Regulations

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning to financial influencers that advice must be fair, clear, and not misleading. Unauthorized individuals, such as “finfluencers” promoting regulated financial products including cryptocurrencies without FCA approval, could commit a criminal offense and face up to two years in prison, unlimited fines, or both.

Financial Institutions and Crypto Brokers

Starting April 5, Binance crypto broker will no longer support USDC stablecoin on the Tron network. This change applies only to USDC issued on the Tron blockchain and does not affect deposits and withdrawals on other networks such as Ethereum.

DigiFT, a Singapore-based digital asset manager with licensing, announced the introduction of new tokens based on US Treasury bonds. The new product will have a structure similar to treasury notes, offering users direct beneficiary rights to AA+ rated and short-term T-Bills, as well as providing legal yield from underlying securities.

Avalanche blockchain organization Ava Labs announced a partnership with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Chainlink to assist in on-chain asset settlement infrastructure. The collaboration aims to bridge the Avalanche network and the Ethereum blockchain, enabling global circulation and settlement of tokenized assets.
London Stock Exchange announced the launch of trading for BTC and ETH-traded bonds on May 28. The products will initially be available only to professional investors, with issuers required to submit applications for planned products by April 15.

HSBC banking giant launched tokenized gold products for retail customers in Hong Kong. The bank has already established its own platform based on distributed ledger technology called HSBC Orion, through which the HSBC Gold Token will be available, alongside previously issued digital bonds.

21Shares AG, issuer of the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency-based exchange-traded products, launched the Toncoin staking ETP. The ETP, named TONN, was introduced on the SIX Swiss Exchange, where 21Shares already offers various similar crypto products. TONN will track the performance of Toncoin and reinvest staking rewards into the ETP.

Bybit crypto broker announced an expansion to the Netherlands with the introduction of Bybit.nl. The new platform was created in collaboration with SATOS, one of the leading Bitcoin-centric companies in the Netherlands.

Project Investments

Merkle Manufactory, operator of the Farcaster web3 social media protocol and its Warpcast client, achieved unicorn status with a valuation exceeding $1 billion thanks to a financing round led by Paradigm crypto venture capital. Farcaster, running on Ethereum and OP Mainnet, as well as its off-chain system consisting of peer-to-peer servers called Farcaster Hubs, already has tens of thousands of users, with Vitalik Buterin himself being one of the driving forces behind it, stating that it is in many ways better than X.

Blockchain Developments, Partnerships, Web3, and DeFi

Three blockchain-based data and AI projects, Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol, are joining forces to create the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. As part of the agreement, their existing tokens will merge to create a common ASI token, with an estimated diluted market value of approximately $7.5 billion. The business aims to establish the largest open-source, independent player in artificial intelligence research and development.

Arbitrum Foundation, Azuki, and Weeb3 Foundation announced plans to launch a new blockchain-based anime network. The project, called AnimeChain, aims to serve anime fans worldwide with new content and services utilizing web3 technology.

VeChain announced the launch of the codeless asset tokenization platform, MaaS, in collaboration with MotoGP champion team Gresini Racing and with the support of ExPlus. The Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform allows businesses and individuals to tokenize digital assets without complex coding expertise. The full deployment of the project is expected in the second quarter.

Regulatory Actions and Hacks

The US federal prosecutor’s office charged KuCoin crypto broker and its two founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang, with violating anti-money laundering laws. The US Department of Justice alleged in the indictment that KuCoin deliberately circumvented US AML and KYC regulations by falsely claiming to have no US customers while, in reality, having a significant US customer base, thus enabling more than $4.5 billion in money laundering.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a final proposed judgment filed on Monday asked Judge Analisa Torres, who presided over the SEC v. Ripple case, to approve a nearly $2 billion fine as Ripple directly sold to institutional investors. The fine includes $876 million in restitution, $198 million in pre-judgment interest, and a $876 million civil penalty. The SEC urges the New York court to consider the severity of the company’s violations.

Judge Failla rejected Coinbase crypto broker’s request to dismiss the SEC’s lawsuit against the broker. The SEC sued Coinbase in June 2023, alleging that the crypto broker violated federal securities laws by listing 13 tokens that the SEC claims are securities. The company requested dismissal of the case, questioning the SEC’s authority over crypto brokers.

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of bankrupt FTX crypto broker, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. In addition, Judge Lewis Kaplan imposed an $11 billion fine. The judge announced his decision after a two-hour hearing in a Manhattan courtroom, stating that SBF’s silence on remorse and the positive and selfless personality communicated to the public was merely a facade.

The Big Bang award-winning Munchables game platform of the Blast network received back 62 million worth of ETH after one of their main developers, a North Korean hacker, stole assets from them. The project’s smart contract-based central control allowed the hacker to transfer ETH to themselves, but the team quickly realized this and returned the stolen 17,412.6 ETH a few hours later.

Decentralized lending protocol Prisma Finance suffered a hack, resulting in the exploitation of over $11 million worth of ETH. The team behind the project acknowledged the incident, and core developers immediately halted the protocol, urging users who connected their wallets to the protocol to withdraw all connections.