WazirX in Hot Waters, Revolut Doubles Down on Crypto, Elizabeth Warren Picks Another Crypto Battle + More news

Get your day by day, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the tales flying below the radar of immediately’s crypto news. 
__________

Exchanges news

• India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED) said it has searched the properties of Sameer Mhatre, Director of native crypto trade WazirX, in a cash laundering investigation towards various Indian non-banking monetary firms (NBFCs). “By encouraging obscurity and having lax [anti-money laundering] norms, [WazirX] has actively assisted round 16 accused fintech firms in laundering the proceeds of crime utilizing the crypto route,” the ED mentioned. It additionally froze WazirX’s belongings to the tune of INR 64.67 Crore (USD 8m).
• Binance and Mastercard announced the launch of Binance Card in Argentina as the primary nation in Latin America to have the product. The Binance Card issued by Credencial Payments will enable all new and present Binance customers with a legitimate nationwide ID to make purchases and pay payments with crypto, together with bitcoin (BTC) and BNB, at over 90m Mastercard retailers worldwide, each in-store and on-line. The product is in beta section and must be broadly accessible in the approaching weeks.

Career news

• London-based fintech agency Revolut plans to extend its crypto headcount by 20% throughout Europe, the UK, and  the US over the subsequent six months, Bloomberg reported. It is at present promoting for 13 crypto-focused roles, and has already employed 43 crypto workers this yr, tripling the workforce’s complete headcount since July 2021. “We see crypto as a long-term play and stay bullish on the crypto trade,” Emil Urmanshin, Revolut’s crypto basic supervisor, is quoted as saying, including that the enterprise at present accounts for about 5% to 10% of Revolut’s income globally.

Regulation news

• US, Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren is circulating a letter amongst her Senate colleagues that will ask the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to tug a collection of Trump-era interpretations that paved the way in which for banks to supply providers like crypto custody for shoppers, Bloomberg reported. The letter, a draft copy of which was reviewed by Bloomberg News, calls on the OCC to work with the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to exchange them with an method “that adequately protects shoppers and the protection and soundness of the banking system.”

Investments news

• Payments app Cash App generated USD 1.79bn of bitcoin income and USD 41m of bitcoin gross revenue throughout the second quarter of 2022, down 34% and 24% yr over yr, respectively, the dad or mum of the agency, fintech big Block, said. Meanwhile, Block itself reached web income of USD 4.40bn in Q2, down 6% yr over yr, pushed by a lower in bitcoin income.
• Major derivatives market Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) plans to develop its crypto derivatives providing with the introduction of Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures on August 29, pending regulatory evaluate. Designed to match their US dollar-denominated counterparts, the 2 futures contracts will likely be sized at BTC 5 and ETH 50 per contract, it said.

DeFi news

• Community members Devin Walsh and Kenneth Ng put forth a proposal to create the Uniswap Foundation. The Foundation’s mission will likely be to assist the decentralized progress and sustainability of the Uniswap Protocol (UNI) and its supporting ecosystem and group, Walsh said. The preliminary workforce can be Walsh as Executive Director and Ng as Head of Operations.
• After two makes an attempt, the Lido group has voted to promote LDO 10m (USD 26.1m) from the Lido DAO treasury to crypto funding agency Dragonfly Capital. Just above 99% of votes went for the proposal, and fewer than 1% towards.

Mining news

• Bitcoin miner Core Scientific announced manufacturing and operational updates for July 2022, together with: producing 1,221 self-mined bitcoins, deploying 14,000 new ASIC servers, working roughly 195,000 owned and colocated ASIC servers, and deploying first Bitmain Antminer S19 XPs in the US. The firm offered BTC 1,975 at a median worth of roughly USD 22,000 per BTC for complete proceeds of roughly USD 44m. As of July 31, it held BTC 1,205 and roughly USD 83m in money on its stability sheet.