Roche Freedman Fired as Lead Attorney in Tether/Bitfinex Lawsuit, Binance Pool Launches $500M Fund for Loans to Bitcoin Miners

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Legal news

• A US judge has ordered that law firm Roche Freedman step down as lead attorney in a class action lawsuit against the USDT stablecoin issuer Tether and its sister company, the Bitfinex Exchange. Bloomberg reported that the judge dismissed the firm following the August leaks involving the firm’s founding partner and crypto attorney Kyle Roche bragging about the firm’s alleged relationship with the crypto startup Ava Labs. “We are pleased with the court’s thorough and well-reasoned decision to remove Roche Freedman LLP as interim class counsel,” Tether said today.

Exchange news

• Binance Pool has launched a $500 million fund to provide loans to Bitcoin (BTC) miners struggling amid the market downturn, as well as digital infrastructure providers. According to the announcement, this project was designed to provide secure debt financing services to both public and private blue-chip Bitcoin mining and digital asset infrastructure companies globally. Binance Pool also intends to launch cloud mining products, it added.
• Crypto exchange Kraken hired in The twins Exchange’s former head of UK, Blair Halliday, to run its UK business as new CEO. Halliday will focus on expanding Kraken’s reach in this vital region.

Regulatory news

• Crypto wallet provider Blockchain.com will reportedly stop offering services to Russian citizens following the latest EU sanctions. Per RBC, the company notified users that it will close accounts in two weeks and asked them to withdraw their money until October 27.

Bitcoin News

• SEBEDE, a FinTech and next-generation payment processor for the gaming industry, today announced a new initiative contributing open source code and products to the Bitcoin Lightning space, according to a press release. The new not-for-profit NBD (No Big Deal) initiative has already resulted in more products and code repositories, they added. “NBD doesn’t sell anything, it doesn’t offer services, it doesn’t support products. It just writes code and gives it to the world to do with as they please,” said Andre Neves, co-founder and CTO of ZEBEDEE.

Investment news

• Web3 infrastructure company MoonPay and AAX The exchange announced that they are partnering to allow users to buy crypto in their wallets without leaving the exchange. Per a press release shared with Cryptonews.comAAX users will be able to buy crypto using debit and credit cards, bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay and more, directly on the exchange.
• The US-based Celo Foundation, the team behind the Celo platform, announced the launch of its “2% for Web3 Impact” pledge at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) Investor Forum in The Hague. The goal is to bring $20 billion in Impact investment funds to Web3 by 2025, and the pledge starts by actively helping onboard 100+ impact investors to Web3 and making their first investment in the area or providing liquidity, for example to impact lending protocols, says that in the press release.
• Borrowing/lending protocol Interest protocol officially joins Chainlink BUILDING Program. BUILD helps empower Interest Protocol to accelerate the adoption of their protocol on Ethereum with enhanced support from Chainlink while the team provides network fees and other benefits to the Chainlink ecosystem, the press release said.
• Trading and investment platform Centurion Invest announced a strategic partnership with Muhsin Bayrak, a billionaire real estate magnate, and through its corporate holdings and Investment Group will soon operate a crypto exchange in the region. The platform said it bought a majority stake in the ABStocksa regulated Turkish stock exchange that is part of AB Group Holding. This partnership will provide a new innovation fund of $40 million for a technology-based project in Bodrum to expand Centurion Invest into this region that is experiencing an increase in crypto interest, it said.

Web3 news

• Eco-friendly, open source and non-custodial crypto wallet Earth Wallet and private membership People I trust says they are using regenerative Web3 technology to present an NFT auction and tree planting ceremony in London for the 2022 Climate Change Forum. According to a press release, the auction will take place on 18 October^thand a tree planting ceremony will follow on October 20^th at the House of Lords, so that members and guests can start the planting of NFTrees.