Shopify Not Allowed to Pause Crypto-related Lawsuit, UAE Company Partners with Binance to Accept Crypto + More News

Legal news

• A federal judge in the US state of Delaware on Friday denied e-commerce platform Shopify‘s bid to pause a lawsuit against it over a data breach that cost some crypto users their digital wallets, stating in the order that the stay would have no positive effect, Law360 reported.
• Emin Gün Sirer, the CEO of Ava Labs, the development firm behind blockchain protocol Avalanche (AVAX), has dismissed allegations from online publication Crypto Leaks that his company used litigation to fool regulators and “harm” competitors, calling it “conspiracy theory nonsense,” per a tweet. Crypto Leaks also alleged that startup Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse funded a law firm to target competitor firms, which Garlinghouse denied.
• Mt. Gox creditor and chief investment officer at crypto hedge fund Arcane Assets, Eric Wall, has denied rumors that the now-defunct bitcoin (BTC) exchange will distribute approximately BTC 140,000 this week. “MtGox is *NOT* distributing any coins this week, or the next week, or the week after that […] I’m a MtGox creditor. The repayment system is not live yet,” Wall wrote on Twitter on Saturday after several Twitter accounts had claimed that a major release of coins was about to happen.
• The domain eth.link, used by ENS DAO (Ethereum Name Service Decentralized Autonomous Organization), has expired, and will be returned to a domain registry on September 5, a statement from domain registrar GoDaddy said. The reason the domain is expiring is that the former Ethereum (ETH) developer Virgil Griffith, the only person with the authority to renew it, is in prison, charged with helping North Korea circumvent sanctions by using crypto.

Payments news

• Virtuzone, a corporate services provider in the United Arab Emirates, has partnered with the crypto exchange to become the first company in the UAE to accept crypto payments for business setup services, an announcement said.

Regulation news

• The chief of Singapore’s central bank – the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) – has said the country is weighing measures that would make it more difficult for retail investors to trade crypto. “They seem to be irrationally oblivious about the risks of cryptocurrency trading,” the MAS managing director Ravi Menon said about retail investors at a seminar on Monday, per CNBC.
• UK authorities have shut down two companies involved in alleged crypto-related fraud. “Micasa, along with associated company Remultex, both shut down after accounts failed to explain large payments, and misuse of Bounce Back Loans,” a statement from The Insolvency Service said.

NFT news

• The Formula One car race has filed two trademarks related to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto for Las Vegas Grand Prix, expected to take place in November 2023. The organizer of the car race event plans to offer NFTs in the form of virtual clothing and sports gear, as well as crypto trading services, the US trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis wrote on Twitter.

Investment news

• The Singapore-based crypto derivatives trading exchange GammaX has closed a USD 4m seed funding round. Among the investors in the round were the zero-knowledge proof technology developer StarkWare, liquidity provider Dexterity Capital, and others, Decrypt reported.
• Singapore-based fintech firm Lightnet Group has received a USD 50m commitment from investment firm LDA Capital. The firm plans to use the money to boost Web3 and cross-border payments through the Velo Protocol, per an announcement.

Career news

• Kim Yong-beom, a former vice minister of South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, has joined the research arm of Korean blockchain-focused venture capital firm Hashed as CEO, per a post on his Facebook profile.
• Chinese metaverse-focused company NetDragon has appointed an “AI-powered virtual humanoid robot” named Ms. Tang Yu as its CEO. The appointment is a move to pioneer the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform corporate management and operational efficiency, the company wrote in an announcement.