedly a Series A, from Animoca Brands, Laser Digital, Multicoin, Arrington Capital, and others — - The web3 infrastructure firm Xion raised $25 million in funding. — Animoca Brands, Laser Digital, Multicoin, Arrington Capital …
Timmy Shen / The Block: The US OFAC sanctions 13 entities, including Netex24, and two individuals for aiding Russian nationals' potential sanctions evasion by building crypto services — - The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 13 entities and two individuals for helping sanctioned entities to evade sanctions in Russia.
RT Watson / The Block: Worldcoin announces Personal Custody, which saves biometric data captured by the Orb on users' personal devices, and plans to open source the Orb's software — - With “Personal Custody” people signing up for a World ID will no longer be given the option to have their biometric data stored and encrypted.
Timmy Shen / The Block: A study by the US Copyright Office and USPTO concludes that existing laws are sufficient to address NFT copyright concerns and there's no need to change IP laws — - The intellectual property authorities in the U.S. noted in an NFT study that the current laws are sufficient to address infringement concerns.
Sarah Wynn / The Block: Filing: the US DOE settles with bitcoin miner Riot Platforms and an industry group, and agrees to cancel its mandatory survey of energy use by crypto miners — - The Department of Energy was sued in a Texas court after the Energy Information Administration said in February that it would begin surveying crypto mining firms.
Timmy Shen / The Block: Arkham: the US government appears to have transferred out about $922M worth of bitcoin from two crypto wallets that held funds seized from a 2016 Bitfinex hack — - Arkham Intelligence data showed that two wallets containing the seized funds made multiple transfers to unidentified addresses on Wednesday.
RT Watson / The Block: Bloomberg data: BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF set a one-day trading volume record of $1.3B+ on February 26, beating its $1B+ launch day record; BTC passes ~$55K — - The nine new spot bitcoin ETFs set a daily volume record on Monday by registering a combined $2.4 billion in buying and selling, according to Bloomberg.
RT Watson / The Block: Research: the all-time, total amount invested in crypto and blockchain-related companies crosses $90B, with ~$1.3B invested across 230+ deals so far in 2024 — - The total, all-time dollar amount invested into crypto and blockchain-related companies exceeded $90 billion this month …
Timmy Shen / The Block: DefiLlama: Binance's 24-hour outflows reached $1B as of 2:30AM ET on November 22 and seven-day net outflows were $703.1M, after Changpeng Zhao pled guilty — The world's largest crypto exchange saw an uptick in withdrawals around the time that CEO Changpeng Zhao pled guilty to criminal charges.
Timmy Shen / The Block: Email: Mt. Gox plans repay some creditors “within the 2023 calendar year”, likely extending into 2024, marking the first step in repayments for all creditors — - An email to creditors said that the defunct bitcoin exchange plans to commence cash repayments this year and will likely continue repaying into next year.
Yogita Khatri / The Block: Coinbase updates Coinbase Commerce with its new open source Onchain Payment Protocol, which offers instant settlement, low fees, and broad asset support — - Coinbase has built an open source “Onchain Payment Protocol” to improve its Commerce product. — The protocol currently supports Ethereum, Polygon and Base ecosystems.
RT Watson / The Block: Binance releases a self-custody crypto wallet within its app, letting users “swap thousands of tokens across” more than 30 networks — - The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange launches a self-custody wallet that works within the Binance app. — The announcement was made during its conference in Turkey.
Yogita Khatri / The Block: Blockaid, which offers Web3 security tools for fraud, phishing, and hacks and claims to have prevented 1.3M+ attacks, raised a $6M seed and $27M Series A — - Blockaid has come out of stealth with $33 million in seed and Series A funding from Ribbit, Sequoia and others.
Zack Abrams / The Block: The Worldcoin Foundation plans to pay orb operators, who scan people into the Worldcoin network, in WLD rather than USDC in December and has issued ~134M WLD — - In a recent blog post, the Worldcoin Foundation announced that orb operators, who assist people in scanning their eyes to join …
MK Manoylov / The Block: Uniswap plans to start implementing a 0.15% fee for certain crypto trades on its web app and wallet from October 17, generating an estimated $1M per day in fees — - Uniswap will add a new fee starting on Oct. 17 for certain swaps on its web interface and wallet.
