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Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and Fintech News Headlines Update on March 30, 2021

CME Group will expand its suite of crypto derivatives with the introduction of a new Micro Bitcoin futures contract on May 3, pending regulatory review.

Delta Exchange announced that it has raised USD 5m in a private sale for Delta Exchange Token (DETO).

Red Date Technology has licensed American distributed ledger company R3’s enterprise blockchain to resell in China.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published a manual meant to help people understand the tax implications that can arise from transactions involving cryptoassets.

Dapper Labs has announced a USD 305m funding round that features several high-profile investors led by Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant. “The funds will be used to scale the Dapper Labs team to continue building out the NBA Top Shot vision, expanding the platform to other sports, and helping a new generation of creators develop engaging experiences using blockchain technology including NFTs.”

The State Grid Corporation of China will trial the use of blockchain for data management using Wanglu Tech’s cross-chain consortium chain called Wanchain’s blockchain technology.

ConsenSys, HENI Group, and Heyday Films have introduced Palm NFT Studio, an innovation lab set up to collaborate with artists, marketplaces, and rights holders to bring projects and platforms into the Palm ecosystem.

ConsenSys, HENI Group, and Heyday Films have introduced Palm NFT Studio.

ConsenSys, HENI Group, and Heyday Films have introduced Palm NFT Studio.

Animoca Brands and Quidd have partnered with Atari to launch the Atari Capsule Collection of NFT collectibles.

Nifty Gateway announced its plans to become carbon negative.

Nifty Gateway announced its plans to become carbon negative.

Nifty Gateway announced its plans to become carbon negative.

Several cryptocurrency exchanges operating in India plan to jointly reach out this week to the country’s top financial decision-makers.

The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan has ordered the formation of a “crypto working group” that will help form regulatory policy.

PwC released 3rd Annual Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report.

China’s blockchain market spending will exceed a valuation of USD 2.5bn by 2024, a new study has suggested.

One River Asset Management brought on former US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton as an adviser.

Dragonfly Capital has launched Dragonfly Fund II, a USD 225m venture fund, to “back the next generation of crypto entrepreneurs and projects.”

The Miami Heat’s home court will become the FTX Arena after the 19-year, USD 135m deal was approved by Miami-Dade commissioners on Friday.

There has been a big rise in the number of people aged 20-39 making small-scale crypto investments in South Korea, reported EDaily.

Shibuya FC has launched a cryptoasset. The token would be a “fan coin,” allowing holders to vote on club-related matters including the design of new posters, the club’s player of the season and the look of next season’s official club uniforms.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Square, Amrita Ahuja, said that “there’s absolutely a case for every balance sheet to have bitcoin (BTC) on it.” Square sees BTC and cryptos as expanding access to financial services, particularly when thinking more globally, she said.

airBaltic said that in cooperation with BitPay, it now also accepts payments in bitcoin cash (BCH), ETH, dogecoin (DOGE), and four stablecoins. The company was already accepting BTC.

Cosmos (ATOM) has enabled Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) transfers on the Cosmos Hub, thus enabling sovereign blockchains to transfer the value of digital assets and data between one another.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of Excelsior Pass, uses “proven, secure technology,” like blockchain and encryption, to confirm an individual’s recent negative PCR or antigen test result or proof of vaccination in order to help fast-track the reopening of businesses and event venues. Each Pass will have a QR code, which participating businesses and venues can scan using a companion app to verify proof of COVID-19 negative test results or proof of vaccination.

Japan’s SBI Securities has stated that it will begin offering support for security token offerings (STOs) after receiving regulatory permission under a new piece of legislation that allows government-permitted firms to offer STO trading options to their customers.

Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood said that bitcoin (BTC) investors in the US shouldn’t transact with the coin until the tax code is changed. “The IRS has something to say about this, so if you have huge gains in your bitcoin, I don’t think I would bear much in the way of transactions until we get maybe some changes on the tax front.”

Russia’s State Hermitage Museum said that it will host an exhibition of non-fungible token (NFT) art this year.

Crypto.com has launched a fully decentralized open-source public blockchain called Crypto.org Chain.

Hut 8 confirmed that it purchased USD 30m of Nvidia’s new crypto mining-specific graphics processing units (GPU) with the aim to expand into mining for other cryptos besides BTC.

