Genesis Digital Assets is considering IPO

According to Bloomberg, crypto miner Genesis Digital Assets is planning to raise a pre-IPO funding round within the next few weeks before going public this year.

The company was previously valued at $5.5 billion in a round from April 2022 in which the company received more than $1 billion from the venture arm of SBF’s Alameda Research.

While GDA has a rocky history, the latest news is another indication that crypto firms are pushing to go public this year as crypto prices flirt with all time highs.

Evolve Bank Hack Impacts Crypto Companies and Their Users

Last month, Evolve Bank and Trust, announced that it had been victim of a cyberattack after an employee accidentally clicked on a malicious link.

The breach, attributed to Russia-based ransomware group Lockbit, contains personal details (names, addresses, social security and tax ID numbers, dates of birth, etc) belonging to customers of fintech companies such as Affirm, Dave, Mercury, Stripe, Visa and others.

The breach seems to have also impacted crypto-focused companies such as Copper Banking, Nomad, and potentially Bitfinex. Stay safe out there.

CoinDCX acquires BitOasis – Why It Matters

India’s largest crypto exchange, CoinDCX, is expanding internationally through the acquisition of BitOasis, an exchange focused on the Middle East and Africa.

The acquisition comes amid an extended period of regulatory hostility towards crypto companies in India. The country is one of the least friendly jurisdictions for crypto traders, imposing a 30% tax on digital asset gains.

As we previously reported, India at one time seemed to be the future for crypto after multiple exchanges were looking to make inroads into the country. Coinbase, for example, stated in 2022 that they “have invested more than $150 million into the country with more to come.” Coinbase was also a major investor in CoinDCX’s 2022 fundraise of $135 million at a $2 billion valuation, as well as the companies main competitor CoinSwitch Kuber. Ultimately, Coinbase would pull out of the country after regulatory pressure.

Polkadot Lights Money On Fire (And We Thought the Public Markets Were Bad…)

A recent treasury report released by Polkadot (DOT) reveals that the company spent $87 million in the first half of 2024 with more than 42% of the spending on ‘outreach.’ That’s more than $36 million spent on advertisers, influencers, conferences, and other marketing campaigns.

With a nearly $9 billion market-cap, advertising costs in the millions of dollars is to be expected. What’s alarming is where much of the money was actually spent. We’re talking “scamfluencer rings”, undisclosed shilling, and just overall questionable marketing initiatives.

While we recently called into question the use of coordinated influencer campaigns to impact public crypto companies, it’s clear that the playbook is being used at an exponentially greater size in the token markets. And if Polkadot – a top 15 token with some level of legitimacy – is doing it, we can only imagine how wide spread this is amongst other tokens.

SEC Sues Silvergate & Consensys

Silvergate, the crypto-friendly bank that’s now bankrupt, settled lawsuits from the Fed, the SEC, and California state regulators on Monday. The legal action targeted the bank along with its CEO, CRO, and CFO, alleging they misled customers regarding the bank's anti-money laundering measures and deceived investors about the impact of the FTX collapse on the bank.

In bigger news, the SEC also finally filed their long-anticipated lawsuit against Consensys, the parent company of MetaMask. Consensys has allegedly acted as an unregistered broker of crypto asset securities through its MetaMask Swaps service since October 2020.

In the lawsuit, the SEC also took aim at staking, calling out Consensys for allowing MetaMask customers to stake ETH via Rocket Pool and Lido. The classification of these projects as securities by the SEC implies a new layer of uncertainty for liquid staking tokens. So far, the SEC hasn’t sued either Lido or Rocketpool, but don’t be surprised if they eventually do.

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