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UK ISIS Member Charged for Sending Bitcoin to Terrorist Militants in Syria

A UK member of ISIS faces multiple charges for sending funds using Bitcoin (BTC) to aid the escape of terrorist militants being held in prison camps in Syria.

On October 29, a 27 years-old British citizen appeared before the Westminster Magistrate court on allegations that he used Bitcoin cryptocurrency to send funds to help captured ISIS militants escape prison camps in northern Syria.

According to the court documents, Hisham Chaudhary has been a member of the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq And Syria) for more than four years, assisting the terror group in executing its operations.

Some of his roles within the terrorist organization involved gathering and transferring funds abroad using Bitcoin to help captured terrorists to escape from prison camps controlled by Kurdish forces in northern Syria.

The court documents allege that Chaudhary acquired and sent undisclosed amounts of Bitcoins to facilitate hidden transactions and operations of the militants in the prison camps. Furthermore, the court documents also indicate that Chaudhary participated in compiling and distributing a terrorist publication recognized as “The Wholesome Fruit in The Virtues and Etiquettes of Jihad” during late last year. Chaudhary is also accused of disseminating videos on a Twitter account and using Telegram online messaging app.

Chaudhary appeared before the Westminster court by video-link from a police station, wearing a face mask and covering his shoulders with a blanket.

The judge mentioned that Chaudhary joined the group in January 2016 and remained an active part of the militant terror networks through October 2020. Despite terror organizations banned under the UK law in 2014, Chaudhary helped the group to fulfil the execution of its terrorist operations.

The court charged him with seven violations, including membership of and association with an identified terrorist organization, disseminating information about a terrorist publication, and participating in funding activities to finance terror group. However, Chaudhary did not take a plea to the seven charges levelled against him during the brief hearing.

He was remanded in custody and will appear before the court next Friday.

The culprit was arrested after an investigation launched by Leicestershire Police, Counter Terrorism Policing East Midlands, and Counter-Terrorism Policing North East.

Chainalysis Valued at Over $1 Billion after Raising $100 Million to Expand Regulatory Platform As Crypto Market Surges

Major blockchain analytics firm, Chainalysis, announced yesterday that it has secured a $100 million Series C financing led by Addition, bringing the company’s valuation to over $1 billion.

According to the announcement on Nov. 23, Accel, Benchmark, and Ribbit also increased their investment in the blockchain analytics firm after participating in previous fundraising rounds.

The $100 million in capital will be used to further support the international expansion of Chainalysis’s network of government agencies, financial institutions, and other private sector businesses that relies on Chainalysis’s data platform and software solutions for transparency into cryptocurrency transactions and markets.

Chainalysis is a strategic partner to governments agencies and private sector businesses across the world, providing data, software, and expertise on compliance and sophisticated cryptocurrency crime and money laundering tactics, techniques, and procedures. Since the beginning of November 2020, the world’s combined cryptocurrencies have added nearly $200 billion dollars in global market cap, with Bitcoin (BTC) leading the charge. Ethereum has risen over 30% and XRP’s price rocketed gaining more than 115% this week. Chainalysis is scaling its platform to meet the fast-growing demand for its data and technology—as institutional dollars flow into Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and digital assets become more mainstream and more highly adopted.

The blockchain analytics firm has been integral in assisting US law enforcement in several high-profile cases, including the Twitter hack in June, the disruption of two terror finance campaigns, the forfeiture of cryptocurrency addresses associated with a North Korea-aligned hacking group, and the seizure of $1B of illicit funds.

In addition, the blockchain analytics firm, launched an asset realization program to help government agencies and insolvency practitioners handle, store, realize, and monitor seized assets.

Michael Gronager, Co-Founder and CEO, Chainalysis said:

“Government agencies and the private sector need the right data, tools, and insights to responsibly oversee and participate in the cryptocurrency economy […] We have established a network of government agencies in over 30 countries and more than 250 of the most important businesses around the world who are making it safer and easier for consumers and businesses to transact, fundamentally changing the way money works. Our partners at Addition understand the power of our platform and are a natural partner for this next phase of growth.”