Argo has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with DMG Blockchain Solutions (DMG) to jointly launch the first Bitcoin mining pool powered exclusively by clean energy.

Brian Brooks told CNBC that BTC was the first coin to show that “finance could be done on a networked basis as opposed to at the bank,” adding that “the reason there was something like USD 61bn worth of bitcoin transacted yesterday is because that network has been adopted by people who used to go to the bank.” #bitcoin #btc #cryptocurrencies

Avanti has raised USD 37 million from Series A investors, including Coinbase Ventures, Binance.US, Morgan Creek Digital, Slow Ventures, and the University of Wyoming Foundation, among others. Avanti said it has raised a total of USD 44m since its inception.

China proposed a set of global rules for central bank digital currencies (CBDC) on Thursday, including how they can be used around the world, as well as monitoring and information sharing.

Jegara Igbara, known as “Jay Mazini”, has been charged with wire fraud, said the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), related to a scheme in which Igbara allegedly induced victims to send him BTC by falsely claiming to have sent wire transfers of cash in exchange for the coin. Igbara never sent the money, and stole at least USD 2.5m worth of BTC, the SEC said. He’s being held on state charges in New Jersey and will make his initial appearance in the Eastern District of New York at a later date.

CryptoCompare: Average weekly asset inflows across all major digital asset investment product providers decreased by 70.5% since February to USD 149.6m.

Lukka confirmed that it has been backed by a fund founded by George Soros in a USD 53m Series D fundraise.

Bitcoin (BTC) developers and the community seem to have finally agreed on a timeline to activate Taproot, a proposed protocol upgrade that should improve privacy and flexibility. According to the March 23 notes from a Taproot activation meeting, the code could be ready for users to activate in the Bitcoin Core client via “Speedy Trial” in May of this year.

The US General Service Administration announced that GSA Auctions’ upcoming auction of BTC 6.79 (USD 350,300) is scheduled for March 29 at 4 PM CT.

Dawn Fitzpatrick discussed an “inflection point” for BTC and other cryptocurrencies in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), has won its legal battle with the Coinsquare and now will be allowed to look through a large tranche of the platform’s customer and transaction data.

Hermez Network has officially launched its mainnet to scale and reduce the cost of transactions on Ethereum (ETH).

Hermez Network has officially launched its mainnet

Hermez Network has officially launched its mainnet

Theta (THETA)’s mainnet 3.0 launch has been pushed from April 21 to June 30.

SIAE picked Algorand (ALGO) platform to create 4m non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that will digitally represent the rights of the more than 100,000 authors associated with SIAE.

SIAE picked Algorand (ALGO) platform to create 4m non-fungible tokens (NFTs)

SIAE picked Algorand (ALGO) platform to create 4m non-fungible tokens (NFTs)

The Indian government is amending current legislation to require companies to disclose crypto asset holdings in their financial statements.

OKEx announced that it incorporated Unified Account (aka Portfolio Margin) management for its users to trade across all instruments (spot, margin, futures, perpetual swaps, and options) from within one account.

Binance appointed Rick McDonell and  Josée Nadeau as new compliance and regulatory advisors.

Binance appointed Rick McDonell and  Josée Nadeau

Binance appointed Rick McDonell and  Josée Nadeau

Gemini said that its customers are now collectively earning interest on more than USD 1bn in loans originated through Gemini Earn.

Paysafe said that Skrill digital wallet has expanded its cryptocurrency offering to the US in partnership with Coinbase.

Metaco has partnered with IBM to utilize its cloud platform for enterprise-grade digital asset custody solutions.

McLaren has announced that it has struck a new “long-term” partnership with Bitci, and will co-launch a crypto asset with the firm.

Most wealth managers and financial advisors are still in “education mode” on cryptocurrencies and are still getting to grips with the technology, but demand for the emerging asset class among larger investors has grown, Mike Durbin said.

Time magazine will accept cryptocurrencies for digital subscriptions “with more to come,” said its President, Keith Grossman.

Brave (BAT) aims to integrate a dedicated Binance Smart Chain (BSC) wallet soon.

Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, told the New Yorker that he converted his ETH received for his historic non-fungible token (NFT) sold at Christie’s for USD 69m, to USD. “I’m not remotely a crypto-purist,” he was quoted as saying.

