CoinDesk Crypto

After spending most of the day in negative territory, cryptocurrencies made a late surge on Friday with bitcoin hitting its highest level since mid-May. Bitcoin is currently trading above $41,000 at press time and is up more than 15% over the past week. Bullish sentiment has returned after a sharp sell-off in May and two months of consolidation above the $30,000 support level.

Some analysts are optimistic and expect buyers to remain active above the 50-day moving average, which is above $34,000 now.

Latest prices

Cryptocurrencies:

• Bitcoin (BTC) $41239.73 +3.66%
• Ether (ETH) $2439.5, +4.58%

Related: MicroStrategy CEO Likens Borrowing to Buy Bitcoin to Investing Early in Facebook

Traditional markets:

• S&P 500: 4395, -0.54%
• Gold: $1813.5, -0.8%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed 1.236%, compared with 1.274% on Thursday.

“We have been talking about the market having lower liquidity during the summer for a few weeks now and we think this helps explain the sharp price action we saw that triggered the short squeeze of nearly $1 billion in futures liquidations,” David Grider, a strategist at FundStrat, wrote in a Thursday newsletter.

Grider stated that bitcoin’s spike could reflect a flight to safety from Chinese investors looking to “get out at any cost,” given the recent sell-off in Asian equities. “Bitcoin could have been trading as a proxy tool for investors looking for a hedge,” Grider wrote.

Next Fed rate-hiking cycle might be shallow

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell assured markets this week that the U.S. central bank is considering when to start winding down its program of purchasing $120 billion in bonds every month, but Wall Street analysts are already wondering what will come after that.

Related: Why Bitcoin Needs Its Critics: A Conversation With Noelle Acheson

According to Bank of America, the Fed may not get around to raising interest rates anywhere close to the levels that were considered normal historically, anytime soon. That implies that monetary policy could stay loose for years, even after the Fed stops actively printing money to pay for the purchases of U.S. Treasuries and mortgage bonds. 

The dynamic might be bullish for bitcoin, because many investors see the cryptocurrency as a hedge against the inflation and dollar debasement that might come from easy-money policies. 

A similar shallow tightening pattern was seen toward the end of 2018, when the Fed pushed the benchmark interest rate up to around 2.5%, traditional financial markets went into a swoon, and by early 2019, the central bank had reversed course and started cutting rates again. 

According to the Bank of America analysts, bond market investors may already be anticipating the dynamic, which may explain why 10-year U.S. Treasury yields are at historically low levels of around 1.2%, well below the most-recent annual inflation rate of 5.4%

“We think the level of rates in the U.S. reflects a market expectation that the Fed will produce only a shallow hiking cycle,” the analysts wrote.

Bitcoin active entities

The active entities of bitcoin have surged over the last week, rising 30% to 325,000 active entities per day, according to Glassnode. The number has been in decline from January to mid-July. 

Entities refer to “a cluster of addresses that are controlled by the same network entity and are estimated through advanced heuristics and Glassnode’s proprietary clustering algorithms,” according to Glassnode. Active entities include those active either as a sender or receiver.

Ether resistance levels

Ether, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, faces resistance near $2,500, where resistance is defined by the 100-day moving average. Ether is up about 10% over the past week and rallied nearly 30% after holding support at $1,720 on July 20. Lower support is seen at $2,000, which could stabilize a pullback.

Ether is consolidating relative to bitcoin and is on traders’ watch for a potential breakout. The ETH/BTC ratio has initial support at 0.054, which must hold in order to keep ETH’s relative uptrend intact.

Altcoin roundup

Flow soars: Flow, a token powering a blockchain network focused on non-fungible tokens (NFT), surged in price after the big cryptocurrency exchange Binance said Friday it would list the project. Binance said at 7:00 UTC (3 a.m. ET) that it would list the FLOW token; since then, the price has rallied 61% to $29 from $18. On a 24-hour basis, the cryptocurrency is up 30%.

