Esports betting platform Unikrn has been fined $6.1m USD for an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO). 

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has hit the Seattle-based company with the hefty fine for the ICO of its UnikoinGold (UKG) token between June and September 2019, which is estimated to have raised around $31m. 

In its ruling, the SEC said:

“The order finds that Unikrn planned to use the offering proceeds to make more features available on the gaming platform and to develop additional applications for the UKG tokens.

“Unikrn promised investors that it would facilitate a secondary trading market for the tokens and that its efforts to increase the usages for the UKG token would increase demand for and in turn, the value of the tokens. 

“The order finds that Unikrn offered and sold UKG as investment contracts, which constituted securities, yet failed to register the offering or qualify for an exemption.”

However, SEC Commissioner, Hester M Peirce, emphasised that Unkrn had not engaged in any fraudulent activities, saying:

“While many SEC enforcement actions in this space include allegations of fraud, Unikrn falls within the narrower category of token issuers charged only with violating Section 5 of the Securities Act. 

“In other words, Unikrn is alleged to have offered and sold its tokens in an unregistered offering and in a manner that did not qualify for an exemption; it is not alleged to have engaged in any fraud in doing so.”

Peirce went on to add:

“I do not concur in my colleagues’ opinion that Unikrn’s token offering constituted a securities offering[…] I respectfully dissent from the Commission’s actions today relating to Unikrn.”

In a statement, Unikrn explained that fighting the decision and embroiling itself in costly litigation would be more damaging to its long-term goals than simple settling. 

So, in the best interests of current and future platform users along with investors, Unikrn has agreed to pay the fine, publish the ruling on its website, disable its UKG digital currency, and seek its removal from all trading platforms, but has not admitted or denied any wrongdoing. 

AYO.NEWS says:

This must be a bitter blow to Unikrn, which has earned a reputation as one of the straightest players in the esports betting scene, and had solid plans for its UKG token. 

Though there’s no doubt some ICOs targeted by the SEC were outright scams, it’s clear that others, like Unikrn, have simply been caught up in the ambiguity and confusion that the SEC itself helped foster. 

Staying with Unikrn, earlier this month the company’s CEO, Rahul Sood, was announced as an Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 Pacific Northwest Region Award finalist by Ernst & Young LLP. 

‘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

StormGain has been announced as Official Crypto Trading Partner of top-flight Italian football club SS Lazio.

The cryptocurrency trading platform is supporting SS Lazio at a significant time, as the club returns to the UEFA Champions League, and the partnership will see StormGain engage Lazio fans by giving them the chance to win exclusive VIP prizes. 

Commenting on the deal CEO of StormGain, Alex Althausen, said:

“StormGain is happy to partner with SS Lazio, a team with a rich history and values which echo our own perfectly. Through this sponsorship, we’re thrilled to join the worlds of crypto trading and football together and offer many exciting benefits for our clients, who can win exclusive access to the Roman superstars and unique prizes thanks to StormGain. We look forward to the start of a new season, which, no doubts, will be exciting and yet different from any other!”

While Marketing, Sponsorship and Event Director of SS Lazio, Marco Canigiani, added:

“We are very proud of this partnership that will reinforce our innovative positioning. The partnership will help us widening our international landscape and create at the forefront projects for our fans”.

StormGain pitches itself as taking the complexity out of crypto trading, and currently has over 120,000 clients in more than 100 countries. The company recently won the ‘Cryptocurrency Trading and Exchange Platform of the Year 2020’ award from The European Magazine. 

AYO.NEWS says:

It is beginning to seem like every self-respecting football club needs a crypto partner these days! But, seriously, if you’re an Italian club, now that gambling sponsorships are a no no, crypto platforms offer a much needed alternative. And, from StormGain’s point of view this is a pretty big deal – the platform still has relatively few users, and S.S. Lazio should boost its profile significantly. 

‘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

The Bahamas has announced plans to launch a national cryptocurrency in October. 

Known as the ‘Sand Dollar’, the Bahamian cryptocurrency will be issued by the Central Bank of the Bahamas, and is claimed to be the world’s first state-backed national virtual currency (hang on, didn’t the Marshall Islands launch its Marshallese sovereign in September 2019?).

Talking to Bloomberg, assistant manager of eSolutions at Central Bank of The Bahamas, Chaozhen Chen, said the new digital currency was being launched to promote financial inclusion among the residents of the remote islands that make up the archipelago. 

With commercial banks downsizing and closing branches, many residents on the more remote islands don’t have access to digital payment infrastructure, or even basic banking services, so the Sand Dollar has been designed to be transferable via mobile phones. 

The Sand Dollar has already been successfully piloted on the small islands of Exuma and Abaco – which have a combined population of around 24,000. 

Sand Dollars will be issued, and the existing Bahamian dollar retired, as demand grows, with the central bank ensuring there’s minimal impact on monetary supply. As with the existing Bahamian dollar, the Sand dollar is pegged to the US dollar. 

In order to use the new currency, residents will need to open an account and complete anti-money laundering and know-your-customer checks. 

AYO.NEWS says:

As with the Marshall Islands’ digital currency, it’s obviously much easier for small nations, especially islands, to roll out Central Bank Digital Currencies. However, these minor CBDCs will still serve as useful tests for larger nations, and we’re sure many central banks will be watching the Sand dollar closely over the coming months.

