Category: TRENDS IN CRYPTOS

San Francisco-based Volt Capital, a venture capital firm devoted to the world of digital assets, has raised a second fund, this one holding $50 million to be deployed as seed money for early-stage crypto enterprises.  The new fund is five times larger than the company’s initial pool.  Investors in the new fund include private equity...

A digital dollar issued by the U.S. Federal Reserve eventually could co-exist with and complement privately issued stablecoins and other digital assets, protecting  consumers from the market whims that jolt unanchored digital assets and offering consumers a government-backed way to make digital payments, Fed vice-chair Lael Brainard said in 26 May Congressional testimony.  “It could...

EYES ON THE WEB3 BALL.  Get rich quick speculation has led to enormous pain for many late to the crypto party, who got in on the 2020-21 boom, only to see it turn on a token into one of the biggest busts during the current general economic hard times. But despite the current down times, ...

With recent news that DuckDuckGo has been secretly allowing Microsoft to track users of its “privacy” focused browser search engine (see related article in the the Technocracy section of this issue), a lot of people may be searching for search engine alternatives. Brave search engine and web browser claims to truly provide tracking-free web browsing,...

NY SPEEDING UP BITLICENSES FOR CRYPTO FIRMS. The banking authority in New York is speeding up work on its crypto company license regulatory framework, dubbed “BitLicense.” That’s according to Adrienne Harris, the head of New York’s Department of Financial Services.  Harris talked recently with theblockcrypto.com about  her work on extending the DFS’ licensing system for...

Goldman Sachs and British bank Barclays are part of a new $70-million funding round for five-year-old Ellwood Technologies, a cryptocurrency trading platform created by Alan Howard, a British hedge fund billionaire. Other investors include Dawn Capital, Galaxy Digital, and Germany’s Commerzbank. This new round of funding valued Ellwood at about $500 million. The round was...

Last week, Toronto firm Round 13 Capital announced it had filled a $70-million dollar fund that will be invested in blockchain companies and hopes to add another $30 million to it. The company already has channeled $15 million into six deals and expects to have all the money rehoused within two years. “This is the...

Further blurring the line between digital and traditional assets, cryptocurrency exchange FTX now allows customers to trade stocks commission-free on its platform. FTX has begun the service for select customers and will open the service to all users in the next few months, the company said. The exchange will not clear customers’ transactions through high-speed...

Even after cryptocurrency prices crashed earlier this month, more investors still may be lured to, and harmed by, the volatile asset, Gary Gensler, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, warned in comments to reporters last week after a Congressional hearing. “I think a lot of these tokens will fail,” he said. “I fear...

Bitcoin will never be widely used as a payment system because it is inefficient and carries high environmental costs, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, said last week in comments quoted by the Financial Times.   Bankman-Fried is “one of crypto’s most influential chief executive officers,” the FT noted. The “proof of work” system...