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By Andrea Shalal and Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey

KYIV (Reuters) – Artists have painted brilliant sunflowers over heaps of burnt-out cars destroyed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – upsetting some locals who wonder if it is too soon to beautify the wreckage of war.

The group of painters from Ukraine and the United States say they plan to sell digital images of the work as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and raise money for Ukrainian artists, rebuilding projects and other causes.

The cars were largely recovered in the city of Irpin, on the outskirts of the capital, from a bridge destroyed by Ukrainian forces to halt the advance of Russian tanks, Trek Kelly, a Los Angeles-based muralist who helped initiate the project, said.

City authorities had approved the work and assured the artists no one had died in the vehicles, he added.

One couple who owned one of the vehicles had thanked them “for repurposing these cars into something more beautiful,” Kelly told Reuters.

Others were less sure as they walked around the work this week on the main road leading into Irpin, where authorities say 200-300 civilians were killed by Russian attacks before the city was taken back by Ukrainian forces in late March.

Russia has denied targeting civilians in what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“I understand the idea of the flowers showing hope for the future, and that Ukraine cannot be destroyed despite what the Russians tried to do here, but maybe it’s too soon,” said Casimir Kiendl, who originally hails from Wales but was living in Ukraine when the war started.

“The memories are still super fresh,” said Kyiv resident Yuliya Zaliubovska, who fled to France during the war and stopped for a look during a visit back in Ukraine on Wednesday.

Kelly and Olena Yanko – a Ukrainian artist involved in the project – said they respected the concerns, but hoped the site would become a place for reflection.

“Yes, there are people who didn’t understand us. They think that we are dancing on the graves of those who died,” Yanko said.

“But we want to show that … life will go on, we will win (the war) and we can beat the enemy, whether it’s with a paintbrush or with weapons.”

U.S. charity beautifyearth.org is accepting tax-deductible donations for the artists, and details will be posted soon on where to buy NFTs, Kelly said.

Other cities had already offered them sites for more murals with sunflowers, the Ukrainian national flower, he added.

“They want to beautify these distressed areas until they can be rebuilt so … there’s some brightness and colour and nature springing up out of the ruins in a type of rebirth.”

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey; editing by Andrew Heavens)

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Nearly half of Australian retail investors owned cryptocurrency in late 2021 and more got their information from YouTube videos than from financial advisers, the securities watchdog said on Thursday, calling the data a “strong case for regulation”.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) survey of 1,053 retail investors, conducted last November, found 44% reported holding cryptocurrency, making it the second most popular investment after Australian shares.

A quarter of the investors surveyed who held cryptocurrency said it was their only investment.

The data will add to pressure on Australia’s new Labor government to emphasise consumer protection as it takes over a years-long study, started under the previous conservative government, on whether and how to regulate the digital assets.

It also legitimises widely circulated statistics about high rates of Australian cryptocurrency ownership which last year were dismissed as “implausible” by a top central bank official.

The survey also showed 41% of respondents went to a social media outlet for investment information, with 20% naming Alphabet Inc’s Youtube and 11% naming Meta Platforms’ Facebook.

Just 13% gained their information from a financial adviser or broker, according to the survey.

“We are concerned about the number of people surveyed who reported investing in unregulated, volatile crypto-asset products,” ASIC Chair Joe Longo said in a statement.

“There are limited protections for crypto-asset investments given they have become increasingly mainstream and are heavily advertised and promoted. There is a strong case for regulation of crypto-assets to better protect investors.”

Since the survey, interest rate hikes have spurred investors to exit speculative assets, sending cryptocurrencies’ prices tumbling and sending some crypto-related businesses into bankruptcy.

The survey was conducted in the same month bitcoin and ether, the two most popular cryptocurrencies, hit record highs. Both have slid about two-thirds since then, while the Australian stock market is down about 6%.

(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

By Marcelo Rochabrun

LIMA (Reuters) – Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is seeing a surge in clients due to rising inflation and a historically strong dollar that has depressed emerging market currencies, an executive told Reuters on Wednesday, without disclosing numbers.

