Ex-Coinbase Manager Charged with Insider Trading, Layoffs at Blockchain.Com, KuCoin Raises USD 10M + More News

Get your daily, bite-sized summary of cryptoassets and blockchain-related news – examine the stories that fly under the radar of today’s crypto news.

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Legal news

• Ishan Wahi, 32, former product manager at Coin baseNikhil Wahi, 26, and Sameer Ramani, 33, are charged with wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading in cryptocurrency assets using confidential Coinbase information about which crypto assets were planned to be listed on Coinbase’s exchanges, the United States Attorney’s Office announced. Ishan Wahi and Nikhil Wahi were arrested this morning. Ramani is still at large. Ishan Wahi worked at Coinbase since October 2020, according to the announcement. As a result of the insider trading scheme, Nikhil Wahi and Ramani collectively generated realized and unrealized gains totaling at least approx. US$1.5 million, it added.
• Finnish Customs has sold its confiscated bitcoin (BTC), raising EUR 46.5 million (USD 47.5 million) via two brokers for a total of 1,889.1 BTC per Bloomberg. The stake, which was confiscated in pre-2018 raids, was valued at nearly $130 million at the height of the crypto boom last year, they added.
• Crypto lender Vauld announced that it has filed an application with the Singapore courts to seek a moratorium on its subsidiary Defi Payments for a period of 6 months, which would bar any action against the company. They stated that this is due to “financial challenges” and is intended to give them “breathing time” for adjustment purposes.

Career news

• Crypto platform Blockchain.com confirmed to Cryptonews.com that it is cutting 25% of its workforce (around 150 people) due to the harsh bear market conditions and the need to absorb financial losses. The news was first reported by Coindesk.
• Metaverse and NFT company Animoca brands announced the appointment of several new employees to senior management positions, including Alan Lau (former CEO of the insurance company Certainly) as Chief Business Officer and Minh Do (formerly Chief Resource Officer for Animoca Brands) as Co-Chief Operating Officer. Executive appointments also include Joanne Chan (formerly from financial and global information services company Gerson Lehrman Group), as Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Benny Ho (formerly from the technology giant Tencent) as head of business development, Brian Chan (formerly as advisor McKinsey & Company) as vice president of operations and projects, and Kenneth Shek (formerly of professional services Accenture) as director of project management.
• Bitcoin Applications Ecosystem Project Trust machines announced that Dan Held has joined the company as an advisor. Held was previously director of growth marketing at the crypto exchange Kraken, as well as product director for Blockchain.com.
• Bitcoin non-profit Btrust announced that it has elected Vladimir Fomene as its founding member Africa Open Source Cohort. The cohort is their first step in achieving their goal of locating, educating and rewarding bitcoin developers in the Global South, they added.
• Crypto-dedicated provider of payment services BCB Group announced the appointment of Noah Sharp as the new Deputy CEO. Sharp was previously Chief Banking Officer at the provider of payment solutions Paysafe.

Exchange news

• KuCoin announced that it secured a US$10 million strategic investment from a quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG). The two parties will also collaborate on blockchain startup incubation, they added.
• Turkish crypto exchange BtcTurk announced that it has joined Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and will provide it with $210,000 in funding. COPA is a non-profit organization that aims to encourage the development and use of crypto technologies.
• The twins announced that they have registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider of Central Bank of Ireland.

Regulatory news

• Representatives from the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) met to exchange cryptopolicy insights on stablecoins and other issues during the EU-US Joint Financial Regulatory Forum in Brussels. Participants “took stock of discussions surrounding the development of potential central bank digital currencies,” they said.
• Leaders in the United States House Finance Committee is looking at July 27 to advance a bipartisan bill focused on stablecoins, Bloomberg reported, citing three unidentified people familiar with the matter. The current draft of the bill would mandate that stablecoin issuers maintain 100% reserves and would prevent them from lending stablecoins to customers, it added.

NFT’s news

• NFT platform PREMINUTEwho recently fell victim to a hack, announced that it would be to compensate victims of the incident, after taking a snapshot of the floor price of the stolen NFTs to transfer ethereum (ETH) to the affected wallets in the next 7 days. However, they clarified that this is a one-time action for this specific event and only for the wallets on their list.

Stablecoins news

Blockchain news

• Blockchain company Matter Labs so it plans to launch its privacy and scaling solution, the zero-knowledge digest zkSync 2.0, to the Ethereum mainnet in 100 days. The solution aims to reduce Ethereum’s high fees and increase the network’s transaction capacity.
• Meme crypto project Dogecoin (DOGE) announced the release of its latest version, Dogecoin Core 1.14.6, which includes a “good number of improvements under the hood and some nice new features in the user interface [user interface]”, according to the announcement.

Mining news

• Bitcoin miner Compass Mining announced its hosting partnership with digital infrastructure provider Calculate north in Granbury, Texas, USA, data center for 75 MW. Development will start in August, and Compass expects to deploy 25,000 ASICs there, they added.

Political news

• US President Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 and will self-isolate at the White House while continuing to fully perform all of his duties during that time, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Payment news

• Crypto.com App has launched Google Pay in-app crypto purchase feature, the announcement said. Users must first add their credit/debit card to Google Pay and then they can purchase 250+ coins in the Crypto.com app. The stock exchange also reported today that apple Pay Top-up is now available for users with an Australian-issued Crypto.com Visa card.