Ludena Protocol and Enjin, (ENJ) said they aim to bring “sustainable NFTs” to the fourth-largest gaming market in the world, beginning with its largest social gaming platform, GameTalkTalk.

Lolli said it has raised a USD 5m pre-Series A funding round.

Robinhood Markets L.L.C. has confidentially filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering.

NYDIG announced effective immediately, the total expense ratio for NYDIG funds that provide passive access to bitcoin will be reduced to 0.30% of net asset value per year. The press release said that this represents NYDIG’s third fee reduction in the last year.

As of April 1, BTC and ETH rates and tiers for BlockFi Interest Accounts (BIA) are changing. As the main reasons, they give the recent BTC price fluctuations and shifting demand in the lending space. The new BTC rates are earn 6% APY on 0 to 1 BTC, earn 2% APY on > 1 to 20 BTC, and earn 0.5% APY on > 20 BTC and above. The new new ETH rates are earn 5.25% APY on 0 to 100 ETH, earn 2% APY on >100 – 1,000 ETH, and earn 0.5% APY on >1,000 and above.

Mitsubishi and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) have announced that they will co-build digital transformation platform, which will make use of blockchain technology and smart contracts under the banner of a new joint venture company named Industry One.

Wirex said it temporarily closed its doors for new UK users after a “constructive dialogue” with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Nandan Nilekani said that people should be allowed to have cryptoassets as an asset class.

FTX has reached an agreement with Miami-Dade County, US, on a partnership until 2040, to name Miami Heat’s home stadium the FTX Arena.

Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) said that eCurrency Mint Incorporated will provide technology for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot, estimated to run from May to December this year.

Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) said that eCurrency Mint Incorporated will provide technology

Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) said that eCurrency Mint Incorporated will provide technology

Uniswap V3 was publicly announced

Uniswap (UNI) announced Uniswap v3 scheduled to be launched on Ethereum mainnet on May 5. Introduces “concentrated liquidity, giving individual [liquidity providers] granular control over what price ranges their capital is allocated to,” and “multiple fee tiers, allowing [liquidity providers] to be appropriately compensated for taking on varying degrees of risk.” Read on for more details on Uniswap v3 at the Uniswap v3 Core whitepaper, the Uniswap v3 Core smart contracts.

Uniswap V3 is a solid upgrade and it’s clear that a lot of work went into it. But it under-delivers compared to the hyped-up picture most of us had of the new Uniswap.

People expected Hayden Adams to silence everyone and roll-out this amazing impermanent loss-protected and super-efficient AMM that would leave Uniswap towering over everyone else.

Instead, V3 actually worsens impermanent loss, depending on your personal position and market movement.

The key innovation of V3, and the mechanism that worsens impermanent loss, is the concept of concentrated liquidity. This means that liquidity providers can now choose the price ranges in which they commit liquidity, instead of covering the entire zero-to-infinity range. To explain the mechanism, it’s important to first understand how AMMs work, in very simple terms.

How Uniswap V3 tweaks the bonding curve

Uniswap V3 comes from the realization that a lot of liquidity in the pools remains unused in practice. To fix this, V3 takes its previous hyperbolic formula and segments it into many straight(er) lines concentrated around specific price ranges.

Liquidity providers can choose the ranges where they want to provide the liquidity, concentrating it and resulting in a much straighter price curve. This allows achieving much higher capital efficiency, as you may need only 10% of the previous liquidity to facilitate the same trading volume at the same slippage parameters.

But the downsides are quite obvious. The official blog post kind of handwaved on these tradeoffs, but defining liquidity over a certain finite range means that if the price moves away from it, the LP’s position will become 100% composed of the losing asset. This is the most extreme form of impermanent loss, similar to the CSMM example. The tighter the range, the faster the loss. Uniswap downplayed this issue by saying that since the capital efficiency is higher, you can put less capital to receive the same fees as before, thus “lowering” your impermanent loss.

Ultimately, Uniswap V3 is yet another attempt at optimizing the bonding curve. It’s a very cool and complex optimization, but it’s still just that. It’s in the same category of Curve’s StableSwap, which significantly flattens the bonding curve because it expects to only hold different wrappers of the same asset, be it USD or BTC. V3 is also similar to Dynamic Market Maker proposals by Kyber and Bancor.