“Now that we are seeing inflation ramping up worldwide, we are seeing that more and more people are seeking cryptocurrency, like bitcoin, as a way to protect themselves from inflation,” said Maximiliano Hinz, who heads Binance in Latin America, during an interview in Lima.

Hinz pointed to the example of Argentina, where annual inflation is at 90%. The country has grown into one of the company’s top markets, he said, together with Brazil and Mexico.

Argentina saw citizens pour savings into bitcoin this year despite a crash in cryptocurrency prices.

While El Salvador has made headlines for adopting bitcoin as legal tender, Hinz said other Latin American nations have yet to pass meaningful cryptocurrency legislation, although he does not necessarily consider that a bad thing for the company.

“Regulation is a framework, but it’s not always negative that something isn’t regulated,” he said. “If something isn’t banned, then it’s legal.”

Under President Nayib Bukele, El Salvador has made a massive bet on bitcoin, making it legal tender and buying more than $100 million worth of the cryptocurrency, which have lost about 50% of their value amid a broader cryptocurrency selloff this year.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Stephen Coates)

By Hannah Lang

(Reuters) – San Francisco-based blockchain payments company Ripple Labs Inc, which is embroiled in a high-profile battle with the U.S. securities regulator, is interested in potentially purchasing assets of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network, according to a company spokesperson.

“We are interested in learning about Celsius and its assets, and whether any could be relevant to our business,” the spokesperson said, declining to say if Ripple was interested in acquiring Celsius outright.

Ripple has continued to grow through the crypto market turmoil and “is actively looking for M&A opportunities to strategically scale the company,” the spokesperson said.

New Jersey-based Celsius froze withdrawals in June citing “extreme” market conditions and filed for bankruptcy in New York last month, listing a $1.19 billion deficit on its balance sheet.

Last week, lawyers for Ripple submitted filings to the bankruptcy court seeking to be represented in the proceedings. The court approved the filing earlier this week. Ripple is not among Celsius’ major creditors, Celsius’ bankruptcy filings show. Ripple provided the comment in response to Reuters’ queries regarding the court filings.

A lawyer approved to represent Ripple declined to comment. Celsius did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cryptocurrencies have had a rocky year, with the world’s largest, bitcoin, down nearly 70% from its all-time high of $69,000 in November. Markets were shaken by the collapse of the popular terraUSD and luna tokens in May, which caused widespread losses for several major industry players.

According to bankruptcy filings, Celsius’ assets include digital assets held in custody accounts, loans, a bitcoin mining business, the company’s own CEL token and bank cash and cryptocurrencies that Celsius has on hand.

Privately owned Ripple has not previously done any major deals. It was valued at around $15 billion following a private stock buyback in January, the company said, although industry valuations have fallen significantly during a cryptocurrency price crash over the past few months that helped topple Celsius and other cryptocurrency firms.

Ripple’s total sales of its cryptocurrency XRP, net of purchases, were $408.9 million in the second quarter, compared with $273.27 million in the first quarter, according to a report the company put out in July.

The company was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020 over XRP. The agency alleges that Ripple and its current and former chief executives have been conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering by selling XRP, which Ripple’s founders created in 2012.

Ripple and the executives have denied the allegations, and the company has argued that XRP has traded and been used as a digital currency.

(Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter, Josie Kao and Mark Potter)

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hodlnaut, a Singapore-based crypto currency lender and borrower, has suspended withdrawals, swaps and deposits, the company said on Monday, the latest sign of stress in the cryptocurrency industry.

The crypto lender also said it would withdraw its application for a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to provide digital token payment services, for which it received in principle approval in March.

An MAS spokesperson said it had rescinded the approval following the request.

Hodlnaut said the move was “due to recent market conditions” and was “to focus on stabilising our liquidity and preserving assets”.

The company is the latest in a string of crypto players globally to run into difficulties following a sharp sell off in markets that started in May with the collapse of two paired tokens, Luna and TerraUSD.

Other high profile failures include U.S. crypto lender Celsius, and Singapore-based fund Three Arrows Capital, both of which filed for bankruptcy last month.

