Payments startup Flexa unveiled an app where consumers can spend cryptocurrencies at major American retailers. The app was unveiled during the first day of the Consensus conference in New York City on May 13. Tyler Spalding, the company’s co-founder, announced to attendees that Spedn is already live — and an accompanying news release confirmed that Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, GameStop, Lowe’s, Nordstrom, Office Depot and Whole Foods Market are among the stores now accepting payments via the Flexa network. Spalding stated that Spedn’s goal is to make cryptocurrencies spendable everywhere while ensuring merchants receive payments exactly like …

The Winklevoss twins’ family office, Winklevoss Capital, has participated in a $4.5 million seed financing round for flare mitigation provider Crusoe Energy Systems Inc. to advance its construction of data centers that can mine cryptocurrencies. The news was reported by Bloomberg on May 3. Flare mitigation — as a Crusoe press release accompanying the seed financing round outlines — aims to reduce the environmentally noxious impact of flaring (burning off) surplus natural gas, which is in some cases used to tackle the difficulties of transporting excess gas supplies. While flaring is restricted by regulatory restrictions and lobbying from environmentalist groups, …

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have reached an agreement with bitcoin (BTC) entrepreneur Charlie Shrem to end a lawsuit the twins filed against Shrem last year. The news was revealed in court documents filed on April 16. The twins, who founded crypto exchange Gemini, had accused Shrem of stealing 5,000 bitcoin (worth about $26.1 million at press time) and using the crypto to buy Maseratis, powerboats and other luxury goods. He denied the allegations, which dated back to 2012. Attorneys for both parties have signed the document filed with a federal court in New York, which says the entire civil action …

Sterling Witzke has been working at Winklevoss Capital — a venture capital firm set up by the famous Winklevoss twins — for five years now. As a professional investor, she is very interested in financing early stage crypto and blockchain projects. She believes that stablecoins are perfectly designed for the needs of internet payments and will steadily gain popularity as the industry evolves. We talked to Sterling Witzke about the future of fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, the necessity of proper legal frameworks and the future of the maturing crypto industry. Clarity is always good for an ecosystem Ana Berman: How do you …

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Bitcoin (BTC) bulls and founders of the Gemini crypto exchange, say that while Facebook’s secretive crypto project is positive for the industry, ultimately crypto will usher in something greater than the social networking era. The twins made their remarks during an interview with British broadsheet The Telegraph on March 17. The Winklevoss twins have a famously antagonistic history with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, having sued him for allegedly stealing the idea for the social network from them during the trio’s student days at Harvard. The case was eventually settled, with the twins receiving $20 million and …

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, has joined the British Telecommunications (BT) Radianz Cloud broker community, a BT press release reports on Feb. 27. The Radianz Cloud is described in the press release as “one of the world’s largest, secure networked financial cloud communities,” comprised of thousands of institutions, exchanges, brokers and clearing and settlement houses. Now the members of this community will reportedly have access to the crypto market though Gemini. Nick Vigier, chief information officer at Gemini, declared that joining Radianz Cloud strengthens the exchange’s institutional investor connectivity. According to Michael Woodman, managing director of …

Top Stories This Week Facebook Reportedly Acquires Blockchain Startup in First Blockchain-Related Acquisition Social media network Facebook has reportedly acquired blockchain startup Chainspace in its first apparent blockchain-related acquisition. According to news outlet Cheddar, the acquisition is considered an “acquihire,” or an acquisition of a company made in order to get the skills or expertise of its staff, as opposed to the company’s service or products. According to Cheddar, four of the five researchers that worked on Chainspace’s academic white paper will be joining Facebook. Facebook had told Cheddar that it had not acquired any of Chainspace’s technology. Leaked Mt. …

Bitcoin (BTC) entrepreneur and advocate Charlie Shrem will receive around $45,000 in legal costs from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss as part of an ongoing lawsuit, according to an official document filed on Feb. 7. The latest step in the lengthy legal proceedings between the former business partners, a judge at the District Court of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of Shrem for a second time in the last three months. The Winklevoss twins had instigated an investigation and asset freeze on Shrem after a fallout over money owed from a years-old Bitcoin trade deal. In November, …

The Forbes 2019 “Fintech 50” list of the world’s top financial technology firms published on Feb. 4 features six blockchain companies, little more than half the amount listed in the 2018 edition. Released in February of last year, Forbes 2018 “Fintech 50” list contained 11 blockchain- and crypto-related companies. In the introduction to this fourth edition of the list, Forbes writers note that while “crypto prices and ICOs collapsed, overall investment in fintech surged in 2018,” stating that “big fintechs are getting bigger.” The introduction also points out that 20 of the startups are making their appearance on the list …

Major crypto investment firm Pantera Capital has lead a seed funding round for crypto staking startup, Staked, the company announced in a blog post Jan. 31. The startup, which targets institutional investors of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, announced that it raised $4.5 million in the investment round. According to the post, in addition to Pantera Capital, major firms that participated in the round include Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Winklevoss Capital, Global Brain, Fabric Ventures and Blocktree Capital. Furthermore, the company also reported that Pantera Capital partner Paul Veradittakit is set to join Staked’s board of directors. Pantera Capital reportedly first contacted …

Gemini crypto exchange, founded by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, completed a SOC 2 Type 1 security compliance review, according to a post made on their Medium blog on Jan 29. An organization that undergoes a Service Organizational Control (SOC) 2 audit aims to ensure that it has met the service criteria set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). These criteria pertain to standards of confidentiality, security, privacy, processing integrity and availability. According to the announcement, Gemini is the first in the cryptocurrency industry to undergo such an audit. The audit was conducted by ‘Big Four’ auditing …

Sterling Witzke, partner at the Winklevoss twins’ family office Winklevoss Capital, says she doesn’t think 2019 will be the watershed year for institutional investors to get into crypto. Witzke backed her claim by arguing that expectations are running ahead of facts on the ground. Witzke made her remarks during an interview with Cointelegraph at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Jan. 17. She argued that the upshot of the 2017 crypto market bull run — when Bitcoin soared to all-time highs of $20,000 a coin — has been a skewed perception of what it takes for traditional capital …