In terms of the world’s major powers, it looks like China will be the first to roll out a CBDC, with its digital yuan already undergoing extensive real-world trials in major cities. 

‘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

LiteBringer, the first game running on the Litecoin blockchain has been released. 

Developed by German studio CipSoft, the role-playing PC game allows players to truly own and control all their in-game items. 

Players kit out each character in the game with the best gear they can find, and characters and gear can be leveled up by collecting material resources. Characters can be sent on time-based missions to collect loot, and then use that to make themselves more powerful. 

All activity, including characters, gear, and resources, is stored on the Litecoin blockchain, and can be traded at the in-game marketplace – and it’s all priced in fractions of the Litecoin (LTC) cryptocurrency. 

Players will need to deposit a small amount of LTC in their in-game wallet in order to start playing the game, though LiteBringer is running a special launch promotion, offering to cover 90% of transaction costs for the first month, and there’s also the opportunity to collecte free ‘Lites’ from a special pool, enabling new users to get started for free. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Blockchain gaming is nothing new, but LiteBringer is notable as the first on the Litecoin blockchain. In terms of production values it looks like a fairly well produced game, and it’s aimed at a hugely popular genre, but will this be enough to make it fly?

Staying with blockchain gaming, but going with a very different style, a couple of weeks ago The Sandbox announced iconic 1980’s brand Care Bears was joining its Metaverse. 

‘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

Is BTC is ready to leave its $10,000 comfort zone and begin its much anticipated run to $100,000?

PlanB, the quantitative analyst behind the now famous Bitcoin stock-to-flow (S2F) model, thinks the answer is ‘yes.’ 

In a 14 September tweet, PlanB pointed out several signs suggesting BTC/USD is likely to repeat historical gains, saying: 

“S2F version 1 update. This is the 2019 time series model on historical BTC data only (no gold, silver, diamonds, real estate data used). You see the jump in model value at the halving (white line) and corresponding drop in S2F multiple / model error (white dots). Time to go up.”

S2F version 1 update. This is the 2019 time series model on historical BTC data only (no gold, silver, diamonds, real estate data used). You see the jump in model value at the halving (white line) and corresponding drop in S2F multiple / model error (white dots). Time to go up. pic.twitter.com/qIjiXfbmCx

— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) September 14, 2020

As previously reported, in April 2020 PlanB updated the original S2F chart with more details, including other assets, and ‘phases’. The new chart suggests we could see BTC at $288,000 before 2024. And, since May’s BTC halving, the new model has been remarkably accurate, revealing strong similarities with Bitcoin’s behaviour after the 2016 halving. 

Looking ahead at his predicted BTC bull run, PlanB has suggest the necessary funds to drive the price up would come from “silver, gold, countries with negative interest rates [..], countries with predatory governments [..], billionaires and millionaires hedging against quantitative easing (QE), and institutional investors.”

Lending weight to PlanB’s prediction, in late August, an influential senior portfolio manager warned that money velocity had collapsed in the US during the second quart of 2020, as the Federal Reserve engaged in unprecedented money printing in an attempt to combat the COVID-19 lockdown induced economic crisis. 

And, let’s not forget, Frankie MacDonald said “Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttcccccooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!”

AYO.NEWS says:

Over the last few months we’ve seen a lot of speculation about a significant Bitcoin bull run, but the original crypto has seemed somewhat infatuated with the $10K mark.

However, as the realisation that the COVID-19 crisis will likely be here for many months, if not years, and the sheer scale of the global economic catastrophe caused by the misguided lockdowns becoming apparent, it seems more likely that Bitcoin will take its place as a safe haven asset to rival gold. 

Of course, even PlanB’s forecasts pale in comparison to that of incarcerated Silk Road founder, Ross Ulbricht, who has said he thinks Bitcoin could react an eye-watering $333 million. 

‘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

Ten new members, including Aave, Curve Finance, and Synthetix, have joined Huobi’s Global DeFi Alliance. 

It means there are now fifteen members of Huobi’s decentralised finance (DeFi) consortium, known as the ‘DeFi Alliance,’ which launched in August and aims to foster collaboration between decentralised finance projects from around the world. 

Curve Finance, Aave, Synthetix, Balancer, Loopring, Zapper, Zerion, Bitpie, Mykey, and CoinGecko, have now joined founding members Huobi DeFi Labs, Maker Foundation, Compound, NEST Community, and dYdX. 

Announcing the latest members Huobi CIO, Sharlyn Wu, said:

“We appreciate all new members of the Global DeFi Alliance and look forward to cooperating with them in various fields from user education, practice sharing, protocol standardization, risk management to supporting the development of the global decentralized financial ecosystem.”

The alliance has webinars and other events planned to increase DeFi awareness and education, initially aimed at companies and individuals in Asia. 

More DeFi organisations are also expected to join the alliance in the coming months. 

AYO.NEWS says:

By its very nature, the DeFi sector has tended to evolve in a very loose and, well, decentralised way – which is great for many things. But, when it comes to dealing with regulators, authorities, and delivering education, a more joined-up approach is needed, so it’s great to see DeFi companies and organisations getting behind the DeFi Alliance.

‘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