Other benefits and drawbacks of V3

Uniswap V3 introduces a limited form of limit orders thanks to its ranged liquidity provision. Uniswap calls it the “range order,” where an LP intentionally defines an extremely tight liquidity range that quickly converts one asset into another as the price moves through the corridor. It can work as a limit order, but you’d need to immediately take out the liquidity once the swap is complete to make it so. Since you’re buying the asset that’s losing in value, this can be useful for “buying the dip,” but on its own it won’t let you do fine-tuned trading tactics like catching the precise bottom.

One serious drawback of V3 is the fact that it no longer has pool tokens. The complex mechanism of liquidity ranges means that it now has NFTs representing the user’s particular position. This is a huge blow to composability that would instantly render concepts like Aave’s Uniswap markets or Maker’s pool token vaults unusable. In practice, it is likely that someone will come up with ERC-20 wrappers for a set of NFTs representing the entire price range.

Still, this is an unfortunate element of friction. A related drawback is that fees are no longer automatically reinvested. Speaking of fees, they are now dynamic depending on the pool, offering three options: 0.05%, 0.30% and 1%. V3 also has some improvements to Uniswap’s on-chain price oracle, which are largely uninteresting to the average user.

In summary, Uniswap V3 is not strictly better than the current V2. It chose the path of capital efficiency, worsening impermanent loss in many scenarios and significantly complicating the “passive income” aspect of AMM liquidity provision. V3 offers some very exciting features for super efficient trading, but “average Joe” liquidity providers would probably prefer V2 due to its simplicity. It was perhaps wrong to expect too much from this upgrade, as AMMs are already quite elegant and many “improvements” are actually complex design trade-offs.

Understanding AMM curves and pools

An AMM is nothing more than a pool containing a number of tokens on either side, let’s say 10 ETH and 20,000 DAI. The ratio of the two amounts for Uniswap’s 50-50 pools is the instantaneous price of ETH, or $2,000 in this scenario.

Let’s say there is a user named Alice who wants to trade her 1 ETH for DAI. When she trades on Uniswap, she simply sends her 1 ETH to the pool, which is added to what was already there. The protocol then uses a formula, called the bonding curve, to calculate how much DAI it should give Alice in return.

Let’s assume that the bonding curve is actually just a straight line, which would make this a Constant Sum Market Maker, or CSMM. The price of ETH is $2,000, so the protocol gives 2000 DAI for this trade. The new balance would thus be 11 ETH and 18,000 DAI. So far so good — this is by far the most efficient trade an AMM could ever support, as it has zero slippage.

However, when there is a dynamic market involved in the trade, things get really ugly for the constant sum function. Let’s assume that ETH has dumped to $1,800, making this pool a no-brainer arbitrage opportunity, since it still lets you sell ETH for $2,000. A bunch of people take the arbitrage, selling 9 ETH for 18,000 DAI. Now the pool just doesn’t have any DAI, so nobody can sell anymore.

CSMMs are extremely efficient, but they cannot work in a real world scenario because they can’t dynamically adjust the relative prices of assets. For this reason, most AMMs are using curved formulas. In Uniswap V2, the price function is just x * y = k, the mathematical formula of a hyperbola. Hyperbolas are perfect for AMMs because they tend asymptotically to both zero and infinity, but they never reach them. Real world AMM pools can never run out of money — at worst, the price of one of the assets will become a huge, almost infinite number.

The downside of using curves is slippage. The larger the trade, the more noticeable the curvature of the price becomes, which manifests itself as a worse price execution. Applying the a curved formula to our previous example, Alice would lose from her large trade, as the curve would say she is only entitled to, say, $1,850 DAI and not the full $2,000.

Adding more liquidity makes the curve “larger” on the graph, meaning that you’ll be able to trade more tokens before incurring serious slippage. It’s really similar to being on the surface of a planet: On Earth you need to go at least 20km up to seriously notice its curvature, while on a dwarf planet like Ceres you may be able to notice it even from the ground level.

Another scenario to consider in our example is, what happens if ETH sellers and buyers are completely balanced with each other, producing 1 ETH of volume per day? The remaining 9 ETH and 18,000 DAI are sitting idle, not really participating in the constant switcheroo.

