Welcome to the eighth edition of 2022 BVV monthly Newsletter on the latest insights and updates on emerging technologies and digital assets.
The cryptocurrency landscape has grown dramatically in size and extent during the last year. In 2021, funding to blockchain startups surged 713% YoY to reach $25.2B. The adoption of crypto assets worldwide increased by almost 800% in 2021, and in the instance of El-Salvador, a whole country recognized Bitcoin as legal money. Recently, governments in the United Kingdom and the United States have begun to lay out their plans for integrating digital assets into the existing financial system through CBDCs. Read more
Spotlight: Industry News and Events
- Ethereum’s third and final testnet merge went live on Goerli. Goerli was the last of three public testnets to run through a “dress rehearsal” of the Merge. After this, the mainnet Merge is expected to occur sometime at the end of September. Coindesk
- Crypto entrepreneurs Bankman-Fried, Sun in talks to buy majority of Huobi Global Exchange according to a Bloomberg report. It would value the firm at $3 billion or more. Coindesk
- Crypto-mixing service Tornado Cash was blacklisted by the US Treasury because?according to the Treasury Department, it has been a key tool for the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking group tied to the $625 million March hack of Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network. Coindesk
- Singapore High Court granted Zipmex crypto exchange protection from creditors until December?to give them time to come up with a funding plan. Zipmex is one of several crypto companies that succumbed to market pressures over the past two months. They loaned $48 million to Babel Finance and $5 million to Celsius, both of which failed to repay their loans. Coindesk
- South Korea's money laundering watchdog flagged 16 crypto firms including crypto exchanges KuCoin and Poloniex for conducting "illegal business activities" without proper registration, and could face fines or imprisonment. Coindesk
- Singapore High Court recognized Three Arrows Capital liquidation order which will give them the ability to probe the local assets of the defunct crypto hedge fund. The liquidation order was originally filed in the British Virgin Islands. Coindesk
- MicroStrategy’s Founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has been sued for tax fraud by The District of Columbia. The attorney general's office alleged Saylor avoided paying more than $25 million in taxes to the district and is seeking back taxes, treble damages, civil penalties, expenses and fees. Coindesk
- Meta links Instagram’s NFT posts to Facebook. Meta has been testing support for NFT “digital collectible” posts on Instagram since May and has “started giving people the ability to post digital collectibles that they own across both Facebook and Instagram,” after they connect their digital wallets to either platform.The Verge
- Sygnum Bank dives into the metaverse with their new hub as they announced the opening of their metaverse hub, saying that it is the virtual equivalent of New York’s Times Square in Decentraland. FinTechNews.ch
- Digital Private bank, Alpian partnered with Visa to issue a metal debit card in Switzerland. The official initiation of the partnership follows the granting of a full Swiss banking licence from FINMA and the successful completion of a Series B+ financing round of CHF 19 million. FinTechNews.ch
- How to enter a new market faster as a FinTech company. FinTechNews.ch
- Top 12 global FinTech investors in Q2 2022. FintechNews.ch
- KPMG preps Singapore embedded finance hub to provide support to firms looking to make inroads into financial areas such as payments, blockchain and lending. FinExtra
- Revolut under pressure over internal audit after it was criticised by a UK regulator for the unacceptably high risk of "material misstatement" in its account auditing. FinExtra
- UBS abandoned the $1.4bn Wealthfront robo-advisor acquisition. The firms did not specify why they have mutually agreed to terminate the deal, which was announced in January. FinExtra
- Visa tokens overtake physical cards in circulation reaching four billion network tokens for e-commerce payments. The Visa Token Service (VTS) replaces 16-digit account numbers with a digital token only the payments giant can unlock. FinExtra
- A cybercriminal group containing former members of the notorious Conti ransomware gang is targeting the Ukrainian government and European NGOs in the region, Google said. The Verge
- Ring finally brings end-to-end encryption to its flagship video doorbells. The Verge
- TikTok denied reports that it was breached after a hacking group posted images of what they claim is a TikTok database that contains the platform’s source code and user information. In response to these allegations, TikTok said its team “found no evidence of a security breach.” The Verge
- Congress is investigating Twitter whistleblower claims and are calling on the FTC and DOJ to do the same. The Verge
- Samsung admitted about the data breach that exposed details of some U.S. customers. The Hacker News
- Microsoft disclosed details of a now-patched "high severity vulnerability" in the TikTok app for Android that could let attackers take over accounts when victims clicked on a malicious link. The Hacker News
- Researchers find counterfeit phones with backdoor to hack WhatsApp accounts. The Hacker News
Updates From Our Portfolio
Keyless, is recognized as one of the World's most innovative companies by the CyberTech 100 . Read more
AlgoTrader has been named, together with other 9 Swiss companies, one of the world's 100 wealthtechs, innovative technology solution prviders, shaping the future of the invesment industry. Read more
Coinfirm releases Entity Due Diligence for streamlined crypto compliance in an effort to create a safer blockchain ecosystem. Read more
Coadjute shortlisted for the "PropTech Innovator of the Year" Award at the 2022 Property Awards London Read more