Vishal Chawla / The Block: SolanaFM: the FTX estate staked 5.5M SOL, valued at $122M, from a principal wallet, delegating the coins to network validator Figment; FTX has $1B+ in SOL — - The FTX estate has staked over 5.5 million Solana worth $122 million. — A wallet address identified as managed …
Yogita Khatri / The Block: Tether promotes long-time CTO Paolo Ardoino to CEO, starting in December, and envisions becoming a “tech-centric organization”; current CEO will be an advisor — - Stablecoin issuer Tether promoted its long-time CTO Paolo Ardoino to CEO as it envisions becoming a “tech-centric organization.”
Zack Abrams / The Block: Caroline Ellison's well-prepared testimony painted Sam Bankman-Fried as the ultimate decision-maker at FTX and a corrupting influence on his subordinates — - Government prosecutors completed their direct examination of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison on Wednesday in the fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried.
Brian McGleenon / The Block: As the UK FCA widens its crypto marketing rules, Coinbase, OKX, Binance, and others partner with UK companies, expecting to continue serving UK customers — - Coinbase and OKX have partnered with crypto startup Archax to get financial promotions approved. — At the same time …
James Hunt / The Block: THORSwap moves to “maintenance mode” after criminals linked to the FTX hack in 2022 used the decentralized exchange to convert $38M worth of ether to bitcoin — - THORChain-based decentralized exchange THORSwap is “temporarily transitioning” its interface into maintenance mode …
RT Watson / The Block: Elliptic: total value of crypto laundered via decentralized exchanges, bridges, and coin swaps hits $7B; Lazarus Group was the top culprit, laundering $900M+ — - Elliptic's new report shows $7 billion was laundered through decentralized exchanges (DEXs), cross-chain bridges and coin swaps.
Ryan Weeks / The Block: Singapore grants Coinbase a Major Payment Institution license, letting it offer a wider range of Digital Payment Token services to institutions and customers — - The license paves the way for Coinbase to offer a wider range of Digital Payment Token services in the region.
RT Watson / The Block: Coinbase says it has gained approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority to offer non-US retail users perpetual futures trading — - Coinbase has gained approval to offer non-U.S. retail users perpetual futures trading from the Bermuda Monetary Authority. — About 75% of global crypto …
Zack Abrams / The Block: FTX sues cross-chain swap protocol builder LayerZero Labs, seeking to undo a $45M deal made four days before FTX filed for bankruptcy and a $40M cash withdrawal — - The FTX estate is suing blockchain infrastructure company LayerZero Labs in an attempt to undo a $45M deal made in the midst of its collapse.
Timmy Shen / The Block: Ant Group launches ZAN, a new blockchain service aimed at institutional and individual clients in overseas markets, including Hong Kong and Singapore — - Ant Group said ZAN will focus on serving institutional and individual clients in overseas markets including Hong Kong and Singapore.
Vishal Chawla / The Block: Visa expands its USDC stablecoin settlements to Solana, partnering with Worldpay and Nuvei for pilots, and has already moved millions of USDC via VisaNet — - Visa expanded its USDC stablecoin settlement capabilities to Solana, forming partnerships with Worldpay and Nuvei for pilot programs.
Zack Abrams / The Block: Gala Games CEO Eric Schiermeyer sues co-founder Wright Thurston, alleging he stole 8.6B GALA tokens, worth $130M, from the Web3 gaming startup; GALA drops 13% — - The value of Gala Games' token has dropped 13% following a lawsuit filed by its CEO accusing the company's co-founder of theft of $130 million in GALA tokens.
Vishal Chawla / The Block: Herodotus and StarkWare unveil a developer tool to verify data at any point in Ethereum's history, overcoming a current verification limit of 256 blockhashes — - London-based startup Herodotus, in collaboration with StarkWare, announced a tool that gives users the ability to verify data from any point in Ethereum's history.