Framework to Regulate Crypto, Stablecoins: Legislation before Congress to provide a “comprehensive legal framework” to regulate the digital asset market and possibly grant the federal government the ability to ban some stablecoins was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday. According to sponsor Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), chairman of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the existing digital asset market structure and regulatory framework are too “ambiguous and dangerous for investors and consumers.”

Six Dapps to Go Live on SKALE: Ethereum scaling project Skale has announced which decentralized applications (dapps) will first go live on its network. Skale Labs CEO Jack O’Holleran told CoinDesk that teams will be releasing their dapps between now and the end of this summer. Boot.Finance, Covey, CurioDAO, Human Protocol, Ivy and Minds are the projects in the initial cohort. rm.

Relevant News:

• MicroStrategy CEO Likens Borrowing to Buy Bitcoin to Investing Early in Facebook
• Ukraine’s President Signs Law Allowing Central Bank to Issue a CBDC
• Binance to Wind Down Derivatives in Europe; Malaysia Orders Closure
• Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest Scoops Up 1.3M Robinhood Shares on Nasdaq Debut

Other markets

Most digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended up higher on Friday. 

Notable winners of 22:45 UTC (6:45 p.m. ET):

chainlink (LINK) +14.73%

uniswap (UNI) +6.17%

tezos (XTZ) +3.76%

Notable losers:

the graph (GRT) -1.91%

algorand (ALGO) -1.19%

cardano (ADA) -0.04%

Related Stories

• US Stablecoin Regulation Could Lead to Geopolitical Competition
• Bitcoin News Roundup for July 30, 2021

The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) is launching an initiative to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the banking and crypto industries. 

According to an industry letter published by NYDFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell on Thursday, under the initiative the department plans to collect and publish data from New York’s regulated banking institutions, non-depository financial institutions and virtual currency service providers that reflects the diversity of their corporate boards and management.

The issue of diversity in the crypto industry made headlines last year against the backdrop of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, when the CEO of the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, announced the exchange was taking a stance against employee-driven social activism. Within a month, 5% of its employees accepted a severance package. Later in the year, the New York Times published a lengthy report revealing racist and discriminatory treatment of African American employees in the company followed by another report that claimed the company paid women and minorities well under the tech industry average. 

Related: Fetch.ai Token Has Volatile First Day on Coinbase, Listing Still ‘Groundbreaking,’ CEO Says

Having considered a number of possible actions, the NYDFS determined that publishing management diversity data is the best way to support the finance industry’s diversity efforts, Lacewell explained in the letter.

“Given the limited availability of banking and non-depository financial institution-specific diversity data, making that information public will allow companies to assess where they stand compared to their peers and raise the bar for the entire industry,” Lacewell said. 

The letter also said the data will be collected in the fall of 2021 via a survey, and its results are to be published in the first quarter of 2022, categorized by the type of institution and other factors.  

NYDFS stepping in

In Thursday’s letter, Lacewell made it clear that applicable financial institutions will be required to participate in the upcoming NYDFS diversity survey. 

Related: Israeli Bill Would Force Crypto Investors to Report Holdings Above $61K

“Under Banking Law §37(3) the Superintendent may require any banking organization to make special reports to her at such times as she may prescribe,” the letter said. 

The letter explains the DSF will collect data from New York-regulated banking institutions with more than $100 million in assets and all regulated non-depository financial institutions with more than $100 million in gross revenue. 

The revenue threshold does not appear to apply to crypto entities, but the diversity survey will also seek to collect data from all authorised virtual currency service providers including “BitLicensees” and virtual currency trust companies, according to the letter.  

All qualifying institutions will provide data “related to the gender, racial and ethnic composition of their boards or equivalent body and senior management as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, including information about board tenure and key board and senior management roles.” 

This includes Coinbase, Genesis Global Trading, Paxos and others. (Genesis is a CoinDesk sister company.)

A timely response

The NYDFS letter, which included diversity statistics for institutions in the banking and crypto industries noted that female participation in the cryptocurrency community is very low.  

“The percentage of women in the sector, including developers, investors and interested individuals, usually hovers between 4% and 6%,” the letter said, citing data from crypto statistics and services platform CoinDance from 2018. 

