- Argo Blockchain Hires Derivatives Trader to Navigate Market Rout, Sells BTC to Reduce Loan
Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) said it hired an in-house derivatives trader to better navigate a market rout that in June saw bitcoin post its biggest monthly price drop in 11 years.
The company also sold 637 BTC at an average of $24,500 to pay for operating costs and a loan from Galaxy Digital, it said in a statement on Thursday.
Crypto miners have been selling bitcoin as their revenues have slumped along with the bear market. The firm said that it has been using derivatives to limit downside risk since fourth-quarter 2021, and hired a full-time trader to improve its “capabilities within risk and treasury management.”
As of the end of June, London-listed Argo had $22 million outstanding with Galaxy Digital, according to the statement. The firm signed the $30 million loan collateralized by bitcoin in December 2021, according to its annual earnings report.
Argo’s margin narrowed to 50% in June from 55% in May and 75% in April, driven by higher electricity costs at the Helios facility in Texas and the bitcoin (BTC) price drop. The miner revised its margin figure for May from 62% as it took into account newly received invoices.
Last month, Argo’s revenue rose 10% to £3.38 million ($4.35 million) as it produced 46% more bitcoin than the previous month due to increased hashrate and uptime.
Argo is one of four companies that have put down orders for new crypto mining chips from Intel. The others are Hive Blockchain, Griid Infrastructure and Jack Dorsey’s Block (formerly Square).
- Bank of England: Crypto Needs Enhanced Regulatory and Law Enforcement Frameworks
The Financial Policy Committee of the British central bank, the Bank of England (BOE), said Tuesday that the “extreme volatility” in crypto prices in recent months underscores vulnerabilities in the crypto market, Bloomberg reported.
Citing a $2 trillion reduction in the total market capitalization of crypto assets, the Bank of England stressed the need for tougher law enforcement and regulation for the crypto sector, the publication conveyed. The market cap of all cryptocurrencies currently stands at about $1 trillion. It was nearly $3 trillion at its peak in November last year.
Last month, Agustin Carstens, the general manager of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), said all the weaknesses in the crypto market “that were pointed out before have pretty much materialized.” They include liquidity mismatches and participants unwinding leveraged positions.
Warning that the crypto market could decline further, the British central bank said:
This underscores the need for enhanced regulatory and law enforcement frameworks to address developments in these markets.
- Developers Behind Shiba Inu Tease Launch of New Stablecoin, Reward Token
The lead developer behind Shiba Inu (SHIB) Shytoshi Kusama announced a fresh update for the meme coin community, announcing plans to launch a stablecoin for the SHIB ecosystem, a reward token, and a collectible card game for its metaverse.
Admitting an existing “concern after watching other stable tokens collapse and billions in dollars get wiped off the market completely,” Kusama teased the launch of SHI, an experimental stablecoin protocol.
If everything goes as planned, the SHI stablecoin will be launched already this year, said the developer.
“We have seen independent development from a group of developers in our decentralized network. They have submitted a version of SHI that seems to avoid the issues found in other moonshots,” wrote Kusama hinting at the dramatic collapse of Terra’s UST stablecoin in May.
https://decrypt.co/104590/developers-behind-shiba-inu-tease-launch-new-stablecoin-reward-token
- The EU Just Agreed to Major Crypto Laws
Last week, the European Union sealed deals on two landmark crypto laws – but that political agreement is just the start for companies looking to operate in the bloc.
In two successive meetings, negotiators from the European Parliament met with government diplomats to hammer into shape its new Markets in Crypto Assets law, known as MiCA, alongside controversial identity checks contained in the Transfer of Funds Regulation.
It has been a long road. Back in 2018, the European Commission, responsible for putting forward bills, first raised concerns over unregulated coin offerings leading to investor ripoffs; its proposed draft of MiCA followed in September 2020, based on advice from EU agencies the European Banking Authority (EBA) and European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
Meanwhile, the idea of checking and reporting the identity of crypto payers – based on a model from the existing banking system – stems from 2019 recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force, a global anti-money laundering watchdog.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7145330
- Belgian regulator reviews crypto asset classifications while awaiting harmonization
The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), the Belgian regulator, is seeking comments on its communication on the classification of crypto assets as securities, investment instruments or financial instruments. Aimed at issuers, offerors and service providers, the agency’s communication will serve as guidance to the existing order until European regulatory harmonization is achieved.
The communication is meant to address frequently asked questions and is not exhaustive. It is accompanied by a stepwise chart to help its readers determine the classification of an asset.
