BRIEFINGS

Smith + Crown’s summary of important news across the industry

Apr 21, 2021
  • Venmo to enable cryptoasset trading.
    Payments app Vemno, a subsidiary of PayPal, has announced it will begin offering cryptoasset buying and selling services to users. Initially, users will be able to trade Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Last year, PayPal began offering similar services to its users.
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  • BitGo announces $700M digital asset insurance program.
    Cryptoasset custody provider BitGo announced this week that is has secured $700M in insurance coverage for the assets it holds in cold storage. The program is a partnership with London-based insurance provider Lloyd’s. BitGo has also obtained a New York Trust Charter and a South Dakota Trust Charter.
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  • Binance burns $595M in BNB.
    Cryptoasset exchange Binance announced this week that it has burned $595M worth of its native BNB token. The move, part of a quarterly buyback-and-burn program, mark’s the largest BNB burning to date. Binance has now burned roughly 15% of the initial 200M token supply.
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Apr 15, 2021
  • NFT Investments raises $48M.
    Non-fungible token investment group, NFT Investments, has raised €35M, worth roughly $48M at the time of writing, in its recent public listing. Shares are currently trading on Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market.
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  • Coinbase shares close at $328 following direct listing.
    Following a direst listing on Nasdaq this morning, Coinbase shares closed at $328.28 today, giving the cryptoasset exchange a market valuation of $87.5B. In addition to shares trading on Nasdaq, COIN security tokens, representing equity shares in Coinbase, will trade on Binance against BUSD.
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  • Consensys raised $65M.
    Consensys has raised $65M in its latest funding round, which included participation from J.P. Morgan, Mastercard and UBS AG. Crypto-native investors in the round include Protocol Labs, the Maker Foundation, Fenbushi, The LAO and Alameda Research.
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Apr 08, 2021
  • Brian Armstrong to release music NFT collection.
    Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptoasset exchange Coinbase, announced the release of a collection of music-related non-fungible tokens on Zora.co, an NFT marketplace backed by Coinbase Ventures. The move comes a day after Coinbase reported a first quarter profit of $1.8B and shortly before the company’s upcoming Nasdaq direct listing.
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  • OpenSea to integrate Immutable X.
    Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea has announced it will integrate Immutable X into its marketplace. Immutable X is an NFT-focused Ethereum scalability protocol, which relies on Layer 2 sidechains. The effort is intended to reduce gas fees for OpenSea users.
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  • Fei Labs raises $1.2B.
    Algorithmic stablecoin protocol Fei raised 639,000 ETH, worth roughly $1.2B, during its Genesis event on Sunday. The event marks the largest raise by a DeFi project to date. Fei is currently trading around $0.80 and has yet to reach its $1 peg, according to CoinGecko.
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Apr 01, 2021
  • Visa begins settling payments in USDC on Ethereum.
    Visa began processing payments using USDC host on the Ethereum blockchain this week. The move is part of trial run, and the company intends to offer a related service to its clients in the near future. The transactions also involved Crypto.com and Anchorage, Visa’s cryptoasset custodian.
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