That figure has since improved slightly: In 2020, engagement in the bitcoin community by gender was 86% male. The letter adds that 92% of venture-backed cryptocurrency and blockchain companies founded around the world from 2012 to 2018 had a founding team that was entirely male, compared to the tech industry standard of 82% for that same period. 

On Thursday, as the NYDFS letter was published, the Black Women Blockchain Council (BWBC) a global benefit organization that aims to improve inclusion in the industry, announced it has partnered with ConsenSys to launch a global initiative to train 500,000 black female blockchain developers by 2030.  

According to Olayinka Odeniran, founder of BWBC, of the small number of software developers who are specifically focused on blockchain, a smaller percentage are part of the African diaspora, and an even smaller percentage are females. 

“We wanted to increase that number because we believe that being able to participate as a creator, as opposed to a consumer, is going to greatly benefit our community,” Odeniran said. 

According to the new partnership, BWBC and ConsenSys will be launching specialized programming for black women in blockchain by 2022. The details of the training programs and courses are still in the works, Odeniran said.  

Odeniran commended the NYDFS for taking steps to hold institutions accountable for what they say. 

“While the public statements from Regulated Banking Institutions and Regulated Non-Depository Financial Institutions in support of DEI initiatives are significant and necessary, it is time to act on those words and make good on good intentions to begin to achieve real change,” the letter said. 

As BWBC’s own initiative takes shape, Odeniran is not sure how the industry will respond to the diversity survey. 

“I think it’s a good attempt. Now, whether or not organizations will take it seriously, that’s up to those organizations,” Odeniran said. 

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Yele Bademosi, the founder and CEO of the Nigeria-based crypto payments app Bundle Africa, is stepping down as the head of the company. 

Bademosi announced his decision to step away from his current role, effective today, in a blog post on Friday. He wrote that he intends to focus on driving digital currency adoption across Africa. He will be succeeded by Binance Africa director Emmanuel Babalola, at least on an interim basis.

“My focus for the next 12 to 18 months is really building infrastructure that can allow the inflow of capital to support innovation beyond the buying and selling of crypto,” Bademosi told CoinDesk. 

Related: Nigeria’s Central Bank Digital Currency Pilot to Start Oct. 1

Bundle Africa launched last year with backing from global cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which contributed $450,000 in seed funding for the creation of the payments app. According to Bademosi, the app has about 350,000 users now. Bademosi, who grew up in Nigeria, was a former director of Binance Labs before creating Bundle. 

Babalola is not only familiar with Africa’s crypto market. but he also knows how to navigate the global crypto sector comfortably, Bademosi said of his successor.

“[Babalola] is someone that I trust because we have the same mission and values, and I basically can’t imagine anybody else taking over,” Bademosi said. 

Bademosi did not specify his future projects, but said he has seen a lot of innovation in Africa’s crypto market in the last few months and there is a lot of room for innovation in social tokens, non-fungible tokens and peer-to-peer payments. 

Related: The Headache of ‘Crypto Colonialism’

“I’m very excited,” Bademosi said. 

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The CEO of business software company MicroStrategy, which holds more than 105,000 bitcoins in its reserves, told CNBC Friday that borrowing money now to buy more bitcoin was like investing in one of today’s dominant tech companies in the early days. 

“If you borrow billions of dollars at 1% interest and invest it in the next Big Tech digital network that you thought was going to be the dominant Amazon or Google or Facebook of money, why wouldn’t you?” MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor said, according to CNBC. “I mean, if I could borrow $1 billion and buy Facebook a decade ago for 1% interest, I think I would’ve done quite well.”

Saylor noted that his company has $2.2 billion of debt and pays about 1.5% interest on that debt. Since last August, his company has financed its purchases of massive amounts of bitcoin using company cash flows, equity issuance, convertible debt, senior secured debt and a $1 billion shelf registration. 

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits Two-Month High After Late Day Surge

“Our point of view is being a leveraged, bitcoin-long company is a good thing for our shareholders,” he said. 

Saylor also said that the notoriety that its bitcoin purchases have given the company has elevated its brand by a factor of 100. 