Teller Finance has announced the public launch of mainnet alpha stage, no-collateral lending protocol enable certain users to obtain credit without being required to post collateral, which is the case for most other DeFi lending protocols.

Vesper Finance has surpassed a TVL of $1 billion within six weeks of launching on mainnet, a DeFi yield platform co-founded by former Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik, has amassed a $1 billion TVL.

PoolTogether has paid out more than $750,000 in risk-free lottery returns since launching its V3 iteration in October. According to data published by Messari indicates that PoolTogether’s V3 no-risk lottery platform has amassed more than 6,000 users since launching in October.

Covalent raises $2 million to build a decentralized multi-chain blockchain data aggregation network. Hashed Ventures led the round with participation from Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Delphi Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, and others. Blockchain projects like Moonbeam, Avalanche, NEAR, and Elrond also pitched in the funding round.

OKEx will close the South Korean OKEx Korea branch after conceding defeat in the race to implement exhaustive banking, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing protocols in time for this Thursday’s regulatory deadline.

Bitfinex and Copper have announced the integration of ClearLoop, Copper’s instant off-exchange settlement and clearing network.

Bitfinex and Copper have announced the integration of ClearLoop

Bitfinex and Copper have announced the integration of ClearLoop

Korbit said it managed to intervene and foil a crypto-related voice phishing scam that threatened to rob a customer of USD 36,000 worth of crypto.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published research findings, after surveying 517 self-directed investors, according to which there is a new, younger, and more diverse group of consumers getting involved in higher-risk investments, like cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange, potentially partly prompted by the new investment apps’ accessibility.

SkyBridge Capital and First Trust Advisors have filed to launch a bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Dominik Schiener has invested in credX and now holds a 10% stake in the fintech startup.

Abra launched Abra Borrow, a cryptocurrency lending and borrowing service.

Microsoft has apparently been considering adding BTC payments for its Xbox gaming console’s online store.

A new job posting from Time magazine shows the publication looking for a Chief Financial Officer familiar with cryptocurrencies.

Tokyo prosecutors have released a 30-year-old man who was arrested by the capital’s Metropolitan Police force on suspicions of stealing USD 98,000 worth of bitcoin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for Moscow and Beijing to reduce dependence on the US dollar and Western payment systems to push back against West’s ideological agenda.

US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell said that the Fed is not in a rush to adopt a digital currency, but the central bank is currently exploring and discussing the technology behind it.

The head of the central People’s Bank of China (PBoC)-run Digital Currency Research Institute has conceded that guaranteeing complete anonymity will “not be feasible” when the digital yuan rolls out, adding that cash-like anonymity in transactions would pose unacceptable money laundering and terrorist financing risks.

India’s government is reported may block internet protocol (IP) addresses of exchanges and companies that trade crypto-assets.

Coinbase is now aiming to go public in April.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it has issued an order filing and settling charges $6.5 million against the exchange for “reckless false, misleading, or inaccurate reporting as well as wash trading by a former employee on Coinbase’s GDAX” (now – Coinbase Pro) platform.

AMD has confirmed it would not be blocking mining operations on its graphics cards.

Crypto.com has announced a global partnership with Visa includes principal membership in Visa’s network in Australia.

Crypto.com has announced a global partnership with Visa

Crypto.com has announced a global partnership with Visa

The South Korean financial regulator has announced the scale of punishments for crypto exchanges that continue to operate without a license after a new permit system comes into force on March 25.

iCE3 has urged users to withdraw their holdings from its platform after it found “discrepancies” in its balances pertaining to BTC and litecoin (LTC) held on it.

MetaMask now allows users to swap tokens on their phone, inside their wallet, with a single swipe, using the Swaps feature.

DeFiance Capital has taken a position in the BNT token and will serve as strategic advisors to the liquidity protocol Bancor.

Spanish tax experts have attempted to explain how crypto earnings must be declared on tax filings at the end of the tax year. Already, hundreds of crypto traders have received letters from the Spanish tax agency warning them of the penalties associated with failure to declare their profits.

Yearn and Cover announced the end of a protocol merger process over development disagreements.

Solana concludes DeFi hackathon with a few innovative ideas being rewarded, focus on DEX order books, interoperability.

