Coindesk

Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), criticized the U.S. Treasury's recent filing that seeks to moot the necessity of a final court judgment regarding Tornado Cash after having delisted the crypto mixer from the sanctions list.On Friday, the Treasury Department's sanctions watchdog removed Tornado Cash from its global blacklist while also removing over 100 ether (ETH) addresses from the Specially Designated Nationals list. The platform was backlisted in 2022 for its alleged role in laundering $445 million stolen by the North Korea-linked Lazarus cybercrime group.The Treasury then argued that the action of delisting Tornado Cash resolved the issue at hand and that a final court ruling ordering it to remove the crypto mixer from its sanctions...

Tabit Insurance, a Barbados-regulated insurance company established by former executives from the now-shuttered cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex, said it raised a $40 million reserve composed entirely of bitcoin (BTC) with which to write traditional insurance and reinsurance business.The insurer, which emerged in January of this year with plans to offer bitcoin-backed liability policies for company directors and officers (D&O), claims to be the first regulated risk carrier to rely on bitcoin-only reserves to write traditional policies priced in U.S. dollars. The firm has a class 2 insurance license from the Barbados Financial Services Commission.The crossover between crypto and insurance usually involves shoehorning existing risk categories for loss and theft into covering hot and cold versions of digital assets custody. Tabit’s approach...

Michael Saylor-led Stategy (MSTR) brought its bitcoin stake above 500,000 tokens with additional purchases made last week.The company purchased 6,911 bitcoin for $584.1 million, or an average cost of $84,529 per token, according to a filing Monday morning.That brought the company's holdings to 506,137 BTC acquired for $33.7 billion, or an average cost of $66,608 each.Strategy funded this latest acquisition via the sale of 1.975 million shares of common stock, which raised $592.6 million.The company's latest preferred stock offering, $711 million of STRK, only priced late last week. To date, Strategy has sold 13,100 shares, raising $1.1 million, according to the filing.MSTR is higher by 4.8% in premarket trading alongside a rally in bitcoin over the weekend to above $87,000.Source...

The bitcoin (BTC) price has jumped 2% to $87,800 since midnight UTC. The increase has been accompanied by an uptick in future open interest on Binance, validating the buoyant market mood to signal sustainable gains.The open interest in the BTC-USDT futures listed on the exchange has increased by roughly 7,000 BTC ($614.6 million) since the early Asian trading hours, according to data tracked by Coinglass and Velo Data. Open interest refers to the number of active, or open, contracts at a given time.Furthermore, funding rates on Binance have held positive to suggest a bias for leveraged bullish (long) bets."This is a good sign, volatility is coming," Coinglass said, referring to the notable increase in open interest.Source link

Crypto market maker and investor DWF Labs said it established a $250 million fund for investment in mid and large-cap cryptocurrency projects.Investment sizes will range from $10 million to $50 million per project, providing capital and ecosystem support, DWF Labs said in a Monday email.The firm emerged as a prolific crypto industry investor in 2023, with much of its investments involving buying several million dollars' worth of a project's native token. The approach, which differs from the traditional venture capital model of investing in return for equity, drew some criticism from commentators. DWF Labs' position as a market maker meant they kept their tokens on exchanges, indicating a risk they could sell them at any time. Managing partner Andrei Grachev...