Hodlnaut was named as one of Celsius’ institutional clients, according to court filings https://cases.stretto.com/public/x191/11749/PLEADINGS/1174908052280000000011.pdf.

Singapore, a major centre for crypto and blockchain in Asia, has seen several crypto companies run into difficulties in recent months.

Vauld, a Singapore-based crypto lending and trading platform, suspended withdrawals in early July, and later that month, Zipmex, a Southeast Asia-focused crypto exchange, suspended withdrawals, though has since resumed them for some products.

“Digital payment token service providers licensed by MAS under the (Payment Services) Act are regulated for money laundering and terrorism financing risks as well as technology risks. They are not subject to risk-based capital or liquidity requirements, nor are they required to safeguard customer monies or digital tokens from insolvency risk,” said an MAS spokesperson.

They said this was a reason why “MAS has been continually reminding the general public that dealing in cryptocurrency is highly hazardous,” and added spillover to Singapore’s domestic financial system from the recent turmoil in the cryptocurrency market has been “very limited”

Hodlnaut did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Alun John in Hong Kong, Chen Lin in Singapore and Elizabeth Howcroft in London; Editing by Toby Chopra and Louise Heavens)

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s central bank on Tuesday said it was launching a one-year research programme into the case for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia, focusing on what potential economic benefits it might bring.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is partnering with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), a government-backed industry group, in the program.

The project will seek to identify innovative use cases and business models that could be supported by the issuance of a CBDC, and better understand of some of its technological, legal and regulatory considerations.

It will involve the development of a limited-scale CBDC pilot that will operate in a ring-fenced environment and involve a pilot CBDC that is a real claim on the RBA.

Interested industry participants will be invited to develop specific use cases that demonstrate how a CBDC could be used to provide innovative and value-added payment and settlement services to households and businesses.

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Sam Holmes)

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Crypto exchange Zipmex will release Ethereum and Bitcoin tokens from this week, a spokesperson said on Monday, allowing 60% of its customers to retrieve their digital assets after a suspension of withdrawals from its Z Wallet product.

The Singapore-based Zipmex, which also operates in Thailand, Australia and Indonesia, in July halted withdrawals from Z Wallet, which it said had $53 million worth of cryptocurrencies exposed to Babel Finance and Celsius.

Ethereum will be released on Thursday and Bitcoin on Aug. 16, the company said. Last week it allowed digital coins XRP, ADA and SOL to be withdrawn.

Zipmex late last month said it was in talks with investors for potential funding.

The Thai Securities Exchange Commission on Saturday said it was collecting further information on affected customers and was working with customer representatives on the issue.

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Martin Petty)

(Reuters) – Shares of Jack Dorsey-led Block Inc, a digital payments firm that has bet big on bitcoin, declined nearly 7% in premarket trading on Friday after the company reported a loss in quarterly results on waning interest in cryptocurrencies.

The San Francisco, California-based company saw nearly $3.5 billion wiped off its market value by 6:20 a.m. ET. The stock has fallen more than 44% this year.

Block on Thursday reported a loss of 36 cents per share in the second quarter, compared with a profit of 40 cents last year, and said it had slowed hiring and would cut its 2022 investment target by $250 million.

“The act of cutting spend suggests SQ is bracing for potentially weaker growth,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note.

However, the brokerage maintained its “overweight” rating and $107 price target for the stock, citing underlying earnings potential from its buy now, pay-later business, which earned $150 million in gross profit in the quarter.

Investor enthusiasm over bitcoin and other digital currencies has ebbed this year, as red-hot inflation and the Federal Reserve’s tightening of monetary policy have led to a selloff in risky assets.

That has hurt companies such as Block, which rode the bitcoin frenzy to post robust earnings last year.

Block’s bitcoin gross profit – or what the company earns from the spread on buying and selling the cryptocurrency – plummeted 24% to $41 million in the quarter from $55 million a year earlier.

“Shares had rallied by almost 35% during the eight trading sessions prior to the print. The company likely would have needed to produce a nearly flawless report in order for that surge to continue,” according to analysts at BTIG.