MicroStrategy issued its second-quarter earnings report on Thursday, in which it said it planned to continue amassing bitcoin on its balance sheet. For the quarter, the company recorded an impairment of $424.8 million on its bitcoin holdings, since accounting rules force it to do so when an asset’s price drops below its cost basis. But appreciation in an asset is only required to be reported once a gain is realized through a sale.

At the end of June, MicroStrategy’s bitcoin holdings were worth $3.65 billion, reflecting bitcoin’s market price of $34,763 at the time. The non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) digital asset cost basis of those holdings was $2.74 billion, or $26,080 per bitcoin.

Related: Why Bitcoin Needs Its Critics: A Conversation With Noelle Acheson

UPDATE (July 30, 19:33 UTC): Updated to add details of impairment charges in the sixth paragraph.

Related Stories

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The CEO of business software company MicroStrategy, which holds more than 105,000 bitcoins in its reserves, told CNBC Friday that borrowing money now to buy more bitcoin was like investing in one of today’s dominant tech companies in the early days. 

“If you borrow billions of dollars at 1% interest and invest it in the next Big Tech digital network that you thought was going to be the dominant Amazon or Google or Facebook of money, why wouldn’t you?” MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor said, according to CNBC. “I mean, if I could borrow $1 billion and buy Facebook a decade ago for 1% interest, I think I would’ve done quite well.”

Saylor noted that his company has $2.2 billion of debt and pays about 1.5% interest on that debt. Since last August, his company has financed its purchases of massive amounts of bitcoin using company cash flows, equity issuance, convertible debt, senior secured debt and a $1 billion shelf registration. 

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Declines as Buyers Await Lower Support Levels

“Our point of view is being a leveraged, bitcoin-long company is a good thing for our shareholders,” he said. 

Saylor also said that the notoriety that its bitcoin purchases have given the company has elevated its brand by a factor of 100. 

MicroStrategy issued its second-quarter earnings report on Thursday, in which it said it planned to continue amassing bitcoin on its balance sheet. For the quarter, the company recorded an impairment of $424.8 million on its bitcoin holdings, since accounting rules force it to do so when an asset’s price drops below its cost basis. But appreciation in an asset is only required to be reported once a gain is realized through a sale.

At the end of June, MicroStrategy’s bitcoin holdings were worth $3.65 billion, reflecting bitcoin’s market price of $34,763 at the time. The non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) digital asset cost basis of those holdings was $2.74 billion, or $26,080 per bitcoin.

Related: Why Bitcoin Needs Its Critics: A Conversation With Noelle Acheson

UPDATE (July 30, 19:33 UTC): Updated to add details of impairment charges in the sixth paragraph.

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• Bitcoin Struggles at Resistance; Lower Support Near $34K

The number of crypto users has doubled in four months, reaching around 221 million in June.

Clients of Wealthfront, an automated investment service, can now gain exposure to crypto through the addition of two cryptocurrency trusts to the robo-adviser’s investment offerings.

• The Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm has expanded its roster of investment vehicles to include the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE).
• The move marks the first by a major robo-adviser in the U.S. to offer clients crypto exposure, an announcement by Wealthfront Friday claimed.
• Clients will be able to allocate up to 10% of their total portfolio to the two trusts, with crypto’s volatility cited as the reason for the restriction.
• Wealthfront is among the largest robo-advisory platforms in the world with $25 billion in assets under management.
• Grayscale Investments is a subsidiary of CoinDesk’s parent company Digital Currency Group.

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A first in the world of top-level financial institutions, JPMorgan has opened up retail access to Bitcoin, and not just for its largest institutional clients, but for any and all of the customers who use their platforms. 

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the bill On Payment Services into law, an announcement on the president’s official website said.

• The bill regulates how payment services, especially digital ones, can be provided in Ukraine.
• In particular, the bill says that the country’s central bank can issue its own digital currency, or a CBDC, and open a regulatory sandbox for innovative fintech startups.
• On June 30, the bill was passed in Ukraine’s national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.
• The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has been looking into potentially launching a CBDC since 2018, having built an early prototype on the Stellar blockchain and published a report on this in 2019.

