Robinhood Fined Again, ZB Suspends Withdrawals, Resetting Vires.Finance, ApeCoin Enters Gucci + More News

Regulation news

• The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) imposed a USD 30m fine on the crypto trading unit of online brokerage Robinhood, Robinhood Crypto LLC, for alleged violations of anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity regulations, in the department’s first crypto enforcement action, The Wall Street Journal reported. As part of the consent order, Robinhood will also be required to retain an independent consultant to evaluate its compliance with NYDFS’s regulations and its remediation efforts.

Exchanges news

• ZB announced that deposit and withdrawal services are suspended, and that “due to the sudden failure of some core applications, it still takes time to troubleshoot the problem.”
• Coinbase Prime announced that they are launching Ethereum (ETH) staking to US domestic institutional clients. Institutional customers have the ability to stake their ETH to begin generating yield, as well as solana (SOL), polkadot (DOT), cosmos (ATOM), tezos (XTZ), Celo (CELO), and more.
• introduced their “new-and-improved” P2P (peer-to-peer) Trading platform, which allows users to trade between one another, and makes P2P trading available to “a far broader range of users,” said the exchange. P2P Trading enables users to become their own marketplace by issuing ‘advertisements’ in order to trade with one another and better control the price they buy and sell at, they added. OKX also does not charge any fees for its P2P Trading service.

Investments news

• Blockchain platform Waves (WAVES) said that the vast majority of its community has fully supported a new proposal to “reset” lending protocol Vires.Finance. The protocol has been struggling with a liquidity crisis over the past months. Per their announcement, after the proposal comes into effect, Vires.Finance accounts with more than USD 250,000 in value (in both USDT and USDC stablecoins) will be able to choose between two options. The first one will allow them to exchange their positions for USDN (Waves-based stablecoin Neutrino) with a 365-day vesting period and an additional 5% liquidation bonus. Another option would be to remain on the platform, albeit with 0% APY on all funds above USD 250,000 in USDT or USDC, wherein Waves founder Sasha Ivanov will continue liquidating USDN and repaying those debts depending on market conditions, they added.
• Digital asset security and asset transfer platform Fireblocks has integrated Tokeny, a provider of a compliance infrastructure for digital assets, they said in an announcement shared with Cryptonews.com. This has enabled Fireblocks customers to mint and manage permissioned tokens such as digital securities, stablecoins, and loyalty programs across retail trading apps, neobanks, payment networks, and more.
• Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen exited his investment in crypto trading startup Radkl, Bloomberg reported, citing a spokesperson for the digital-asset company. “Radkl remains extremely well capitalized with its current investors and continues to grow rapidly,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying, while the report noted that the company has lost at least two managing directors this year.
• Bitcoin-focused digital asset technology company Marathon Digital Holdings has expanded its credit facilities with Silvergate Bank, a provider of financial infrastructure solutions to the digital currency industry, by refinancing its existing USD 100m revolving line of credit and adding an additional USD 100m term loan on July 28. Per the announcement, the USD 100m term loan includes a delayed draw feature that grants Marathon the ability to draw USD 50m at the time of closing and an additional USD 50m up to 270 days after closing.
• Crypto investment and research firm CoinShares announced financial results for its second quarter of 2022. It reported: total revenue for the quarter of GBP 14.2m / USD 17.35m (Q2 2021: GBP 19.6m / USD 23.95m); adjusted EBITDA loss of GBP 8.2m / USD 10m (Q2 2021: GBP 28.6m / USD 34.94m) following a one-off loss of GBP 17.7m / USD 21.6m from the liquidation of the company’s holdings in terraUSD (UST); and total comprehensive loss for the quarter of GBP 0.1m / USD 122,130  (Q2 2021: income of GBP 26.6m / USD 32.5m).

Payments news

• Crypto payments processor BitPay announced support for ApeCoin (APE) and Euro Coin (EUROC), so the consumers can now buy, store, swap, and spend these coins within the BitPay Wallet app. Luxury fashion brand Gucci will become the first merchant to accept APE through BitPay.

Legal news

• Two US men from Orange County were each sentenced on Monday to federal prison terms for conning more than 2,000 investors into purchasing a cryptocurrency that purportedly provided exclusive access to a profitable trading program, and then pocketing most of the USD 1.9m raised, the US Department of Justice announced. The two also each pleaded guilty in August 2021 to one count of securities fraud.