Solana concludes DeFi hackathon

Solana concludes DeFi hackathon

1inch releases V3 of aggregator protocol, which is cheaper than using a DEX directly.

Rakuten Point Club is launching Point Bitcoin, which enables users to experience trading bitcoin (BTC) using Rakuten Points loyalty program.

Snapshot and Gnosis release SafeSnap, a way to execute governance votes on-chain automatically, combining features of Gnosis Safe Multisig and the Snapshot off-chain governance platform.

Furucombo releases iouCOMBO token as part of a hack compensation plan to repay 22 victims of $15M exploit.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has formally opened its 45-day window when it needs to decide whether approve VanEck’s BTC exchange-traded fund, can be extended by another 240 days.

Alameda Research invests $20 million in Reef Finance, allow Reef to implement more cross-chain integrations with Serum and Raydium on Solana.

The Stacks Foundation announced that Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer of CoinShares, has joined its board of directors.

PancakeSwap and Cream suffer a DNS spoofing attack, which routed users to a fake phishing website.

DTCC (The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation ) has published a new proposal outlining a three-prong plan to achieve global data harmonisation in OTC derivatives trade reporting, in order to eliminate cross-jurisdictional differences in trade reporting standards to boost transparency and the monitoring of systemic risk.

Using Square and PayPal data as a proxy, retail investors have purchased over BTC 187,000 so far this quarter. Meanwhile, institutions have bought about BTC 173,000 over that time frame — as gathered by BTC futures, fund flows, and company announcements.

BitMEX announced soon to issue Bitcoin Bech32 addresses to all new users and migrate current users to new addresses in phases to boost efficiency and lower withdrawal fees.

OpenSea raised USD 23m from investors like Silicon Valley VC powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Naval Ravikant, Mark Cuban, Tim Ferris, and others.

OpenSea raised USD 23m from investors

OpenSea raised USD 23m from investors

US Federal Judge has issued a preliminary injunction to block a Department of Defence ban on investments by US persons in Xiaomi, due to no evidence of Xiaomi sharing information with the Chinese government, and that the ban deprived it of the company of the right to due process. Xiaomi was added to the list of Communist Chinese Military Companies on 14 January. The investment restrictions were set to go into effect next week.

Gnosis (GNO) said it is combining the Gnosis Safe Multisig with governance platform Snapshot to create the SafeSnap module.

HKMA (Hong Kong Monetary Authority) Deputy Chief Executive Howard Lee has outlined plans for Hong Kong to further develop structured credit markets to raise green capital from international investors to support China’s transition to its 2060 carbon neutrality target.

Aave (AAVE) said that their users can now begin depositing and borrowing crypto assets from the Aave AMM Liquidity Pool, enabling Uniswap (UNI) and Balancer (BAL) liquidity providers to use their LP tokens as collateral in Aave Protocol.

ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) decided to allow strighter short position reporting requirements to expire on Friday (19 March). The requirement for net short position holders to report short positions of 0.1% or more of issued share capital was first introduced in March 2020 and was renewed in June, September and December of the same year.

HKEX (Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing) is launching a Mini USD/CNH Futures Contract on the HKFE (Hong Kong Futures Exchange) on 26 April 2021, to provide investors additional risk management tools, help them optimise their capital efficiency, and support the RMB’s internationalisation.

Crypto.com (CRO) said it appointed Joe Conyers III, former Chief Strategy Officer at Downtown Music Holdings, as Executive Vice President of NFT Platform.

SGX (Singapore Exchange) adding Marex Spectron ferrous derivative data analytics products to Titan OTC platform.

SZSE (Shenzhen Stock Exchange) is launching sci-tech innovation bonds and carbon-neutral special bonds. Sci-tech innovation bonds will be used to fund projects that support scientific and technological innovation. Carbon-neutral special bonds will fund low-carbon and emission reduction projects.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Japan (BoJ) Haruhiko Kuroda has confirmed that a digital yen pilot will begin in the next few weeks.

Beeple’s latest collaboration will see him team up with the Open Earth Foundation climate change group.

Fintel Alliance has secured a major win against “cuckoo smurfing” syndicate. ANZ’s link analysis capability allowed the rapid interrogation of combined banking datasets, which led to the arrests of five individuals involved in an international cuckoo smurfing syndicate.