Chainalysis now reportedly valued at over $1 billion, extended its Series B to $49M in July, the company has since announced it also increased its number of customers by 65% and drove 100% growth in recurring revenue YoY in the third quarter of 2020.

“Chainalysis is the financial regulatory platform for the future of digital assets” said Lee Fixel, Founder of Addition. “The firm’s data, technology, and network are foundational to the blockchain ecosystem. With impressive growth to date, the opportunity for continued global expansion as the preferred partner to governments and businesses seeking compliance and investigative insights is massive.”

Former Goldman Sachs Staff Launch DeFi Platform Ondo with $4M Funding Round

Ondo Finance DeFi protocol, launched by two former Goldman Sachs employees, has raised $4 million through an equity funding round.

This equity funding led by Pantera Capital, including other participators such as The LAO, Protoscale Capital, Divergence, Chapter One, CMS, Digital Currency Group, CoinFund, Bixin, Genesis, as well as angel investors like Christy Choi (former Head of Investments at Binance), Diogo Monica (co-founder Anchorage), Richard Ma (founder Quantstamp), Josh Hannah (founder Betfair), and Stani Kulechov (founder Aave).

Ondo CEO Nathan Allman, a former staff of Goldman’s Digital Assets team, and Ondo’s other co-founder, Pinku Surana, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs in a technology team, launched the Ondo Finance DeFi platform after they identified a unique market opportunity to offer a suite of products that would allow institutions get risk-controlled exposure to DeFi products.

Nathan Allman, CEO of Ondo Finance, talked about the development and stated:

“ We see a huge opportunity to bring a wider array of products from traditional finance to DeFi and create new financial primitives. We are grateful for the support of our investors who recognise the immense potential for DeFi to democratise access to a wide range of financial services previously only accessible to institutions.”

Ondo is a new DeFi primitive that seeks to resolve such existing problems in the DeFi sector. Ondo Finance is an Ethereum-based DeFi protocol developed to accelerate DeFi adoption among mainstream investors to capture DeFi yield with transparent and mitigated risk while unlocking higher upside exposures.

The platform allows users to get risk-isolated, fixed yield loans backed by yield-generating crypto assets. Borrowers and lenders contribute capital together in “Ondo Vaults,” which use smart contracts to enforce loan provisions and maximise returns.

Current yields in cryptocurrency markets are volatile rates derived from a complex source of inputs. This is a barrier to entry both for institutional and retail investors who seek yields with defined risk. These are risk-averse investors who are willing to adopt DeFi to maximise returns. However, such investors are exposed to volatile yield, impermanent loss from decentralised exchanges like PancakeSwap, Uniswap etc., and commingled risk from lending protocols such as Aave and Compound.

Meanwhile, Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital, talked about Ondo during the equity fundraising event and said: “Fixed income remains the missing piece that decentralised finance needs to go mainstream. Ondo unlocks downside protection and relative certainty in forecasting returns for institutional investors looking to allocate to the attractive yields in the DeFi space. We are excited to back the Ondo team in their mission to bridge the worlds of DeFi and institutional finance.”

Image source: Ondo twitter

Coinbase Seeks to Raise $1.5B Senior Notes to Power its Product Development

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc has announced its plans to raise new capital by issuing $1.5 billion aggregate principal amount of its Senior Notes to potential investors.

Per the announcement, the Senior Notes will be due by 2028 and 2031 in a private offering. According to the Brian Armstrong-led firm, “the interest rate, redemption provisions, and other terms of each series of notes will be determined by negotiations between Coinbase and the initial purchasers.”

Purpose of the Senior Notes

Senior Notes are a form of debt offerings that takes priority over other unsecured loan options. It has become one of the most effective tools that companies use to pull capital with more flexibility.

Coinbase has big plans for the funds that will be realised through the issuance of the Senior Notes. The company specialised its plans in detail in the official press release stating that:

“This capital raise represents an opportunity to bolster our already strong balance sheet with low-cost capital. Coinbase intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include continued investments in product development, as well as potential investments in or acquisitions of other companies, products, or technologies that Coinbase may identify in the future. The closing of the offering is subject to market and other conditions.”

Coinbase reaffirmed that the Senior Notes are only available to entities considered as institutional investors in adherence to American securities law.