Jefferies and RBC Capital Markets, however, raised their price targets, saying Block’s decision to cut costs would position it strongly to deal with a tough economic environment.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea made preparations for a nuclear test during the first six months of this year, according to an excerpt of a confidential United Nations report seen by Reuters on Thursday.

“Work at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site paves the way for additional nuclear tests for the development of nuclear weapons,” independent sanctions monitors reported to the U.N. Security Council North Korea sanctions committee.

“The DPRK continued to develop its capability for the production of fissile material at the Yongbyon site,” the monitors wrote, referring to North Korea’s formal name – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Yongbyon is North Korea’s major nuclear facility, operating its first nuclear reactors.

North Korea’s U.N. mission in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report.

The United States has long been warning that North Korea is ready to carry out a seventh nuclear test and says it will again push to strengthen U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang if it takes place.

The U.N. monitors also said investigations had shown Pyongyang was to blame for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto assets in at least one major hack. The monitors have previously accused North Korea of carrying out cyber attacks to fund its nuclear and missile programs.

“Other cyber activity focusing on stealing information and more traditional means of obtaining information and materials of value to DPRK’s prohibited programmes, including WMD (weapons of mass destruction), continued,” the monitors wrote.

North Korea has for years been banned from conducting nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by the U.N. Security Council, which has strengthened sanctions on Pyongyang over the years to try and cut off funding for those programs.

“DPRK made preparations at its nuclear test site, although it did not test a nuclear device. In the first half of 2022, the country continued the acceleration (which began in September 2021) of its missile programmes,” the monitors said.

They said North Korea launched 31 missiles combining ballistic and guidance technologies, including six intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests and two missiles that it explicitly described as ballistic weapons.

North Korea continued illicit imports of oil and exports of coal, evading sanctions, the monitors said.

International talks aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs have largely stalled since 2019.

In recent years China and Russia have been pushing for an easing of sanctions on North Korea on humanitarian grounds – and in the hope Pyongyang can be convinced to return to negotiations.

The U.N. monitors reported that while challenging to assess accurately, “there can be little doubt that U.N. sanctions have unintentionally affected the humanitarian situation” in North Korea.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Lincoln Feast)

(Reuters) – The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York has given crypto firm Voyager Digital Holdings Inc the approval to return $270 million in customer cash, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Judge Michael Wiles, who is overseeing Voyager’s bankruptcy, ruled that the company provided “sufficient basis” to support its contention that customers should be allowed access to the custodial account held at Metropolitan Commercial Bank, the Journal said. (https://on.wsj.com/3SpvW09)

The company was not immediately available for comment.

Voyager, one of several firms to struggle in the wake of broad crypto market turmoil, filed for Chapter 11 last month.

In its bankruptcy filing, Voyager estimated that it had more than 100,000 creditors and between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets, as well as liabilities of the same value.

Last week, the company was ordered by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) to cease and desist from making “false and misleading” claims that its customers’ funds were protected by the government.

The regulators said that the company just had a deposit account at Metropolitan Commercial Bank, and customers investing via its platform had no FDIC insurance.

Crypto lenders like Voyager boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing depositors with high interest rates and easy access to loans rarely offered by traditional banks. However, the recent slump in crypto markets – sparked by the downfall of two major tokens in May – has hurt lenders.

(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

By Lananh Nguyen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar weakened against most major currencies on Thursday as support from the Federal Reserve’s hawkish messaging subsided and investors turned their attention to a hotly anticipated U.S. jobs report.

The dollar extended losses following U.S. data that showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased last week.

Earlier on Thursday, the Bank of England raised interest rates by the most since 1995. The British pound initially weakened as the central bank warned that a long recession was on its way with inflation seeing topping 13% but it later gained some ground as the dollar fell.

The dollar index fell 0.704% to 105.720, while sterling was last trading at $1.2166, up 0.19% on the day. The euro was up 0.79% at $1.0244, and the Japanese yen strengthened 0.76% versus the greenback at 132.83 per dollar.

“There is a mentality now across markets that we know what’s coming in terms of monetary tightening,” said Juan Perez, director of trading at Monex USA in Washington. Investors are taking a view that “whatever downturn we’re facing in the next few months will be short-lived.”

