Can Terra Afford its $4.5 Billion Settlement? 😯
In today’s edition: 👁 Arbitrum eyes becoming a full stage 2 rollup, 🔥 Is TON the next Solana?, 🛳 US blockchain devs moving overseas, and more!
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Why Robinhood, a TradFi Hub, Is Growing Its Crypto Business Globally
Robinhood has been in the spotlight for its $200 million acquisition of European crypto exchange Bitstamp. The TradFi app’s venture into crypto is paying off: its recent earnings showed that revenue is growing substantially, and the Bitstamp acquisition is just one way the company will grow the pie.
Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, came on the show to discuss the acquisition, Robinhood’s plans for expanding its crypto business internationally and into the institutional market, the company’s approach to listing crypto assets, how regulation has affected its business decisions, and its efforts to bridge traditional finance and decentralized finance.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Or watch it on YouTube.
What’s Poppin’?
by Sage Young and Sam Sriram
Terraform Labs to Pay SEC $4.5 Billion, Wind Down and Burn Assets
The SEC maintains that Terraform Labs is still in control of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Terra ecosystem.
Arbitrum Is Preparing to Fully Remove Its Training Wheels in Becoming a Stage 2 Ethereum Rollup
Community members are mulling over a snapshot temperature check on whether to bring BOLD, a new dispute resolution protocol, to Arbitrum One and Nova, which is expected to enhance the security of Arbitrum chains and remove the restrictions on who can become a validator.
Could Telegram’s TON Blockchain Be the ‘Next Solana’ and Successfully Challenge Ethereum?
While lagging behind Solana, TON’s daily active addresses have exceeded Ethereum’s figures every day except for one thus far in June. Some believe TON could close the distance in market cap with Solana.
The US Lost 14% of Blockchain Developer Share Since 2018: Coinbase
Fortune 500 companies are becoming increasingly interested in the onchain economy, says Coinbase, but notes that the pool of developer talent in the US is moving overseas.
Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍️
📉 Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov was partially liquidated on his CRV-collateralized loans and faces more liquidation risk after CRV token's 25% price drop.
🧑💼 Paxos laid off 20% of its workforce despite having over $500 million on its balance sheet, aiming to focus on tokenization and stablecoins.
🛡️ UwU Lend suffered its second hack this week, losing $3.7 million via flash loans, despite claiming that the vulnerability was fixed after a $20 million exploit on Monday.
💼 Biden's re-election campaign is discussing accepting crypto donations via Coinbase Commerce, following Trump's lead.
🔒 OKX confirmed a few user accounts were compromised through identity theft using forged judicial documents, but denied any security flaws in its verification system.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
🇧🇷 Brazil’s Itau Bank expanded bitcoin and ether trading services to its 60 million customers through its Ion app.
🇹🇼 Taiwan formed a crypto industry association to establish self-regulatory rules, advancing its regulatory framework.
The $$$ Corner…
🌐 Blockchain engineering firm Equilibrium Group has a new venture unit, Equilibrium Ventures, that raised over $30 million for its first fund, which will leverage its blockchain expertise.
🚀 Layer3 secured $15 million in a Series A funding round ahead of its token launch and airdrop, co-led by ParaFi and Greenfield Capital.
🎮 Telegram-based game Pixelverse closed $5.5 million from Delphi, Merit Circle, and others. The game has quickly attracted over 15 million users.
💰 Blockchange and Mastercard R&D accelerator co-led a $5 million fundraise for payment startup Kima to enhance its settlement protocol.
💸 Onchain data developer Irys has garnered $8.9 million in total funding, with a recent $3.5 million round led by Lemniscap, to develop scalable onchain storage.
🔓 Eigen Labs acquired Rio Network, open-sourcing its liquid restaking token technology to integrate with the EigenLayer ecosystem.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 1.5%, trading at $67,887
ETH is up 0.4%, trading at $3,540
BTC dominance: 51.48%
Crypto market cap: $2.6T
*All data as of today, 06:54 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
Recommended Reads
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CoinDesk: Should Banks Be Crime Fighters? The Hidden (and Not So Hidden) Costs
DL News: Crypto’s $4.1bn deal spurt is about to get ‘a lot more substantial,’ says crypto fund founder
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