MicroStrategy Senior Notes Issuance

With the leeway to utilise the proceeds from Senior Convertible Notes, MicroStrategy Incorporated made a shocking move to the world when it raised about $1.05 billion, as reported by Blockchain.News back in February. The realised funds were injected into the purchase of Bitcoin (BTC), which has become the flagship asset the business intelligence firm has adopted as its Treasury Reserve Asset to wade off the effects of inflation.

Bitcoin Mining Firm Marathon Digital Posts 91% Growth in Q3, Gets $100M Credit Line from Silvergate Bank

Marathon Digital Holdings Inc, a US-based cryptocurrency mining firm, has obtained a $100 million revolving line of credit from Silvergate bank in Bitcoin and US dollars.

On Monday, October 4, Marathon Digital announced that it obtained the $100 million credit line from crypto-friendly Silvergate bank on Friday October 1.

The firm stated that it will use the credit to buy more Bitcoin mining equipment and fund its mining operations.

Marathon also disclosed that the loan would be available for one year and renewed annually by agreements between the firm and Silvergate bank.

Besides that, Marathon also talked about its latest Bitcoin production and miner installation updates, stating that it generated more than 1,255 BTC – approximately $61.736 million during the third quarter of 2021, and mined 340.6 BTC (worth roughly $16.67 million) in September alone – an increase of 91% over the second quarter of this year. The firm stated that the rise in Bitcoin production came after buying 26,960 ASIC mining machines from Bitmain this year. Marathon noted that while its current operations generate a hashrate of about 2.7 EH/s, it plans to purchase an additional 8,459 ASIC mining machines soon.

Marathon Digital CEO Fred Thiel talked about the development and said: “while the rate at which we receive miners has fluctuated and may continue to do so in the near-term, we remain optimistic that we are well-positioned to scale our hash rate to 13.3 EH/s by the middle of 2022.”

Marathon shares have increased more than 200% year to date as Bitcoin price has risen dramatically.

Where to Invest in Crypto?

The shares of Marathon Digital Holdings are known as one of the best performing currently that investors should buy and hold for the next decade.

Marathon stocks have the potential to make patient investors very wealthy. Such potentiality can be explained by the fact that Fidelity Investment Inc invested about $20 million in buying a 7.4% stake in Marathon Digital Holdings – a Nasdaq listed company – in August this year.

Also, in August, BlackRock, the world largest investment firm, invested about 383 million in acquiring stakes in Marathon Digital Holdings.

Such investments demonstrate to other investors that Marathon Digital Holding is the best cryptocurrency mining firm in the world.

Image source: ir.marathondh.com

NFT Startup Mojito Secures $20M Funding with Sotheby's Backed

Mojito, a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) startup, has raised the sum of $20 million from investors, the chief of whom is the legacy art auction house- Sotheby’s.

While Sotheby’s has recorded a positive stint in the NFT metaverse in the year-to-date period, the investment in Mojito comes off as the first time that the auction house will be investing directly in crypto or blockchain-related outfits.

“We believe in the future of using blockchain to expand ownership of digital assets,” says Charles F. Stewart, Sotheby’s CEO. “There is a huge amount of focus and interest in NFTs. We hear about these categories from most of our existing clients and collectors. Still, we are also engaging with a rather large new audience focused on this category. Sotheby’s mission is to promote access and ownership of exceptional art and luxury objects, so focusing and developing this area makes a lot of sense.”

Mojito’s role in the booming industry is well defined. It partners with brands to conceptualize, design, and develop bespoke NFT marketplaces on top of the Mojito platform while also serving as a full-service NFT marketing partner and tech advisor. The Delaware-based startup said it would use the new funding to expand its engineering team while also ink deals with other projects to design more functional NFT platforms.

Despite there being a record of the growth of the NFT ecosystem that has primarily ushered in increased transaction volume on all marketplaces within the past year, the industry is still lacking the tag for being user-friendly. This remains one of the barriers to entry that Mojito seeks to eliminate.

“The crypto space has gotten a bad rap for being inaccessible and hard. We want to help lower the barrier to entry, make it easy, make it fun, and give brands space to make it their own,” says Dan Kinsley, CEO and co-founder of Mojito. “I’m passionate about decentralization in general and helping bring users into the space, and this is a great conduit for that.”