Investors will get a key snapshot of how the U.S. economy is faring on Friday, when the Labor Department reports employment data for July. Signs that the U.S. job market continues to be robust will likely bolster expectations for more monetary policy tightening from the Fed.

Fed officials have continued to push back against the perception that U.S. interest rates were close to peaking. On Thursday, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said the Fed should raise interest rates to above 4% to help bring inflation down and aim to keep tightening through the first half of next year.

Her comments followed those by San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari who voiced their determination overnight to rein in high inflation.

The dollar’s strength has yet to peak, a Reuters poll released on Thursday showed. Of those polled, 70% thought the dollar had some room to rise further in this cycle, even after its index hit its highest level in two decades in July.

Money markets price in a 50 basis-point hike at the Fed’s September meeting, and a roughly 44% chance of another massive 75 bps increase. The Fed hiked rates by 75 basis points at its meeting in June and July. [FEDWATCH]

Currency bid prices at 4:28PM (2028 GMT)

(The story corrects YTD pct change values in table.)

Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid

Previous Change

Session

Dollar index 105.7400 106.4800 -0.68% 10.534% +106.5100 +105.6600

Euro/Dollar $1.0244 $1.0167 +0.76% -9.89% +$1.0254 +$1.0154

Dollar/Yen 132.9450 133.8500 -0.66% +15.50% +134.4150 +132.7700

Euro/Yen 136.20 136.08 +0.09% +4.51% +136.9200 +135.6500

Dollar/Swiss 0.9552 0.9604 -0.57% +4.69% +0.9622 +0.9545

Sterling/Dollar $1.2164 $1.2148 +0.13% -10.06% +$1.2196 +$1.2065

Dollar/Canadian 1.2864 1.2842 +0.18% +1.75% +1.2876 +1.2819

Aussie/Dollar $0.6969 $0.6952 +0.22% -4.15% +$0.6990 +$0.6936

Euro/Swiss 0.9784 0.9764 +0.20% -5.64% +0.9797 +0.9762

Euro/Sterling 0.8419 0.8368 +0.61% +0.23% +0.8437 +0.8358

NZ $0.6299 $0.6277 +0.34% -7.98% +$0.6315 +$0.6267

Dollar/Dollar

Dollar/Norway 9.7275 9.7130 +0.15% +10.42% +9.7680 +9.6890

Euro/Norway 9.9656 9.8747 +0.92% -0.47% +9.9750 +9.8665

Dollar/Sweden 10.1085 10.2127 -0.21% +12.09% +10.2256 +10.1050

Euro/Sweden 10.3558 10.3776 -0.21% +1.19% +10.3910 +10.3523

(Reporting by Lananh Nguyen)

By Medha Singh

(Reuters) – Retail investors find well-established stocks and bond markets to be more arcane than the wild world of cryptocurrencies, a survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) showed on Thursday.

The privately-funded WEF’s survey, in collaboration with BNY Mellon and Accenture, showed that 29% of investors said they did not understand the nascent cryptocurrency market, whereas nearly 40% of investors noted that they didn’t understand stocks or bonds.

The survey also revealed that 70% of retail investors were under 45 years of age.

“With global adoption and trading volumes of crypto rising substantially over the last few years, there has been a lot of buzz about it, which is likely influencing investors’ product awareness,” said Meagan Andrews, investing lead at WEF.

“Less coverage of more traditional products, like stocks and bonds, may also have the opposite effect on awareness.”

The cryptocurrency market value ballooned to as much as $3 trillion last year, according to data platform CoinMarketCap.com, but it has lost nearly two-third of its value amid surging inflation and tightening financial conditions.

Crypto market’s peak, however, was miniscule in comparison to the $124.4 trillion global equity market and the even bigger $126.9 trillion bond market in 2021, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

The survey comes as retail investors become a force to be reckoned with, after they banded together on social media forums last year to drive eye-watering rallies in GameStop and squeezed bearish hedge funds.

A poll by Gallup published in May showed 58% of Americans said that they own stocks.

The WEF survey of more than 9,000 individuals across nine countries also revealed that a majority of investors were looking to build long-term wealth.