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Flow, a token powering a blockchain network focused on non-fungible tokens (NFT), surged in price after the big cryptocurrency exchange Binance said Friday it would list the project.

Binance said at 7:00 UTC (3 a.m. ET) that it would list the FLOW token; since then, the price has rallied to $29 from $18, a 61% rise. On a 24-hour basis, the cryptocurrency is up 30%.

• The token began the day at $18.26 and climbed to $27.56 after the announcement from Binance, according to data from Messari. 
• FLOW’s market value jumped to $1.23 billion.
• Flow is a blockchain built to support gaming applications and digital assets. 
• The ecosystem is a product of Dapper Labs, the company behind the CryptoKitties blockchain game and NBA Top Shot, which allows fans to buy, sell and trade officially licensed video highlights of National Basketball Association moments. 
• Flow’s rally after Binance’s announcement could be a sign the market still sees the exchange as a major player, despite recent regulatory crackdowns. 
• Binance is still the leading crypto exchange in terms of spot and derivative market volumes and futures market open interest. So the listing could provide access for a larger swath of traders to buy or sell the FLOW token.

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Crypto lender Babel Finance appointed Edmond Lau, a former Citigroup vice president, as its chief financial officer, hoping he will keep the company on regulators’ good side.

• Lau, also a former managing director of Beijing-based VC firm Lingfeng Capital, will lead fundraising efforts and “provide strategic input” for Babel’s business and regulatory compliance planning, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk.
• Lau will “unquestionably” boost the company’s relationship with regulatory bodies, Babel co-founder and CEO Flex Yang said.
• Babel closed a $40 million Series A funding round in May, had lent $2 billion and counts $500 million in crypto assets under management, the press release said.
• Lau will also oversee M&A activities and partnerships.
• Babel Finance applied for a Type 9 asset management license in Hong Kong last November, but has yet to receive approval.
• Huobi Technology secured the license in August 2020, and launched dedicated crypto funds in April.

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Authorities in India are investigating whether Binance’s WazirX was used in a money-laundering operation related to betting apps that have collected more than $134 million in the past 10 months, Bloomberg reported Friday.

• The country’s anti-money laundering agency, the Enforcement Directorate, wants to question Binance executives and is awaiting their response, Bloomberg said, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the issue.
• The Enforcement Directorate is investigating Chinese-operated betting apps that allegedly laundered some of these funds through the Binance-owned crypto exchange. Binance acquired WazirX in 2019.
• A Binance spokesperson said the company itself had not been contacted by any authorities in the matter. “We did not receive any summons in June or July of this year,” the spokesperson said. “As per available info in the public domain, the summons was directed to only WazirX.”

UPDATE (July 21, 12:58 UTC): Updated with response from Binance spokesperson.

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U.S. crypto traders are able to easily bypass blocks on overseas derivatives platforms, new research has found.

• American crypto traders are getting round measures that are supposed to block them from using offshore exchanges such as FTX and Binance, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing research by data firm Inca Digital.
• U.S.-based traders are able to use virtual private networks designed to mask the country where they are based. Or they simply lie about where they are from.
• Inca’s technology is used by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the body that regulates derivatives trading in the U.S. Offshore exchanges operate outside of the CFTC’s purview and can avoid some of the rules relating to investor protection and market manipulation.
• The research was conducted by scanning Twitter for exultant tweets about successful trades and so on.
• Inca found 2,000 such tweets, of which 372 belonged to Americans. It is likely this represents only a tiny proportion of the total number, the Journal said.
• Of the 372, 240 were using FTX, prompting the Hong Kong-based exchange to say it will tighten its procedures to block U.S. users.
• Until this week, FTX users were able to gain entry-level access with a daily withdrawal limit of $9,000 without needing to provide identification documents.

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Bitcoin (BTC) declined from the $40,000 resistance level during Asia hours. The short-term uptrend appears exhausted, although lower support near $34,000 could stabilize the pullback into the weekend.

