Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

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Adoption news

• The Central African Republic’s adoption of bitcoin as legal tender presents a series of challenges for the country and the region, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, according to Bloomberg. “IMF staff are assisting the regional and Central African Republic’s authorities in addressing the concerns posed by the new law,” they added.
• BNB Chain, the blockchain project launched by crypto platform Binance, announced its integration with the web browser Opera, which enables users of the browser to access decentralized applications (dapps) on the blockchain. It will also allow users to buy the BNB token with fiat, as well as to send and receive it using the built-in Opera crypto wallet.
• Research by the crypto exchange Coinbase found that one in three respondents of its UK survey own or have previously owned crypto assets. Among those who already own it, 61% expect to increase their holdings over the next 12 months, compared to 54% in October 2021. Bitcoin and ethereum (ETH) remain the most commonly owned cryptoassets among respondents at 75% and 52%, respectively, they added.
• Nonprofit organization Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) announced its partnership with news site MuckRock to integrate decentralized storage technology for document platform DocumentCloud, which is used by journalists to find primary sources for stories.

Security news

• Decentralized exchange (DEX) on Cronos (CRO), MM.Finance, has suffered a front-end exploit that allowed hackers to siphon out more than USD 2m in CRO tokens from users. The attack occurred due to a Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerability. The funds were sent to Tornado Cash, a privacy protocol on Ethereum, before being moved to crypto platform OKX, they added.

NFTs news

• Starbucks announced that they are planning to create a series of branded NFT collections, the ownership of which initiates community membership in the so-called Third Space digital community. The first collection is set to launch this year and will be based on coffee art and storytelling, they added.
• Solana Pay, the payments rail powered by blockchain Solana (SOL), introduced transaction requests which they say allow for NFT minting, dynamic discounts, tokenized loyalty programs, and more. The feature is now available for developers and merchants both.
• Blur, an NFT trading platform aiming for real-time trading, announced its beta launch, open to chosen users. Others can join a waitlist, which is also invite-only, and everyone will be onboarded “in the coming weeks”.
• NFT project Yuga Labs announced they have refunded gas fees to everyone who made a transaction that failed due to network conditions caused by their recent Otherdeed mint.

Investments news

• Nexo (NEXO) announced it has issued a loan worth ETH 1,200 (USD 3.47m), where two rare CryptoPunks Zombie non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were used as collateral. The 60-day loan carries an annualized interest rate of 21%, Bloomberg added.
• Bitcoin.com announced it has completed a USD 33.6m private sale of its VERSE token. The public sale is expected to begin in June 2022, during which 6% of the total supply, amounting to VERSE 12.6bn, will be sold.
• Blockchain data project Covalent Network announced it has pledged USD 25m for data verifiability in the Web3 industry, along with launching staking for its native CQT token.

Regulation news

• Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, USA, signed an executive order that will begin the process of creating a regulatory approach for blockchain and Web3 technologies. The announcement adds that the approach is meant to “foster responsible innovation.”

Mining news

• The government of Kazakhstan is requiring BTC & crypto miners to register their operations with authorities, providing business registration data, along with information about personnel, the power they consume or plan to consume, IP addresses used, their planned investments, locations of the mine, and various other documents. New miners have to file the information 30 days before starting operations, and any mines that close down will have to inform authorities within 10 days of ceasing operations, while existing miners have to file the required information every quarter.
• Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital reported that its revenue increased to USD 51.7m during the first quarter of 2022, an increase of USD 42.6m, or 465%, from the prior-year quarter and a decrease of USD 8.6m, or 14%, from the fourth quarter of 2021. Bitcoin production increased to BTC 1,259 during the period, a 556% increase from the prior-year quarter and a 15% increase from the fourth quarter of 2021, they added.

Legal news

• Craig Wright filed intellectual property claims against two crypto platforms, Kraken and Coinbase, for “misrepresenting that the digital asset ‘Bitcoin Core’ (BTC) is Bitcoin.” He claims that “[t]he only digital asset that remains true to the original Bitcoin protocol” is Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) which is “the software implementation of the original Bitcoin protocol” and that the network that is currently widely known as Bitcoin was actually created in 2017 “as a software implementation which is different from and separate to the Bitcoin protocol.”