But, about 40% of those surveyed did not invest and said they did so because they didn’t know how to invest or found investing too confusing.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)

(Reuters) – Shares in cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc soared more than 16% on Thursday after it announced that it had partnered with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to provide its institutional clients with access to crypto trading and custody services. [nL1N2ZG1E4]

The agreement offers some positive news for the company which, like many in the crypto sector, has been battered by a slump in crypto asset prices as investors fled risky assets amid geopolitical turmoil, rising rates and worries of an impending recession.

Coinbase has been among the worst hit, with shares down over 60% so far this year.

The company’s institutional trading platform for crypto assets, Coinbase Prime, will provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities to institutional clients on BlackRock’s Aladdin, who are also clients of Coinbase.

Aladdin offers a suite of software tools designed to help institutional investors manage their portfolios.

The news underscores how traditional institutions including pension funds, hedge funds, and banks have been pushing into crypto assets over the past 18 months, wagering the alternative asset class is here to stay.

“Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets,” said Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock in a statement.

Coinbase has been building out its institutional client base via its Prime platform which services hedge funds, corporate treasuries and other financial institutions, it says.

Institutional trading volumes on Coinbase in the first quarter of 2022 were $235 billion compared with $74 billion for retail customers, its filings show. While that institutional volume was down compared with the previous three quarters, it was up just over 9% compared with the same quarter last year.

(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Michelle Price in Washington DC; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Janet McBride)

By Manya Saini and Niket Nishant

(Reuters) – Wall Street has lowered earnings expectations for once high-flying fintechs Coinbase and Block, as a chill in the cryptocurrency market adds more pain to the companies already grappling with surging costs and rapidly rising rates.

Crypto exchange Coinbase is expected to report an adjusted loss in the second quarter, while Jack Dorsey-led payments company Block is likely to post a 70% drop in adjusted profit.

Coinbase, which has the biggest exposure to crypto volatility, has lost more than three quarters of its market capitalization this year.

“For Coinbase, this is going to be a very difficult 12 to 18 months,” said Dan Dolev, senior analyst, fintech equity research at Mizuho Securities USA.

Block, which changed its name from Square last year to better reflect its focus on blockchain, has lost over half of its market value amid the stock market rout this year.

THE CONTEXT

The cryptocurrency selloff has dragged down multiple companies in the sector, with some even seeking bankruptcy protection. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, has nearly halved in value in the first seven months of the year.

“There could be potential for double digit headcount reduction (at Coinbase) at some point because the cost is too high,” Dolev said.

Estimate cuts and competitive pressures are also contributing to the weakness in fintech stocks, according to Credit Suisse analysts.

The cryptocurrency sector may be slowly emerging from a bruising selloff, but they still have to contend with regulatory hurdles in the United States, the biggest market for such assets.

Online trading app Robinhood Markets Inc reported a 44% plunge in second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, a day earlier than expected, and said it would also cut 23% of its workforce.

THE FUNDAMENTALS

Company Refinitiv revenue estimates Refinitiv

per-share

profit/loss

estimate

Coinbase $830.5 million (down ~63% y-o-y) ($2.68)

Block $4.35 billion (down ~7% y-o-y) 16 cents

WALL STREET SENTIMENT

** Coinbase Global – 14 of 26 brokerages rate the stock “buy” or higher, 10 “hold” and two “sell”; their median PT is $91, down from $100 last month

** Block Inc – 37 of 50 brokerages rate the stock “buy” or higher, 11 “hold” and two “sell”; their median PT is $117, down from $140 last month

(Reporting by Manya Saini and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – The European Union’s securities watchdog has begun preparations for increased scrutiny of crypto transactions after the bloc agreed groundbreaking rules to regulate what it called a “Wild West” sector, a public tender document showed.

While cryptoasset firms will be licensed by national regulators in the 27-country bloc, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will monitor the bigger players.

ESMA put out a public procurement request on Tuesday to suppliers of trading data on crypto transactions, including spot trades and derivatives.