The intermediate-term downtrend is in effect, defined by lower price highs since April. Buyers have consistently taken profits at resistance levels, although there has been a significant loss of downside momentum since the May low around $30,000.

Bitcoin was trading around $38,800 at press time and is down 3% over the past 24 hours.

• The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is the most overbought since April, which could keep short-term sellers active towards lower support levels.
• There is strong resistance between $40,000 and $42,000, which is near the 100-day moving average.
• The 50-day moving average is sloping upwards near $34,000 support, an indication that buyers are responding to improving momentum.

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Bitcoin faced selling pressure on Friday after Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange by volume and open interest, settled monthly options contracts worth $1.6 billion.

The cryptocurrency slipped from $39,800 to $38,500 after 08:00 UTC, the designated settlement time on Deribit. A total of 41,000 contracts expired, of which 22,000 were calls options, and the rest were put options, according to Deribit data.

While the exact nature of the expiry-related flows is not known yet, prices frequently become more volatile after expiry.

Related: Bitcoin Struggles at Resistance; Lower Support Near $34K

Option expiries have gained prominence this year, with the cryptocurrency gravitating toward the so-called max pain point in the lead-up to settlement, and seeing notable directional activity post-expiry. That point is the strike price at which the most open options contracts expire worthlessly. Sellers, typically institutions, try to push prices closer to the max pain point to minimize their losses.

“There is always additional activity before and just after the expiry, especially for relatively larger ones like the July expiry,” Luuk Strijers, chief commercial officer at Deribit, told CoinDesk.

During the bull run, bitcoin consistently saw pullbacks toward the max pain point ahead of expiry and resumed gains following settlement, as seen below.

“When BTC was bullish, we’d see a sell-off & volatility increase during expiry week, then pump at expiry,” an options and algo trader who goes as Altcoin Psycho tweeted Thursday. “This time, it’s been the opposite. If price dumps after expiry, that may be a sign that we go lower.”

Related: MicroStrategy Plans to Continue Amassing Bitcoin

The overall market mood has been bearish since the beginning of the month, and prices dipped below the critical support of $30,000 on July 20. The cryptocurrency bounced well above the July expiry max pain point of $35,000 earlier this week, and is again facing downward pressure after the expiry.

Data shared by analytics firm Laevitas via Discord shows there has been notable call-option selling at higher strikes after 08:00 UTC.

Investors typically sell calls, which offer insurance against bullish moves, when the underlying asset is expected to drop or consolidate.

A call option gives the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A put option gives the right to sell.

Bullish flows may return if the cryptocurrency establishes a foothold above the 100-day moving average (SMA) of $40,000. The average has been capping gains since Wednesday.

Also read: Blockchain Data Shows Bitcoin’s Current Price Floor at $37.3K

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Local companies have transferred $580 million across international borders using a blockchain-based platform developed by authorities in the Chinese province of Yunnan, state-owned newspaper Spring City Evening News reported today.

• As of June, 208 companies had used the platform for 638 transactions, the newspaper said.
• The system, launched in December, helps export-oriented firms in Yunnan cut red tape, reducing the time needed for international money transfers to 15 minutes from as long as two days, the report said.
• The project started in June 2020 and was developed by the local branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
• In addition to being efficient for companies, the platform helps local authorities monitor transactions and implement regulations, the report said.
• China’s central government wants to boost blockchain innovation in the country, particularly with regards to applications that make government more efficient.

CORRECTION (JULY 30, 12:15 UTC): Corrects value of transfers to $580 million from $508 million.

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Local companies have transferred $508 million across international borders using a blockchain-based platform developed by authorities in the Chinese province of Yunnan, state-owned newspaper Spring City Evening News reported today.

• As of June, 208 companies had used the platform for 638 transactions, the newspaper said.
• The system, launched in December, helps export-oriented firms in Yunnan cut red tape, reducing the time needed for international money transfers to 15 minutes from as long as two days, the report said.
• The project started in June 2020 and was developed by the local branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
• In addition to being efficient for companies, the platform helps local authorities monitor transactions and implement regulations, the report said.
• China’s central government wants to boost blockchain innovation in the country, particularly with regards to applications that make government more efficient.