Beyond the Mojito funding, the broader cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem has been seeing the influx of venture capital funds as investors explore all means to gain exposure to the fast-growing blockchain world.

1inch Network Raises $175M in Private Token Sale, Building DeFi Products for Institutional Investors

1inch Network, a renowned decentralized exchange aggregator, announced it had successfully completed its Series B funding round where it raised the sum of $175 million.

This particular funding round did not follow the conventional approach as it involved the protocol’s private token sale. As unveiled by the firm, Series B was led by Amber Group. Among about 50 investors that participated in the funding was Jane Street, VanEck, Fenbushi Capital, Alameda Research, Celsius, Nexo, Tribe Capital, and Gemini Frontier Fund.

1inch said it will use the new capital to advance its protocol in relation to providing a new product suite for institutional users looking to make their way into the DeFi ecosystem.

“While continuing to keep the existing DeFi audience happy by delivering state-of-the-art products, 1inch also aims to become a gateway for institutions that want to be part of the DeFi space,” says Sergej Kunz, co-founder of the 1inch Network.

1inch said it will develop a new product suite dubbed 1inch Pro, which will cater specifically to the corporate players. The service will be AML and KYC compliance and will be able to draw users from the United States of America.

“The next $1 trillion of assets entering DeFi will come from institutions rather than retail users, and 1inch would like to facilitate entry for them,” Sergej adds. “We have already started work in that direction by attracting some key players from the traditional finance markets, and this collaboration will only accelerate over the next few years.”

As a liquidity and price aggregation provider, 1inch’s role in the DeFi industry is pivotal to potential inbound growth. With more established industry players now serving as partners for the startup, it can work with more focused targets as it can draw on all the expertise it needs as it looks to scale up its offerings.

Image source: Blockchain.news

BIS to Explore Potential Advantages of Defi on Small & Medium Enterprises in H.K.

As part of its research plans, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) will explore whether decentralized finance (DeFi) technologies can enhance financing for small and medium enterprises in Hong Kong.

The BIS – an umbrella group for central banks – said in a report Wednesday that in 2022, its Innovation Hub will “launch new projects into CBDCs, DeFi and next-generation payments systems”. Other agendas include new projects in green finance, regulatory and supervisory technology and cyber security, it added.

The BIS said that the “Hong Kong Centre will continue to work on mBridge”, referring to “multiple CBDC bridge” in detail. Primarily, to test the integration of wholesale CBDCs from four central banks; on Aurum, a retail CBDC prototype; and on a second phase of the Genesis prototypes. Ultimately, that will further explore the intersection between technology, the financing of green projects and how countries can achieve their carbon reduction targets, it added.

Agustín Carstens, BIS General Manager, said:

“With an expanded network of Hub Centres and exciting new projects, the BIS Innovation Hub is now in a stronger position to innovate in a sound, sustainable way, harnessing the benefits of digital technology, serving the public interest, and working cooperatively with the central bank community, academia and the private sector,”

The BIS Innovation Hub is expanding in 2022 with first projects in the London and Nordic Hub Centres, the expected opening of the Eurosystem and Toronto centres and also the advancement of the strategic partnership with the Federal Reserve System.

“CBDCs and improvements in payments systems continue to be an area of exploratory focus, accounting for 13 out of 17 projects that were active in 2021 or will be launched in 2022,” the BIS report stated.

According to the CBDC Tracker, at least 64 central banks were looking into a retail CBDC by the end of 2021. Among them the most successful was the Nigerian central bank’s launch of eNaira last October, meanwhile, the European central bank has kicked off a two-year experiment into a retail CBDC.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong, the global financial hub, is also actively exploring the possibility of introducing crypto for trading activities, the financial watchdog resumed the discussion of the regulation of stablecoins recently, proposing 5 options to the public.

Electric Capital Raises $1B to Invest in Crypto Startups

Palo Alto-based Venture Capital firm Electric Capital announced Tuesday that it has raised $1 billion to invest in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

According to the official post on the startup’s blog, it confirmed that the capital would be used to fund a variety of crypto networks, Web3 protocols, and blockchain-enabled businesses.

