The chief executive of credit card giant Visa remains confident that blockchain-powered solutions can be integrated into its services and offerings to power the next generation of payments. Speaking on a call at Visa’s annual stockholder meeting on Jan. 24, outgoing CEO Al Kelly — who will officially step down on Feb. 1 — briefly shared the firm’s plans for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and private stablecoins. According to a Jan. 24 report from San Francisco Business Times, Kelly said: “It’s very early days, but we continue to believe that stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies have the potential …

Bankrupt crypto lending firm BlockFi has reportedly uploaded financials by accident, revealing $1.2 billion in assets tied up with bankrupt exchange FTX and Alameda Research. According to a Jan. 25 report from CNBC, the unredacted filings show that as of Jan. 14, BlockFi had $415.9 million worth of assets linked to FTX, and a whopping $831.3 million in loans to Alameda. The financials were leaked as part of a presentation put together by M3 Partners, who is an advisor to the creditor committee. The crypto lending firm filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on Nov. 28, weeks after the collapse of …

A United States appeals court is set to hear the oral arguments relating to Grayscale Investment’s lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its decision to deny Grayscale’s Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). As per a court motion filed on Jan. 23, both sides will present their arguments at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Mar. 7, 2023, at 9:30 am local time. Oral arguments are spoken presentations delivered by attorneys summarizing why their clients should win the case. Each party in the case takes turns directly speaking to and answering questions from the judge …

The casual gaming market will remain a crucial audience for blockchain games and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in gaming, according to three blockchain gaming company co-founders. Casual gamers, people who play games somewhat regularly but rarely invest significant time, make up the largest segment of players in the gaming industry. Kieran Warwick, co-founder of blockchain role-playing game Illuvium called casual gamers "critical" because of the sheer number of them in the population. There are more than 3 billion gamers worldwide as of 2023, and it's estimated that at least 1.95 billion are casual gamers, according to Exploding Topics. Warwick said gamers …

Surojit Chatterjee, the former chief product officer at Coinbase, will officially leave the company on February 3rd after reportedly making an estimated $105 million in stock sales. According to disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Chatterjee will also retain 249,315 shares of Coinbase stock. At the time of publication, Coinbase stock was valued at $54.28 per share, by Google Finance. Chatterjee joined Coinbase from Google in February 2020 with a salary of just under $1 million per year. In recognition of Chatterjee's contributions to the company, Coinbase and Chatterjee have entered into a separation agreement that includes severance …

Bankrupt crypto lending firm Celsius may issue its own token to repay creditors, according to a January 24 report from Bloomberg. The report cites a video court hearing as the source of the information. According to the report, Celsius attorney Ross M. Kwasteniet told the court that the firm is negotiating with its creditors on how to relaunch the platform and adequately pay them back. The new, relaunched version would be “a publicly-traded company that is properly licensed,” which could allegedly provide more money for creditors than simply liquidating the company. If approved by creditors and the court, the reorganized …

Digital asset infrastructure company Blockstream has raised $125 million to finance its Bitcoin (BTC) mining colocation services, underscoring heightened demand for its institutional hosting services amid the bear market. The $125 million raise was financed by convertible note and a secured loan, Blockstream announced on Jan. 24. Venture capital firm Kingsway Capital led the convertible note raise, with additional participation from Fulgur Ventures. Cohen & Cohen Capital Markets, part of J.V.B. Financial Group, advised Blockstream on the deal. The funding will enable Blockstream to expand mining capacity for institutional hosting customers — a segment the company said was “resilient” in …

Cryptocurrency has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes, nearly all of which seemed as though they might end or at least seriously impede the continued growth of the sector. Yet despite the many “teachable moments,” the social layer of crypto refuses to learn its lesson and continues to place its trust in the hands of individuals rather than fully utilize the technologies it claims to support. Since the early days of the industry, crypto has faced major blows at the hands of centralized actors — Mt. Gox, which handled 70% of global Bitcoin transactions, lost track of 25,000 …

Blockchain development platform QuickNode has closed a $60 million funding round as part of a global expansion intended to onboard more users and developers to Web3 applications. The Series B raise, which valued QuickNode at $800 million, was led by venture capital firm 10T Fund, with participation from Tiger Global, Seven Seven Six and QED, the company announced on Jan. 24. QuickNode’s management said the capital would fund its global expansion and streamline the transition to Web3 “at scale,” which includes providing developers with the deployability required to onboard new blockchain users. The Series B was the company’s most significant …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance reportedly admitted that it mistakenly stores some customer funds in the same wallet with its collateral for some in-house tokens. After the revelation, Binance started the process of transferring the assets in question to dedicated collateral wallets. Binance mistakenly put collateral for some of the Binance-minted tokens, or B-Tokens, in a wallet that also holds customer assets, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 24. On Monday, Binance released a proof of collateral for B-Tokens, providing information for all 94 tokens issued by Binance. The firm previously stressed that B-Tokens are always fully collateralized and backed 1:1. According to …

Bankrupt crypto lending firm BlockFi has plans to sell off $160 million in loans backed by around 68,000 Bitcoin mining machines as part of bankruptcy proceedings, according to reports. In a Bloomberg report on Jan. 24, two people “familiar with the matter” claim that BlockFi started the process of selling off the loans last year. The crypto lender filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Nov. 2022, citing its significant exposure to the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX for its downfall. However, some of these loans have already defaulted since then and could be undercollateralized given the decline in the price of …

A lawyer for bankrupt crypto lending firm Genesis is optimistic the firm can resolve its creditor disputes as early as this week and the company could come out of Chapter 11 proceedings by late May. Genesis’ lawyer Sean O'Neal made the comments at a Jan. 23 initial hearing at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, according to a Reuters report. He added Genesis had "some measure of confidence" it would resolve disputes with creditors by the end of the week and, if needed, would look for the judge to install a mediator, but said: …