The global decentralized finance (DeFi) market size was valued at $11.78 billion in 2021. This number is expected to increase as DeFi advances, yet it is still in its infancy. Therefore, a number of banks and traditional financial institutions still tend to be unaware of DeFi’s potential. While this may be, industry experts within the crypto sector are predicting that decentralized finance will overtake traditional financial institutions in the coming years. For instance, Mike Belshe, CEO and co-founder of BitGo — a digital asset custody provider — told Cointelegraph that he believes DeFi will replace institutions in the next three …

Digital asset custodian BitGo said it planned to seek more than $100 million in damages from Galaxy Digital, alleging the investment firm owed the funds as part of a “reverse break fee” in its decision to terminate an acquisition agreement. In a Monday blog post, BitGo referred to Galaxy’s actions as “improper” in claiming a breach of contract to drop an agreement to acquire the digital asset custodian. BitGo has enlisted the services of law firm Quinn Emanuel to pursue legal action against Galaxy for not paying a “$100 million reverse break fee it had promised back in March 2022.” …

After more than a year of efforts to acquire the digital asset custodian BitGo, Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital has decided to drop the acquisition. Galaxy has terminated the BitGo acquisition, citing a breach of contract, the firm officially announced on Monday. According to the statement, Galaxy exercised its right to terminate the deal in line with the acquisition agreement after BitGo failed to deliver audited financial statements for 2021 by July 31, 2022. Galaxy noted that no termination fee is payable in connection with the termination. As previously reported, Galaxy originally announced plans to acquire BitGo in …

Cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital has not managed to finalize the acquisition of the digital asset custodian BitGo in the first quarter of 2022 as the firm originally planned. Galaxy Digital has made some changes to the terms of its acquisition of BitGo, CEO Mike Novogratz announced in an earnings call on Thursday. “We’ve adjusted the deal some, for progress that BitGo has made,” Novogratz said, noting that BitGo has hired about 150 people since the firms originally signed the deal in May last year. He added that Galaxy remains committed to “integrating BitGo and becoming an institutional crypto platform” …

Avalanche (AVAX) strengthened its case for a potential upside run towards $160 in the coming sessions as it broke out of a classic bullish pattern earlier this week. Dubbed "bull flag," the pattern emerges when the price consolidates lower/sideways between two parallel trendlines (flag) after undergoing a strong upside move (flagpole). Later, in theory, the price breaks out of the channel range to continue the uptrend and tends to rise by as much as the flagpole's height. AVAX went through a similar price trajectory across the last 30 days, containing a roughly 100% flagpole rally to nearly $150, followed by …

Galaxy Digital Holdings, Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency investment management firm, is not going public in the United States in late 2021 as the firm previously planned. Galaxy Digital has postponed plans for a U.S. listing, now expecting to go public in the first quarter of 2022, the company’s founder and CEO Novogratz announced Monday. “We look forward to our U.S. listing and the close of our BitGo acquisition, which we now expect will occur in the first quarter of 2022,” he said. The U.S. The Securities and Exchange Commission is yet to approve Galaxy Digital’s potential listing on an American exchange, …

Digital asset custodian BitGo has integrated with Stacks to bring Bitcoin (BTC) rewards to institutional investors, a move that could strengthen the already-heightened institutional demand for crypto during the next leg of the bull market. Beginning Monday, BitGo will offer institutional token holders the ability to earn Bitcoin rewards through the Stacks token, which is also known as STX. Through a process known as Stacking, STX token holders can earn BTC rewards directly in their wallets. Unlike other yield-earning services, BTC rewards generated through Stacking are not based on a lending auction, which means STX token holders do not need …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) wallet and browser extension MetaMask has partnered with three crypto-focused custodians as part of a broader effort to attract more institutional capital to the digital asset market. On Tuesday, the company announced new partnerships with BitGo, Qredo and Cactus Custody centered around MetaMask Institutional — a new product offering that gives institutional investors access to the large sums of collateral in the DeFi market. ConsenSys, the Ethereum developer behind MetaMask, introduced MetaMask Institutional in May. When asked about how MetaMask Institutional works alongside existing product functionalities, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph: “MetaMask Institutional provides the same functionality and …

Major venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz will be promoting a former employee of digital asset infrastructure provider BitGo to assist in running its $2.2 billion crypto fund. According to Andreessen Horowitz general partner Katie Haun, Arianna Simpson will be joining partners Chris Dixon, Ali Yahya and Haun for the launch of the firm’s $2.2 billion venture fund, Crypto Fund III. Simpson has been a general partner at the company for more than a year and will be promoted to the position of deal partner to assist the fund aimed at financing cryptocurrency networks and teams contributing to the decentralized economy. …

Global payment giant Visa is moving forward with its commitment to digital currency adoption by approving the issuance of a new Bitcoin (BTC) debit card in Australia. Sydney-based crypto spending app CryptoSpend announced Wednesday that Visa has approved the issuance of a physical debit card that will allow Australians to spend their Bitcoin at local merchants. CryptoSpend co-founders said in an interview with the Australian Financial Review that the new card will be issued by major local payments company Novatti and is expected to hit the market in September. Visa is expected to announce the approval later this week. According …

One percent of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is currently tokenized as Wrapped BTC (WBTC), equating to nearly $6.2 billion worth of BTC. The milestone was acknowledged by the product manager of crypto custody firm BitGo, Kia Mosayeri, who tweeted the news on June 7. BitGo is the custodian for the Wrapped Bitcoin protocol, which was launched its Bitcoin-backed ERC-20 token WBTC on Ethereum in January 2019. 1% of all BTC has been wrapped into $WBTC! https://t.co/jOi0LZZUyi — WBTC (@WrappedBTC) June 7, 2021 According to Etherscan, there are currently 187,610 Bitcoins wrapped on the protocol, equating to a fully diluted market capitalization …

Galaxy Digital, a crypto and blockchain-focused financial services and investment manager founded by Mike Novogratz, is set to acquire institutional crypto custodian service and wallet operator BitGo. According to an announcement on Wednesday, Galaxy Digital Holdings will pay $1.2 billon in stock and cash to settle the deal. Under the acquisition’s terms, BitGo shareholders will get 33.8 million in newly issued shares of Galaxy Digital, in addition to $265 million in cash. To fund the cash part of the acquisition payment, Galaxy will use its balance sheet and defer a large part of the sum to be settled up to …