Just a month after the controversial fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange and 130 affiliated companies, a former high-ranking executive is reportedly seeking out investors to launch a crypto startup. The ex-president of FTX US, Brett Harrison, is on the lookout for $6 million in funding to launch a start-up that would build crypto trading software for big investors, according to The Information. Harrison’s funding round would be against a $60 million valuation. On Sept. 27, Harrison announced his plans to step down as the president of FTX US as he moved into an advisory role — over a month …

Digital asset market maker Keyrock has raised $72 million in a Series B round of funding, according to an announcement on Nov. 30. Ripple, SIX Fintech Ventures, and Middlegame Ventures are among the investors in the round. Funds are planned to be used on Keyrock infrastructure development, scalability tools, as well as regulatory licensing across Europe, the United States and Singapore. Keyrock CEO Kevin de Patoul said the company has been focused on a long-term perspective for its business in the past five years. He also noted that: “The new round of funding allows us to expand on that and …

The collapse of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has put the Singapore prime minister and the ruling government in a hot seat. Prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and deputy prime minister Lawrence Wong are set to face grilling questions for their failure to protect retail investors. The Members of Parliament (MP) from the opposition Workers’ party raised 15 questions about Temasek’s investment and FTX collapse. The MPs questioned the government’s credibility in tracking the extent of investments by Temasek and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC. The discussions around the government policies while investing in digital assets will be scrutinized further in …

Web3 game publisher Fenix Games raised $150 million in funding to acquire, invest and distribute blockchain games. The fund will be used to create a game publishing company specifically for mainstreaming blockchain games. Fenix Games’ latest funding round saw participation from investors, including Phoenix Group and Dubai-based venture capital firm Cypher Capital, reported local news media Jinse. Chris Ko, CEO and co-founder of Fenix Games, who previously led Mythical Games, considers Fenix Games “like a VC fund” for fueling the next generation of blockchain games. Sharing details into the post-funding gameplan, Ko stated: “We’re actually going to start off with …

Matrixport, the cryptocurrency firm founded by Bitmain co-founder Wu Jihan, is in the process of raising $100 million funding despite the ongoing crypto market crisis. Lead investors have already committed $50 million for Matrixport’s new funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 25. The deal has yet to be finalized as Matrixport is still looking for investors for the other half of the round. We're excited and look forward to engaging with participants, on similar terms, in the other half of the #funding round. Appreciate the trust and confidence our investors continue have in Team #Matrixport.@business …

Changpeng Zhao, chief executive officer of crypto exchange Binance, has denied a report claiming he met with investors in Abu Dhabi in an effort to raise cash for the company’s crypto recovery fund. According to a Nov. 22 report from Bloomberg, CZ and others affiliated with Binance discussed raising cash for its proposed fund, aimed at helping projects with potential liquidity issues. Zhao and the Binance team reportedly met with potential backers associated with United Arab Emirates National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, while a Binance spokesperson said the meetings were “focused on general global regulatory matters.” CZ pushed …

Cryptocurrency lending company Genesis has refuted speculation that it is planning an "imminent" bankruptcy filing should it fail to cover a $1 billion shortfall caused by the fall of crypto exchange FTX. The firm has reportedly faced difficulties raising money for its lending unit and told investors it would have to file for bankruptcy, according to a Nov. 21 Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Genesis told Cointelegraph that there were no plans to file for bankruptcy "imminently" and that it continued to have "constructive" discussions with creditors. "We have no plans to file bankruptcy …

The fall of crypto exchange FTX appears to have already begun to impact the hundreds of grant recipients across a variety of philanthropic organizations backed by the exchange. During the COVID-19 pandemic, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried became known for backing a number of causes aimed at "humanity’s long-term prospects.” One of these was the FTX Foundation and its FTX Future Fund, which publicly launched on Feb. 28 and reported on Jun. 30 that it had made 262 grants and investments totaling $132 million in projects — many of these involved in pandemic preparedness, among other scientific pursuits. However, the leadership …

Matter Labs, the developer behind the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible zkSync, has received major industry backing as it pledges to fully open source its platform — marking the first such initiative for a ZK-rollup technology. Matter Labs confirmed on Nov. 16 that it had closed a $200 million Series C funding round co-led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly, with additional participation from LightSpeed Venture Partners, Variant and existing investor Andreessen Horowitz. The company has now raised $458 million in financing across all rounds, including $200 million from BitDAO that’s earmarked for funding ecosystem projects. Founded in 2018, Matter Labs is …

The gap between traditional finance and the cryptocurrency world is still vast. However, up-and-coming solutions like Source of Funds checks can change that. Blockchain analytics and compliance companies are already looking into ways to legitimize users’ cryptocurrency assets and their origins for traditional financial institutions. In January 2022, the European Parliament adopted a legislative measure to start tracing the source of digital assets in an effort to limit illicit funding entering the EU. This was a big step toward merging crypto and traditional finance. But what can individual traders and investors do to legitimize their crypto wealth? The answer lies …

The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX continues to have knock-on effects throughout the crypto industry with multiple crypto-focused companies reporting significant amounts of their capital stuck on FTX. Between Nov. 11 to 14 three crypto companies announced large losses with one of them having to lay off workers to deal with the crisis. On Nov. 11, crypto hedge fund Galois Capital announced it had “significant funds” stuck on FTX, with a Nov. 12 Financial Times report that said a possible $50 million worth of Galois’ assets were stuck on the exchange. Other crypto-focused companies have reported their funds arestuck …

United-States-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has frozen the accounts associated with “FTX Group, Alameda Research, and their executives,” on its exchange after engaging with authorities. In a Twitter post on Nov. 13, Kraken said the accounts were frozen “to protect their creditors” and added it “maintains full reserves” and other users' funds aren’t affected, likely seeking to stamp out fears from users that the exchange might face liquidity issues due to the fund freeze. Kraken has spoken with law enforcement regarding a handful of accounts owned by the bankrupt FTX Group, Alameda Research and their executives. Those accounts have been frozen …