Friday, 7th of October. As the week comes to an end, we can focus on the highlights of the crypto industry over the past few days.
Coinbase licensed in Singapore
Singapore’s financial regulator granted a license to the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase with the right to provide payment services.
Thus, Coinbase will carry on its planned expansion in the Asia-Pacific region.
“We see Singapore as a strategic market for institutional clients as well,” said Hassan Ahmed, chief executive of Coinbase’s local unit.
He also listed Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, and Japan as appealing markets.
According to Ahmed, Coinbase has roughly 100 employees in Singapore. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is prioritizing international growth after cutting almost a fifth of the company’s workforce and reporting second-quarter revenue and trading volume.
Singapore is consistently advancing its digital asset ecosystem and growing into one of Asia’s key hubs for the industry. About 15 crypto firms have received such permits since 2019, according to Bloomberg.
As you may recall, last week, an application for a license to the Monetary Authority of Singapore was filed by the Indian exchange Zebpay.
Sam Bankman-Fried revealed an updated version of FTX
A new version of the FTX crypto exchange will go live on Nov. 21. This was announced by its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
He said the release includes a “whole new” order matcher aimed at increasing the speed of order execution and reducing delays. The update is also intended to improve the API and “a whole slew of other features”.
“We’ll be rolling out some features within the next month,” the exchange head tweeted.
In August, the media reported that FTX cryptocurrency exchange revenue exceeded $1 billion in 2021. The figure is about 10 times more than a year earlier ($90 million).
Prior to that, the crypto exchange partnered with Paradigm to launch trading with futures spreads.
BNB Chain to hardfork in the wake of $100 million exploit
The BNB Chain team is implementing a network upgrade as an “urgent patch” as a result of the $100 million BSC Token Hub crosschain bridge hack.
The hardfork dubbed Moran will happen in the mainnet at block #22,107,423 as well as in the testnet at #23,603,940.
The update is meant to recreate the native crosschain infrastructure between the BNB Beacon Chain control blockchain and the BNB Smart Chain consensus layer. The update includes:
- fixing the vulnerability in the iavl hash check;
- introducing block header in sequence check in CrossChain Contract.
- making relayer whitelisted to the genesis candidates.
Binance called a halt to deposits and withdrawals involving BEP20 tokens. Asset trading will not be affected by the update.
OpenSea adds Avalanche NFT support
NFT marketplace OpenSea has started to give support to the Avalanche blockchain, which has increased the number of available networks on the platform to seven.
OpenSea users can now trade tokens based on the Avalanche blockchain. They will also have access to the Chikn, TapTapKaboom, The Stoics, Castle Crush and Open Blox collections. This list will grow in the near future.
Additionally, OpenSea plans to team up with Avalanche-based NFT platforms, including NFTrade, Joepegs and Kalao.
As of this writing, OpenSea ranks second in trading volume among NFT marketplaces at $6.23 million, according to DappRadar.
Recall that in September OpenSea unveiled support for Arbitrum’s Layer 2 scaling solution.
In April, developers reported the integration of the marketplace with the Immutable X protocol for faster transactions and zero gas fee trading.
Fintech startup Zerion raises $12.3 million from Wintermute Ventures and other investors
The team behind investment app Zerion has recently raised $12.3 million in a Series B funding round. It was led by Wintermute Ventures, which is the venture arm of the market maker of the same name
Other participants in the funding round include Placeholder, Mosaic, Polymorphic Capital, Coinbase Ventures, 1inch Network founders Sergey Kunz and Anton Bukov, Alchemy Ventures and others also took part in the round.
The project team will direct funding to further develop the product.
“In Zerion, we see a new generation of Web3 applications. The next frontier of the blockchain is the user layer, and Zerion’s cross-chain compatible mobile-first wallet allows users to easily participate in this ecosystem,” stated Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy.
Founded in 2016, Zerion has led a seed round of funding for its eponymous investment app in 2019. As of July 2021, the team had raised $8.2 million under the guidance of Mosaic Ventures.
As you might recall, in September 2022, Space and Time Web3 data platform received $20 million in strategic funding from major investors, led by the Microsoft M12 fund.
During that same month, MPCH Labs, a tech venture studio, closed a $40 million Series A funding round. Liberty City Ventures took the lead.