Benjamin Delo surrendered to authorities to face charges that he schemed to avoid US anti-money laundering laws.

Gemini said that they have doubled their crypto under custody in two month, surpassing USD 20bn.

Ant Group publicly revealed the self-developed and imposed financial discipline rules apply to Ant Group’s wealth management, insurance, consumer loans, small-and-micro-business loans, and credit-scoring businesses, as part of efforts to ease regulatory scrutiny.

CSRC (China Securities Regulatory Commission) has fined Cornerstone Capital, ¥1.1 million (USD 169,600) for fraud. Cornerstone Capital’s controlling shareholder and general manager were also fined for fabricating the financials of funds that Cornerstone managed, and for making false disclosures to investors.

Coinbase Pro will start Cardano (ADA) trading on Thursday, on or after 9 AM Pacific Time.

MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) is proposing to introduce an exemption framework for cross-border business arrangements involving foreign head offices or branches of FIs in Singapore, following the MAS’ June 2020 issuance response to consultative feedback on a new exemption framework cross-border business arrangements between FIs in Singapore and their FRCs (foreign related corporations).

Nvidia confirmed that it has accidentally removed the hash rate limiter on its RTX 3060 graphic cards in some configurations.

A new survey of 235 individuals estimates that 10%, or nearly USD 40bn in direct stimulus checks, may be used to purchase bitcoin (BTC) and stocks.

HKMA (Hong Kong Monetary Authority) is reportedly working with China mainland authorities to simplify the process of opening a cross-border bank account to facilitate the launch of the Wealth Management Connect scheme which allow residents of Hong Kong, Macao, and major Guangdong cities to invest across borders, subject to an individual quota of CNY 1 million.

AmericanAirlines Arena is edging closer to securing a new naming rights partnership with popular crypto derivatives platform FTX.

CFA Institute is introducing Global ESG Investing Qualification, which aims to strengthen market integrity by delivering the benchmark knowledge and skills required by investment professionals to integrate ESG factors into the investment process.

NEM Group said it launched Symbol, its next-generation Proof-of-Stake+ (PoS+) public blockchain.

APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) has outlined its plans to respond to climate-related financial risks. APRA will consult on a draft prudential practice guide on climate-related financial risk within H1. The first results of big banks’ climate vulnerability assessments will be ready by Q4.

Ant Group has been ranked first in terms of the number of global blockchain patent families filed, followed by Ping An and Tencent.

New Zealand introduced a new regulatory regime for financial advice, requiring financial advisors to obtain a license and sign up for a Code of Professional Conduct, must either hold or operate under a Financial Advice Provider licence granted by the FMA.

The non-fungible token (NFT) craze has now moved on to body parts, with a 20-year-old tennis pro taking to the OpenSea platform to auction off her right arm and shoulder – in digital form, of course.

JBA (Japanese Bankers Association) has issued guidance on how banks should prepare for and deal with system failures and respond to customers, following a string of outages suffered by Mizuho in ATM and banking services. Banks are asked to carefully prepare for any major system upgrades involving extensive data processing and to ensure appropriate lines of communication are established.

Brian Brooks has joined Spring Labs, aiming to improve the exchange of sensitive data.

Woori Bank will compensate investors who lost money due to investments in funds managed by Lime Asset Management, in line with FSS (Financial Supervisory Service) recommendations.

Australia’s Treasury plans to reform the OBU (Offshore Banking Unit) regime, to avoid being labeled as a harmful tax regime by the EU (European Union) and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). The government will consult with the industry on alternative measures to ensure activity remains in Australia when the OBU regime ends.

A group of XRP token holders asked the American court system to accept their testimony as third-party defendants in the company’s battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Hong Kong’s SFC (Securities and Futures Commission) has fined Sino-Rich Securities & Futures HKD 7.2 million (USD 927,000) for AML breaches by routinely processed 238 cash deposits and 269 third-party transfers without adequate AML/CTF controls in place.

FATF (Financial Action Task Force) and Egmont Group Identify 35 Indicators of TBML (trade-based money laundering) Risk, grouped into four categories: the structure of the business, trade activity, trade documents and commodities, and account and transaction activity, to help the public and private sector identify suspicious activity in international trade.

Dividend Payout Restrictions Supported Policy Objectives: BIS (Bank for International Settlements). Restrictions on capital distributions in the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis were effective in increasing bank lending, says a new analysis from the BIS, Bryan Hardy.

GFIT Taxonomy Should Recognise Efforts to Become Greener. The JBA (Japanese Bankers Association) Green Finance Industry Taskforce says the taxonomy should support not only ‘pure green’ activities and technologies, but also efforts to ‘become green/greener’, in response to Singapore’s consultation on a proposed taxonomy for the classification of economic activities based on their environmental friendliness.

The PBOC (People’s Bank of China) and SAFE (State Administration of Foreign Exchange) Pilots Greater FX Autonomy for Multinational Companies to purchase foreign currencies at their discretion, rather than seeking authorization for each transaction.

SWIFT to Launch Enhanced Platform in November 2022, supporting MT messaging and ISO 20022, while also allowing connections via APIs.

APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) Ends Westpac Probe into Possible Banking Law Breaches. The investigation did not find evidence of breaches of the Banking Act or the (Banking Executive Accountability Regime), according to APRA Deputy Chair John Lonsdale.

HKEX (Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing) Sets 12 April Launch for Derivatives VCM (Volatility Control Mechanism) and POS (Pre-Opening Session) Enhancements. VCM will allow multiple triggers per session, and a random cutoff mechanism will be introduced in the pre-opening and pre-open allocation sessions.

Vietnam Works to Address System Overloads at HoSE (Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange). Industry body Vietnam Association of Financial Investors (VAFI) is calling for new management at HoSE. Meanwhile, HNX (Hanoi Stock Exchange) is setting up a new board to absorb HoSE-listed companies to ease market overload issues.

Thailand to Launch Standard Form for Capital Market Access From 1 July, all intermediaries will use a standard form for account opening, providing investors easier access to stocks, debt instruments, mutual funds and derivatives.

MicroStrategy bought an additional BTC 262 for around USD 10.5m in cash at an average price of USD 57,146 per coin. Per CEO Michael Saylor, as of March 12, the company holds BTC 91,326 (USD 5.25bn) acquired for USD 2.21bn at an average price of USD 24,214 per bitcoin.

Luke Ellis, CEO of Man Group, told CNBC that he sees BTC “as a trading instrument, not a thing that you think of as a long-term asset allocation play” and warned that companies are not supposed to speculate with their cash balances.

BTSE has raised USD 22m in its Series A investment round.

WisdomTree has applied to launch a BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF), filing an S-1 Form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The Chinese government has made mention of blockchain technology in its latest five-year plan, a further indication of how seriously it is now invested in the sector.

SBI Holdings said it will give its shareholders the option to receive the XRP token as a benefit for the second year in a row.

Jamaica is planning to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2022.

double jump.tokyo, has teamed up with CryptoGames and SmartApp(スマートアプリ) to form a non-fungible token (NFT)-related partnership.

Tether (USDT) has announced its expansion to Solana (SOL).

A person in Romania has been apprehended under suspicion that they stole USD 620,000 in cryptocurrency from an unnamed company in the Cayman Islands.

The European Central Bank will continue to conduct net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase program with a total envelope of USD 1.85trn until at least the end of March 2022.

Altshuler Shaham invest USD 100m into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

Binance has named Max Baucus as a policy and government-relations adviser.

The New York State Department of Financial Services said it has approved the application of Bakkt Marketplace for virtual currency and money transmitter licenses.

US Representative Warren Davidson reintroduced his Token Taxonomy Act on Monday.

Spain’s Ministry of Economy has announced that it will beef up the power of its Financial Customer Ombudsman in a bid to extend the scope of crypto regulation in the nation.

The top South Korean financial regulator has unveiled a system of fines for crypto exchanges who fail to report suspicious transactions.

The Russian Central Bank said it will unveil a pilot platform for its forthcoming central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital ruble, before the year is out, with “real-world” transaction pilots to follow in 2022.

The Kessler Collection said it has become the first US luxury hotel group to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

CoinShares started publicly trading on Nasdaq First North Growth Market, following an oversubscribed initial public offering.

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Home > Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and Fintech News Headlines Update on March 30, 2021

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