It excludes transactions from blockchain or the distributed ledger technology which underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

“The coverage should encompass all major exchanges and crypto assets so that it provides a fair representation of the crypto market landscape,” ESMA said in its notice.

Regulators use transactions data to spot abuses in markets, find out who is on each side of a transaction, and look for risky build ups of positions which could undermine orderly markets.

“Data should be available with daily frequency and include access to order books where to see spreads and liquidity across exchanges and trading pairs (in fiat and crypto),” it said.

The contract is worth a maximum of 100,000 euros.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Kim Coghill)

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss fraud counts against a former Uber Technologies Inc security chief also charged with covering up a 2016 data hack affecting 57 million passengers and drivers.

U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco dismissed the three wire fraud charges against Joseph Sullivan.

Prosecutors had requested the dismissal in a court filing last Wednesday, without explaining why, after a different judge ruled on June 28 they could pursue the charges.

Sullivan still faces two charges: obstructing a U.S. Federal Trade Commission proceeding, and failing to report a felony.

The office of U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds in San Francisco declined to comment. Lawyers for Sullivan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sullivan is believed to be the first corporate information security officer criminally charged with concealing a hacking.

Prosecutors said he tried to conceal the hacking from passengers, drivers and the FTC by arranging to pay the hackers $100,000 in bitcoin, and having them sign nondisclosure agreements that falsely stated they had not stolen data.

Sullivan was also accused of withholding information from Uber officials who could have disclosed the breach to the FTC, which had been evaluating the San Francisco-based company’s data security following a 2014 breach.

While letting the fraud charges proceed, U.S. District Judge William Orrick nevertheless said prosecutors could not contend that Sullivan owed a duty to Uber drivers to reveal the hacking.

Orrick still oversees the case. Donato was the judge on duty to handle the dismissal request.

Uber fired Sullivan after learning the extent of the breach. In September 2018, the company paid $148 million to settle claims by the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. that it was too slow to reveal the hacking.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

(Reuters) – New York State’s financial regulator has fined the crypto arm of Robinhood Markets Inc $30 million for alleged violations of anti-money-laundering, cybersecurity and consumer protection rules.

The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) said on Tuesday that Robinhood Crypto did not devote sufficient resources to address compliance and cybersecurity risks.

The online trading app has been at the center of several regulatory probes, including those sparked by last year’s frenzy in meme stocks.

“We are pleased the settlement in principle reached last year and previously disclosed in our public filings is now final,” Cheryl Crumpton, associate general counsel of litigation and regulatory enforcement at Robinhood, said on Tuesday.

The company has made “significant progress” in building its legal, compliance and cybersecurity programs, Crumpton added.

As part of the settlement, Robinhood Crypto would also be required to retain an independent consultant to evaluate its compliance practices, the NYDFS said.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

By Elizabeth Howcroft

LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. crypto firm Nomad has been hit by a $190 million theft, blockchain researchers said on Tuesday, the latest such heist to hit the digital asset sector this year.

Nomad said in a tweet that it was “aware of the incident” and was currently investigating, without giving further details or the value of the theft.

Crypto analytics firm PeckShield told Reuters $190 million worth of users’ cryptocurrencies were stolen, including ether and the stablecoin USDC. Other blockchain researchers put the figure at over $150 million.

San Francisco-based Nomad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company, which last week raised $22 million from investors including major U.S. exchange Coinbase Global, makes software that connects different blockchains – the digital ledgers that underpin most cryptocurrencies.

The heist targeted Nomad’s “bridge” – a tool which allows users to transfer tokens between blockchains.

Blockchain bridges have increasingly become the target of thefts, which have long plagued the crypto sector. Over $1 billion has been stolen from bridges so far in 2022, according to London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

In June, U.S. crypto firm Harmony said that thieves stole around $100 million worth of tokens from its Horizon bridge product.

In March, hackers stole around $615 million worth of cryptocurrency from Ronin Bridge, used to transfer crypto in and out of the game Axie Infinity. The United States linked North Korean hackers to the theft.

Nomad described itself as “security-first” business which would keep users’ funds safe.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; editing by Tom Wilson and Christina Fincher)

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh

(Reuters) – It’s been a good month for bitcoin – and we haven’t said that for a while.

