Iceland’s blockchain-based identity verification platform Authenteq has raised $5 million in a funding round led by Draper Associates and Capital300, the American tech website VentureBeat reports on Jan. 14. Following the two-week funding round, the company revealed its intention to conduct the second closing of the Series A financing for additional investors in the coming weeks. The latest $5 million closing was held on Jan. 10, while the total amount raised constitutes $7 million over seven rounds since 2015, according to business data provider Crunchbase. Authenteq funding rounds and key investors. Source: Crunchbase Within the latest funding round, Authenteq has …

HBUS, the strategic partner of top crypto exchange Huobi, has hired a former executive of venture capital (VC) firm Draper Athena, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Nov. 13. The HBUS trading platform, which currently employs around 40 people in their headquarters in San Francisco, has officially announced the appointment of Jay Ryu, formerly of Draper Athena, as Vice President of Corporate Development. As the press release states, Ryu previously worked with prominent figures in the VC industry, such as Draper Athena chairman Tim Draper, well-known for his pro-crypto stance. According to the report, with seven years of …

“Traditional” venture capital (VC) investment in blockchain and crypto firms has almost tripled in the first three quarters of 2018, according to a new Diar report published September 30. Diar cites data from Pitchbook that indicates that blockchain and crypto-related firms have raised almost $3.9 billion in VC capital in so far this year — a 280 percent rise as compared with last year. The rise comes not just in terms of an increasing number of deals, but also in the burgeoning median value of each, which has grown by over $1 million this year. VC investment and deal count …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week New York Judges Rules Securities Laws Be “Flexible” And Apply To Cryptocurrencies In an apparent first, a New York federal judge has ruled that U.S. securities laws are applicable for prosecuting crypto fraud allegations. During the fraud case against Brooklyn resident Maksim Zaslavskiy — who allegedly defrauded investors by promoting two cryptocurrencies reportedly …

The husband and wife duo behind blockchain project Tezos have faced their latest setback in an ongoing securities class action against their $232 million Initial Coin Offering (ICO), according to a docket report published August 7. U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg of the Northern District of California yesterday refused to dismiss plaintiff Arman Anvari’s suit against the defendants, which consolidates various prior class action suits filed by other Tezos contributors against Arthur and Kathleen Brietman, their firm Dynamic Ledger Solutions (DLS), and the Tezos Foundation. The controversial case surrounds what Tezos’ creators claim was an online fundraiser, although the docket …

Avenue Capital Group co-founder Marc Lasry has said that Bitcoin’s (BTC) price is going to hit $40,000 n bullish comments to CNBC on July 18. Speaking in an interview for the network’s Squawk Box segment, Lasry, whose debt management firm controls around $9.6 billion of assets, saw increasing ease of crypto trading as a major motivator for Bitcoin to rise, noting “As it gets more into the mainstream, and as more markets end up allowing it to trade where it's freely tradable, to me that's more of the bet.” Lasry added that he foresaw Bitcoin investors “making 5 to 10 …

On April 5, India’s Central Bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made a big move in the ongoing global regulatory push on cryptocurrencies as it decided to no longer provide services to any person or business that deals with cryptocurrencies. Since then, there has been a battle building up, with the latest skirmish set for July 20 - the Supreme Court of India’s next hearing date for the latest petitions against the bank’s decisions. This decision followed confrontation between banks and Bitcoiners, and also came off the back of the Indian government claiming that “Bitcoin is a ‘ponzi scheme”, …

US investor Tim Draper presented his vision for blockchain-based digital governments in an opening keynote speech at the GovTech Pioneers conference in Vienna, Austria Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported May 23. Draper outlined a future in which blockchain technology utilizing smart contracts in conjunction with artificial intelligence will massively change the role and responsibilities of states. "If we combine Bitcoin, blockchain with smart contracts and artificial intelligence, we could create the perfect bureaucracy," the investor told the audience. Draper explained his vision for the future using the example of healthcare. According to Draper, citizens could store all relevant health data, such …

The Supreme Court of India has decided that no petitions can be filed in any High Court of India against the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) April 6 circular about ending all dealings with cryptocurrency, according to local news outlet Inc42. Citing a Twitter post May 17 from a team of Indian lawyers involved in crypto regulatory analysis, Inc42 reports that the Supreme Court has refused to pause RBI’s crypto ban and has ruled that no further petitions against RBI’s ban can be filed in any High Court. The Supreme Court has also reportedly set the next hearing date for …

American venture capital investor and Blockchain industry influencer Tim Draper claimed that Bitcoin (BTC) is “bigger than the internet,” and several other major developments in human history, during the Intelligence Squared US debate in New York City this Saturday, CNBC reported today April 23. During the debate – which Draper undertook alongside Overstock CEO and Bitcoin bull Patrick Byrne and against two crypto skeptics – the billionaire investor compared Bitcoin, and evidently Blockchain in general, to his early investments in Tesla, Hotmail, and Skype. He went further by stating that Bitcoin would be “bigger than all of those combined,” and …

Since last week crypto community celebrates the return of Bitcoin to the green with an inspiring bounce up to $1000 in value in less than an hour of trade on Thursday, 12 April. The sudden increase in Bitcoin’s value was met with much fanfare and further speculation as to what caused the massive volume in trade in the preeminent cryptocurrency. There are a number of reasons for Bitcoin’s sudden surge in price and they have seemingly worked in tandem to boost the virtual currency’s value. While the exchange rate of Bitcoin stands at around $8,157 after the weekend (at the …

After investment tycoon Tim Draper said earlier this week that Bitcoin (BTC) could hit $250,000 by 2022, CNBC Fast Money’s Brian Kelly has supported this prediction in a CNBC interview from yesterday, April 13. In response to a question about Draper’s high prediction, Kelly responded that although “it sounds crazy,” when one considers that BTC already had a 4,000 percent return over two years, a 3,000 percent return over four years could be a “continuation of the trend we’ve seen.” Kelly continues by noting that an increase of institutionalized money into the crypto sphere - Rockefeller’s VC arm, a Goldman …