Crypto assets that are incorporated into an instrument, as is generally the case for assets that are exchangeable or fungible, may be classified as securities under the European Union (EU) Prospectus Regulation or as investment instruments under the EU Prospectus Law. In those cases, MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) rules of conduct apply.
- Animoca Brands Leads $32M Funding Round for Planetarium Labs
Planetarium Labs, which is building a community-driven Web3 game network, has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands.
The investment will be used to help Planetarium Labs build out its network with tools for gaming and player governance, co-founder and CEO Kijun Seo told CoinDesk in an email.
Other investors in the round included Samsung Next and Planetarium partners Krust Universe, the investment arm of South Korean tech giant Kakao, and WeMade, the publisher of play-to-earn game Mir4.
The Planetarium Labs gaming system is based on Libplanet, a software development kit that lets developers create blockchain applications entirely on the Unity game development platform.
“Instead of multiple games sharing a single network, each game runs its application-specific blockchain network and has the freedom to design its governance and customize tokenomics, such as enabling free-to-play,” Seo said. “Afterwards, the players and the gaming community can operate a decentralized network powering each game.”
- Roskomnadzor Media Watchdog Unblocks Leading Russian Crypto News Outlet
Bits.media, the source for crypto-related news with the second-largest audience in the Russian-speaking space, has managed to win the cancellation of its blacklisting by Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media.
Roskomnadzor, as the agency is also known, blocked access to the Bits.media website last week, after adding an unspecified number of pages to a register of internet sources disseminating information considered prohibited in the Russian Federation.
The measure was imposed based on a ruling by the Volzhsky District Court of the city of Saratov in a lawsuit initiated by the local prosecutor’s office in late March. The judge granted the prosecutor’s request less than a month later, after considering the case in the absence of the media outlet’s owners.
https://news.bitcoin.com/roskomnadzor-media-watchdog-unblocks-leading-russian-crypto-news-outlet/
- Trio of JP Morgan Execs Leave For Crypto Jobs
Former JP Morgan executives Eric Wragge, Puja Samuel, and Samir Shah have all left the storied financial institution.
“I am thrilled to share that I have started with the Digital Currency Group as Head of Corporate Development,” Samuel posted on LinkedIn yesterday. “I am excited to help build out new strategic partnerships alongside an energized team that is driving change across the financial system.”
Before joining Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Coindesk and digital currency investment firm Grayscale, Samuel acted as Head of Ideation and Digital Innovation at JP Morgan.
“I wish to thank my former colleagues at JP Morgan for an amazing and extremely fulfilling three years and also my former colleagues at Citi, Citi Ventures, and New York Life Ventures for being a part of my professional journey,” Samuel added.
https://decrypt.co/104576/a-trio-of-jp-morgan-execs-leave-for-crypto-jobs-report
- Animoca Brands Leads $32M Funding Round for Planetarium Labs
Planetarium Labs, which is building a community-driven Web3 game network, has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands.
The investment will be used to help Planetarium Labs build out its network with tools for gaming and player governance, co-founder and CEO Kijun Seo told CoinDesk in an email.
Other investors in the round included Samsung Next and Planetarium partners Krust Universe, the investment arm of South Korean tech giant Kakao, and WeMade, the publisher of play-to-earn game Mir4.
The Planetarium Labs gaming system is based on Libplanet, a software development kit that lets developers create blockchain applications entirely on the Unity game development platform.
“Instead of multiple games sharing a single network, each game runs its application-specific blockchain network and has the freedom to design its governance and customize tokenomics, such as enabling free-to-play,” Seo said. “Afterwards, the players and the gaming community can operate a decentralized network powering each game.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7145450
- Crypto owners banned from working on US Government crypto policies
US government officials who privately own cryptocurrencies are now banned from working on regulations and policies that could affect the value of digital assets.
A new advisory notice released by the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) on Tuesday stated that the de minimis exemption — which allows for the owners of securities who hold an amount below a certain threshold to work on policy related to that security — is universally inapplicable when it comes to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
“As a result, an employee who holds any amount of a cryptocurrency or stablecoin may not participate in a particular matter if the employee knows that particular matter could have a direct and predictable effect on the value of their cryptocurrency or stablecoins.”
The notice provided an example scenario whereby an employee who owns a mere $100 of a certain stablecoin, is asked to work on stablecoin regulation — the employee in question cannot participate in work concerning regulation “until and unless they divest their interests in [that] stablecoin.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-owners-banned-from-working-on-us-government-crypto-policies