After months of freefall, it jumped more than 17% in July, its best performance since October. Ether rose 57%, its strongest monthly gain since January 2021.

The rally was in step with gains of riskier assets such as stocks as investors bet that economic weakness could deter the Fed from aggressively tightening monetary policy.

Bitcoin’s 40-day correlation to the tech-focused Nasdaq now stands at 0.90 – up from 0.41 in January – where 1 means their prices move in perfect lockstep.

The leading cryptocurrency has been consistently positively correlated with the Nasdaq since late November, unlike in previous years where it would routinely turn negative, meaning they moved in opposite directions.

Itai Avneri, deputy CEO at cryptocurrency trading platform INX, described July’s convergence as “good news”.

“It means institutional investors are looking at bitcoin like any other asset,” he said. “When the market turns – and it will turn – these institutions will come back and invest in crypto.”

Gains were not limited to bitcoin, as the value of the global cryptocurrency market crept back above $1.15 trillion last month, adding over $255 billion since the end of June, CoinGecko data showed.

Assets under management in digital asset investment products rose 16.9% to $25.9 billion in July, reversing June’s decline of 36.8%, according to research firm CryptoCompare.

However, trading has been thin – indicating plenty of investors gauge it’s too early to turn bullish in a deeply uncertain macro backdrop with inflation rampant, and America and Europe staring down the barrel of a recession, not to mention the implosion of some big crypto players.

Average daily volumes across all digital asset investment products fell by 44.6% to $122 million, the lowest since September 2020, CryptoCompare found.

“On a medium-term horizon, we’re bearish (on crypto) despite the current bounce, this aligns with our stance on equities,” researchers at MacroHive wrote on Friday, citing inflation, recession risks and rate hikes.

Bitcoin correlation with Nasdaq: https://tmsnrt.rs/3d0Goex

A LONG WAY FROM $60,000

Bitcoin is currently trading at $23,336, consolidating around the $24,000 mark after touching that level last week.

It will likely continue to trade in a tight range of around $20,000, plus or minus 10% to 15%, until there is more clarity over the economy’s trajectory, according to Chris Terry, vice-president at lending platform SmartFi.

“We could be in this stalled market for weeks and weeks.”

On the flip side, if the United States enters a prolonged recessionary period and the Fed is forced to cut interest rates, bitcoin could benefit, said Russell Starr, CEO of Valour, which creates exchange-traded products for digital assets.

“You’re going to have to see another quarter of recession before you see a resumption back up to the lofty $60,000 levels,” he said.

For investors who dove into crypto during its surge at the height of pandemic-era easy monetary policy, the next several months could be quite bumpy, according to Adrian Kenny, senior sales trader at GlobalBlock.

“There is still an undoubtedly considerable mountain to climb in terms of ‘normality’ or the hopes of a return to the highs of 2021 anytime soon.”

Crypto crash: https://tmsnrt.rs/3zNwFB9

(Reporting by Medha Singh and Lisa Pauline Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Pravin Char)

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday it charged 11 people for their roles in creating and promoting a fraudulent crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme that raised over $300 million from retail investors worldwide, including in the United States.

Those charged included the four founders of the scheme named Forsage. They were last known to be living in Russia, the Republic of Georgia, and Indonesia, the SEC said in a statement.

The charged individuals could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to the SEC’s complaint, the scheme’s website was launched in January 2020 and allowed millions of retail investors to enter into transactions via smart contracts. It allegedly operated as a pyramid scheme for more than two years, in which investors earned profits by recruiting others into the scheme, the SEC said.

Forsage also allegedly used assets from new investors to pay earlier investors in a typical Ponzi structure, the SEC complaint added.

“Forsage is a fraudulent pyramid scheme launched on a massive scale and aggressively marketed to investors,” said Carolyn Welshhans, acting chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber unit. “Fraudsters cannot circumvent the federal securities laws by focusing their schemes on smart contracts and blockchains.”

Without admitting or denying the allegations, two of the defendants agreed to settle the charges and one of them agreed to pay penalties, the SEC said.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum)