Telegram has agreed to provide the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with communications relating to purchase agreements for its 2018 Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

The firm has filed an order of consent, agreeing to hand over the communications and documents requested by the SEC, including purchase agreements between the firm and the initial buyers of its Gram tokens during its 2018 ICO. 

It is the latest development in a battle that really commenced in October 2019 when the SEC accused the company of conducting an unlicensed offering of securities. In March 2020, a New York District Judge sided with the SEC and issued a preliminary injunction against Telegram, ordering it to halt issuing tokens. 

As we previously reported, despite Telegram’s legal battles in the United States, and the fact it is having to offer refunds to all US-based investors, Telegram’s global community is taking matters into its own hands.

On 7 May, the same day Telegram filed its consent order, the Free Telegram Open Network (TON) community launched a version of the TON blockchain via a fork, declaring “the initial creator TON (Telegram/The Open Network) blockchain, can no longer be involved.”

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

Malta-based blockchain company Chiliz has partnered with UFC®, the world’s premier mixed martial arts (MMA) organisation. 

The exclusive global partnership will see UFC join major football clubs including FC Barcelona, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Atlético de Madrid, Galatasaray, AS Roma, CA Independiente and esports giants OG, in using the Socios.com fan voting and rewards app to drive fan engagement. 

Chiliz’s cryptocurrency $CHZ powers Socios.com, and allows app users to purchase Fan Tokens via its native marketplace or the Chiliz.net cryptocurrency exchange – the first in the world designed specifically for sports and entertainment. 

Fan Tokens can then be used to buy voting rights in official polls and other special perks, including UFC-related offers and rewards, such as tickets to UFC events or pre-sale access to tickets.

According to UFC, it is hoping to capitalise on Chiliz’s fintech expertise to create new opportunities to grow the brand and increase fan engagement. 

Discussing the partnership CEO & Founder of Chiliz & Socios.com, Alexandre Dreyfus, said:

“By partnering with Chiliz, UFC now has access to a captive audience of fans from some of the biggest sporting organisations on the planet, creating an unprecedented opportunity to attract new followers.

“This exciting partnership is the first major example of how we can use blockchain technology to create incredible engagement opportunities not only for our Fan Token partners, but for other leading enterprises, too.

“It’s also a major step forward in our evolution from pioneers in blockchain-based fan engagement to leading the march as a fintech company in the sports space.”

While UFC Vice President Global Partnerships, Nicholas Smith, added:

“Chiliz and Socios.com are industry leaders in blockchain based fan engagement and our two companies share a common philosophy to always ‘be first,’ so we are thrilled to begin this new partnership. UFC continually strives to enhance the fan experience and we are looking forward to working with the team on innovative and unique ways to achieve this goal.”

AYO.NEWS says:

As the sports and esports business gets more expensive, monetisation is becoming ever more critical – and one of the most important aspects of successful monetisation is building a loyal, and highly engaged fan base. Chiliz’s blockchain-based ecosystem is a clear leader in driving this kind of engagement, though it does have competition from others like Swiss blockchain-based app solution Blocksport. 

Staying with Chiliz, in February the company announced a partnership with marketing agency Lagardère Sports and Entertainment, as it looks to attract more European and North American clubs and teams. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

Silvergate Bank has seen Bitcoin (BTC) trading and transaction volumes surge during the first quarter of 2020. 

In a Q1 earnings transcript filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the end of April, it was revealed BTC trading volume on the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) had rocketed 75% compared to the previous quarter. BTC transaction volume on SEN also surged 118%, registered over 31K transactions.

San Diego-based Silvergate Bank says it now counts more than 850 cryptocurrency exchanges (including Kraken and Gemini), miners, custodians and global investors as clients, and it has seen a “fairly significant increase” in deposits, to the tune of USD $447m worth of BTC following the COVID-19 triggered global downturn.

Reflecting on the quarter president and chief executive officer at Silvergate, Alan Lane, said:

“As we work together as a nation to fight the spread of COVID-19, our first priority has been to ensure the safety and health of our employees and customers. Our strong risk management culture has encompassed not only a robust pandemic continuity plan but also a dynamic hedging program to protect our Company against an economic downturn and declining interest rates. This enabled our team to quickly transition our employees to a work at home environment while seamlessly maintaining our operations and mitigating the recent precipitous decline in interest rates.”

The bank also noted that its mechanism to monitor the price of BTC collateral and making “margin calls” had worked well in its pilot, after having been put through its paces by the volatility in the first quarter. The pilot scheme, which offered leveraged trading to certain institutional BTC customers saw $12.5 million in BTC collateralised loans during the quarter.

AYO.NEWS says:

As the sheer scale of the global economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 lockdowns and travel bans slowly begins to dawn on people, many are expecting more to turn to cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin (BTC).

The possible reaslistion of Bitcoin as a true safe haven asset at long last, coupled with this month’s scheduled halving have led to some dramatic price predictions. Earlier this week CEO of Pantera Capital, Dan Morehead, predicted a possible Bitcoin price of $500K by August 2021, while last week Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht speculated that the grandaddy of cryptocurrencies could reach an eye-watering $333 million in the not-too-distant future! 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) has partnered with open banking solutions provider Volt Technologies, to offer Volt’s tokenised payment solutions to its customers.

According to Amsterdam-based Volt, providing a single source of integration, its blockchain-based open banking solution will enable GiG’s B2B partners to access faster payment options across a wide variety of markets. 

Because open banking is covered by the PSD2 European Union electronic payment services regulation, banks are required to open APIs to licensed third parties. By using these API’s third-party providers can initiate payments or access customers’ banking data, allowing them to develop improved services and experiences. 

Discussing the partnership Chief Commercial Officer at GiG, Ben Clemes, said: 

“We are happy to have partnered with Volt for open source banking, its features align with GIG’s increased focus towards platform services, providing our partners with superior technical solutions to reach their goals. Gaining access to highly accurate data that comes directly from the customer’s bank will become a game-changer for  KYC and compliance-related processes.”

While Chief Commercial Officer at Volt, Jordan Lawrence, added:

“GIG is one of the leaders in technology development enabling the gaming industry, we are delighted to be working with their team. We look forward to unlocking the potential of open banking for GIG’s partner network.”

Canadian blockchain development company Blockstream has updated its satellite service protocol, making it possible to download a full node with no internet connection.

The first upgrade to the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain satellite network for nearly two years has increased speeds by 25x, and enables users to sync a node without connecting to the web. 

Blockchain’s network uses six leased geostationary satellites to broadcast the blockchain to Africa, Europe, South America, North America, and the Asia Pacific region, enabling internet-free Bitcoin (BTC) transactions and information sharing. 

According to Blockchain, its upgraded Blockstream Satellite 2.0 features a standards-based transmission protocol, increased bandwidth, expanded coverage, and the “ability to sync a Bitcoin full node all the way from the genesis block up to today.”

The last update to the network was in December 2018, when Blockstream introduced a Lightning-powered application programming interface (API) to the first version of the protocol that had been released in August the previous year. 

Apparently, the DVB-S2 protocol used in Blockstream Satellite 2.0 featured improved spectral efficiency and signal reliability, higher bitrates, and increased data capacity and bandwidth. Because the new protocol works under lower signal-to-noise ratios, it will work better even at the edges of coverage zones, and will be less affected by weather conditions.

The company has also said that satellite kits will soon be available for pre-order at the Blockstream Store. 

Basic kits will include a consumer-grade satellite receiver, read to connect to a Bitcoin node at home. While Pro kits will feature rack-mountable professional hardware, supporting all features of the Basic kit, but with additional dual-satellite capability for more reliable and faster data transfers, and multicasting. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Enabling genuinely remote, internet-free access to the Bitcoin blockchain massively increases the resilience of the entire network, and with kits being very reasonably priced (Blockstream Satellite Basic Kit Pre-sale $279 / RRP $299), its will especially help Bitcoin in the developing world where internet connections can still be hit or miss. 

Note the date 🙂

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

Robinhood, the stock and cryptocurrency trading app, has raised $280 million in Series F funding, at an $8.3 billion valuation. 

The round was led by venture capital firm Sequoia, and included NEA, Ribbit Capital, 9Yards Capital, and Unusual Ventures. Robinhood had aimed to raise $250m at a valuation of $8 billion, but beat the target by a significant margin despite the COVID-19 crisis induced global economic downturn.

Indeed, despite the platform suffering from several serious outages in March, including one of which may have caused users to miss out on the Dow Jones’ biggest ever one-day rally, it has seen revenue surge during the COVID-19 crisis – going from USD $20m in March 2019, to a record $60m in March 2020.  

In response to March’s outages, which have already resulted a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of several traders, Robinhood has pledged to reimburse those affected on a case-by-case basis. 

Focused on making trading easy, and providing a wealth of easy-to-follow informative content to help everyday investors, Robinhood provides commission-free trading for a range of major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC), alongside altcoins like Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Dogecoin (DOGE).

Illustrating its clear appeal to everyday investors, the platform says that out of the 3 million funded accounts added so far in 2020, 50% are first-time investors. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Robinhood’s phenomenal funding round and surge in popularity, despite serious technical problems in March, may well be indicative of a general feeling, among both venture capital funds and individual retail investors, that the traditional markets are about to take an unprecedented hammering as the full scale of the economic catastrophe caused by the misguided lockdowns sinks in. 

As many have pointed out over the last few weeks, Bitcoin (BTC) may have been born in the fallout of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, but may well be the coming crisis, which could be orders of magnitude greater, that sees it and other cryptocurrencies come into their own. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020