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Binance’s regulatory woes worsened Friday as Malaysia ordered it to halt operations in the country, and the cryptocurrency exchange said it’s planning to wind down futures and derivatives products across Europe, starting with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

• Malaysia’s Securities Commission (SC) issued a public reprimand against the company and ordered it to disable the website and mobile apps in the country.
• According to the commission, Binance is “illegally operating a digital asset exchange.” The country’s laws demand that all such exchanges must be registered by the SC.
• Binance also needs to halt marketing activities and prevent Malaysian investors accessing its Telegram group.
• In Europe, Binance said users in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands will be unable to open new futures and derivative positions on the platform with immediate effect.
• Existing positions will have to be closed by an as-yet undetermined date.
• The decision is its latest move to distance itself from products and services that have drawn the scrutiny from regulators in a slew of different markets.
• Earlier this week, Binance announced it was stopping crypto margin trading involving sterling, the euro and Australian dollar. This followed just hours after CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted that the company was reducing the maximum leverage users can use to trade futures contracts from 100x to 20x.
• Binance has fallen foul of Malaysia’s markets regulator in the past. Along with eToro, it was added to a list of companies not permitted to operate in the country in July last year.

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Australian startup Loda, a crypto-collateralized lending platform, has completed its first liquidity pool with the help of some decentralized finance heavyweight investors.

According to a press release on Friday, Loda attracted over 15 investors who poured $15 million into the lender’s first of three completed institutional liquidity pools.

The two remaining pools, which are currently live, will be completed once demand calls for it, Dion Dalton-Bridges, CEO and founder of Loda, told CoinDesk via Telegram on Friday.

Related: Blockchain Australia Recommends Safe Harbor Provision for Crypto Providers

Participation came from the likes of Framework Ventures, Spartan Capital, One Block, Mechanism Capital, Liquefy Labs, Apollo Capital, Maven 11, Ledger Prime, and Cluster Capital.

Signum Capital, X21, Flow Ventures, Autonomy Capital, KardiaChain, as well as angel investor Georgi Georgiev also participated.

Loda’s initial iteration (V1) is one of the first of its kind in the country allowing users “one of the only ways” to borrow Australian dollars against crypto, said Dalton-Bridges.

The platform allows users to park their crypto assets on the platform in exchange for dollars as a means of accessing immediate capital.

Related: Alabama Issues ‘Show Cause’ Order to BlockFi

While banks don’t accept crypto as collateral to borrow money for a home, car, boat, or holiday, Loda is attempting to provide its users the means to do just that.

“An example of a traditional collateralized loan is when someone uses a house to borrow more money. All that is happening here is we are introducing a new form of collateral, which is the crypto itself,” said Dalton-Bridges.

Those that believe in cryptocurrency as a long-term investment may borrow the cash in the short-term and still benefit, as the person who takes the loan “still captures all the potential upside” of an appreciating cryptos price.

“This is appealing to crypto holders who want access to cash but don’t want to sell,” said Dalton-Bridges. “The benefits of borrowing against crypto are namely that you are not selling your crypto but are still able to access cash in the here and now, and at low-interest rates.”

The founder estimates a flat rate across all loans will be placed somewhere in the 5% range once the platform goes live sometime in August.

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ARK Investment Management snapped up stock and crypto trading platform Robinhood’s shares hours after they made their debut on the Nasdaq exchange.

• The New York-based investment manager picked up a total of 1,297,615 shares via its ARKK fund, which typically invests in tech improvement.
• Robinhood shares, trading under the ticker symbol HOOD, fell 8.4% to close at $34.82 each after opening Thursday around $38 per share.
• Earlier this month, Robinhood began unconventionally offering a portion of its IPO to users via its app which some considered as a risky gamble.
• ARK, which actively trades shares on a continual basis, is heavily invested in crypto and blockchain-centric businesses, among other areas.
• In April, the firm made a significant purchase in Coinbase stock shortly after it too debuted on the Nasdaq exchange. COIN’s share price is also down considerably from its opening bid of $381.

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