The capital was raised in 2 distinct rounds, including one $400 million pulled back in 2021 with a plan to invest this into crypto token investments. The second involved a $600 million fund earmarked to make only token-focused investments.

“We are long-term investors and partners to our founders. We have spent the last four years building software and data systems that enable us to participate in Web3 ecosystems. We use the infrastructure we have built to provide liquidity, drive key governance proposals, help teams better understand their ecosystems with our data, and more,” the startup said in a statement.

The monetary valuation of funds that will be invested in the startups it chooses to back will range from $1 million to $20 million. Unlike the majority of venture capital firms whose approach to investment is more or less passive, Electric Capital is working on the frontline, conducting research and helping its partners get the best out of their business models.

Riding on Deep Experiences as Tech Founders

The founders, Avichal Garg, 39, and software engineer Curtis Spencer 40, are both experienced investors and entrepreneurs. The duo co-founded Spool, a bookmarking startup that lets consumers save articles and videos on their phones that Meta Platforms Inc later acquired in 2012. Avichal and Spencer stayed on at Facebook until 2018, when Electric Capital was founded.

The Electric Capital team also has plans to onboard as many engineers within its ranks as possible. The belief is that the most successful businesses have the presence of software engineers at their core, particularly some of the startup’s competitors, including Paradigm and Hack VC.

The capital raised by Electric Capital comes off as a testament to how rebooted venture capital firms are in going all out with backing cryptocurrency-focused startups. Avalanche, Binance, and FTX are amongst the big players in the space that have earmarked ecosystem funds to invest in related startups with inherent potential.

Espresso Systems Raises $32M in Seed Funding, Bringing Scaling & Privacy Solutions to Web 3

On Monday, Espresso Systems, a rapidly rising scaling and privacy system for Web 3 applications, announced that it raised $32 million in a funding round led by Greylock Partners and Electric Capital.

Other firms, including Sequoia Capital, Blockchain Capital, Slow Ventures, Polychain Capital, Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures, Gemini Frontier Fund etc., also participated in the funding.

Espresso Systems said that it plans to use the fresh funding to offer resources necessary to grow its team dedicated to research and development and develop infrastructure and products that will make Web3 ready for broad adoption. The firm further mentioned that it intends to use the funds raised to bring such products to the market through a range of channels such as distribution of native end-user products, developer adoption, and partnerships with enterprises, entrepreneurs, and startups.

Ben Fisch, the CEO of Espresso Systems, talked about the development and said: “Today’s launch is only the beginning of what Espresso Systems will enable. The need for lower fees and more flexible approaches to privacy is evident across Web3 applications from cross-border and B2B payments to DAO payroll and voting to trading and investment. We are thrilled to start sharing more of the solutions we have been working on to address the needs of both existing users of decentralized applications and the needs of the next generation of users.”

Meanwhile, Seth Rosenberg, an investor at Greylock Partners, also commented about the business development and stated: “We are excited to back Espresso Systems as they tackle two of the key obstacles that will unlock long-promised applications of blockchain systems: lower fees and enhanced privacy guarantees. Espresso systems will allow developers and asset issuers to build stablecoins that are fast, private and compliant; NFTs that are accessible; and DeFi applications that are more efficient.” Rosenberg further said.

Enabling Businesses Gain Competitive Advantage in the Web 3 Industry

Compliant privacy is an essential feature for payments. Individuals do not want their net worth leaked. Traders do not want their trades visible. Businesses do not want competitors to see payments to their suppliers. And governments require monitoring and compliance.

Compliant privacy is unsolved primarily in the Web 3 industry. While existing solutions are fully public for competitors and bad actors to see, they lack risk monitoring and reporting ability.

Espresso Systems builds the infrastructure to reinforce more scaling and privacy solutions for Web 3 applications. The company is building layer 1 (base blockchain) infrastructure to enable configurable privacy and decentralized scalability to unlock an entirely new design space for businesses, firms, and entrepreneurs in the Web 3 industry. Espresso is working to enable anyone to build private and compliant stablecoins, private and fast DeFi, accessible NFTs and games, and entirely new private applications using zero-knowledge proofs.