New Crypto Unicorn, D&G & NFT, Bitcoin Mining Difficulty + More News
Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.____
Investments news
Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber is in advanced stages of talks with unspecified investors to raise a new financing round at up to USD 2bn in valuation, while more than USD 100m deal may be finalized this month, TechCrunch reported, citing “several sources familiar with the matter.” The four-year-old startup, which counts Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, and Ribbit Capital among its existing investors, was valued at more than USD 500m in its Series B financing round in April this year, it added.German asset manager Union Investment has revealed plans to include bitcoin (BTC) in a few of its investment funds, Bloomberg reported (via Yahoo!). They are considering adding BTC to a number of investment funds available to its private investors, with a maximum exposure of 2% of total assets for each fund, but without a fixed timeline for now.Blockchain venture capital firm Hashed is planning a second fund worth around KRW 200bn (USD 173m) in order to help blockchain companies develop, including by arranging partnerships, providing financial advice, and helping with public relations, according to Bloomberg. The VC’s investments tend to range between USD 1m and 10m per company.Crypto exchange CrossTower has set up a local unit in India and launched a trading platform, according to Reuters. CrossTower India has already hired 35 people and plans to increase headcount to 100 in six to nine months, the company said.
Adoption news
Crypto platform Bitso said it’s a core service provider for Chivo, the Bitcoin wallet developed by El Salvador’s government, Bloomberg reported, adding that Bitso will work with the US federally regulated Silvergate Bank to facilitate transactions in US dollars.
Regulation news
The Indian government is planning to define cryptoassets in the new draft bill that also proposes to compartmentalize virtual currencies on the basis of their use cases, The Economic Times reported. Their sources say that cryptoassets are to be treated as an asset/commodity for all purposes, including taxation and as per user case — payments, investment, or utility.
NFTs news
Luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana has announced the launch of their debut non-fungible token (NFT) collection called Collezione Genesi. The auction for the 9-piece collection will begin on September 20th on NFT marketplace UNXD, with different closing dates for each item category from September 28-30th, and those who want to participate will have to whitelist beforehand.
Mining news
Bitcoin mining difficulty, or the measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards, is estimated to increase by around 4% tonight (UTC time), per BTC.com data. It would reach 18.38 T, following a 13% increase at the end of August.Mining and metals blockchain platform MineHub has announced that their shares are now trading on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “MHUB”. According to the team, this makes MineHub the first publicly traded pure-play on an end-to-end digital supply chain solution for the mining and metals industry.
Blockchain and DLT news
A study by market research firm Research Dive claims that the global blockchain internet-of-things (IoT) market will be worth USD 5.8bn by 2026. Blockchain technology would be employed to secure the personal data used by IoT devices, and the region with the highest projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is Asia-Pacific.Blockchain projects Wanchain (WAN) and Avalanche (AVAX) have announced an integration of Wanchain’s non-custodial crosschain infrastructure with Avalanche’s C-chain. They have added that the two companies are teaming up to further the development of decentralized applications within the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.The distributed ledger technology non-profit IOTA Foundation has announced they have been selected to participate in the pre-commercial procurement process for the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), a network of blockchain nodes across the European Union. Current and planned use cases of EBSI include the digital management of educational credentials, the establishment of trusted digital audit trails in notarization, SME financing, data sharing among authorities, and a European digital identity.
Career news
Crypto platform Crypto.com has announced they have appointed Patrick Yoon as their General Manager in South Korea. Yoon’s previous job was at payments giant Visa, where he served as Country Manager of Visa Korea and Mongolia, collaborating with key stakeholders in the Korean financial industry including regulatory bodies and financial institutions.
