On January 22, according to a report by Reuters, UAE-based cryptocurrency financial services firm CLS Global agreed on Tuesday to plead guilty to U.S. charges against it, alleging that the company had provided services to assist in the manipulation of the market in connection with a cryptocurrency exchange created at the request of the FBI and designed to expose crypto goods.
Washington, D.C.-based Accolade Partners has announced that it has raised $202 million for its latest "fund of funds," which will focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency investments. The fund, called Accolade Partners Blockchain III, closed in October, but the firm only recently announced the news. Accolade's portfolio is understood to include 1kx, Archetype, Framework Ventures, Parafi, Portal, Reverie and Varrock.
Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based digital entertainment and venture capital firm, announced it has raised $10 million to build its consumer network, Mocaverse. Participants in the round include OKX Ventures, CMCC Global, HongShan, Republic Crypto, Decima Fund and Kingsway Capital. Mocaverse raised $20 million in September 2023 and another $11.88 million two months later.
Indico Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Lisbon, raised 76 million euros for its fund Indico VC Fund II. It is reported that the investment commitment of Portuguese local bank Banco Portuguese Guês de Fomento (BPF) to Indico VC Fund II has increased from 35 million euros to 50 million euros. The venture capital focuses on seed-round to A-round investment. The investment scope covers artificial intelligence, big data, enterprise SaaS, financial technology, ma...
Paris-based Data4 said it plans to invest nearly 300 million euros (331 million dollars) to develop a new data center hub in Paiania, just outside the Greek capital Athens. Olivier Micheli, Data4's chief executive, said the company was currently in talks with existing lenders and local Greek banks to finance the project. Micheli said the new site would "make a significant contribution to the local economy and digital ecosystem". The company operates in six European countries, including...
UAE-based investment firms Hodler Investments and Gewan Holding have announced plans to launch a $500 million Digital Energy Infrastructure (DEI) fund. The fund aims to invest in energy infrastructure projects that support the growth of the digital economy, including power generation, data mining, blockchain, decentralized physical infrastructure and artificial intelligence. It will also support startups and software development related to these sectors. According to a statement, the...
One Trading, headquartered in the Netherlands, has received an OTF license from the Dutch Financial Marekt Authority (AFM), enabling the company to operate in Europe as a regulated crypto derivatives trading platform. The digital asset trading platform, formerly known as Bitpanda Pro, said the new licence establishes One Trading as a trading venue under Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MIFID) II, a set of regulations governing trading venues in the European Union.
Cory Klippsten, CEO of California-based bitcoin-only investment platform Swan, announced on X that the company is withdrawing its mining operations, downsizing, and canceling plans to go public. Swan's escrow mining division was established in July 2023 and was originally scheduled to go public by the end of this year. Klippsten said: "Swan is unlikely to continue our escrow mining business in the near future. As we are unable to generate significant short-term revenue from the escrow mining div...
Singapore-based trading firm Presto Labs advises clients to bet on the strength of BTC in market-neutral trades and to short BCH in order to profit from the ongoing Mt. Gox repayment. Our analysis indicates that the selling pressure on BCH will be four times that of BTC, i.e. 24% of the daily trading value of BCH compared to 6% of the daily trading value of BTC. Excluding funding rate risk, going long on BTC perpetual contracts and pairing short on BCH perpetual contracts is the most effective w...
US-based developers Light Protocol and Helius Labs have launched a technology called "ZK Compression" to scale applications on Solana. ZK Compression works through a process called state compression, allowing developers to use Solana's cheaper ledger space instead of its more expensive account space to store certain types of data. According to ZK Compression's documentation, the "hash" or fingerprint of off-chain data is stored on the chain for verification using a "sparse state tree".