#429
The Craic Is Mighty

Robinhood readies feature that lets users lend out stocks - Robinhood's plan to let users loan out their stocks to other financial institutions -- a program known as fully paid securities lending -- is taking shape within its app, part of a push to compete with more conventional brokerages. The lending program would rival similar features offered by Fidelity Investments, Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade and Charles Schwab, which already allow customers to earn passive income by loaning stocks they own. Read more

Bored Apes maker Yuga Labs acquires CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections from Larva Labs - CryptoPunks and Meebits NFTs are owned by members of the community, but the intellectual property rights of the characters had long (and controversially) been owned by the projects’ creators. With this announcement, Yuga Labs signaled that they will be giving full commercial rights of the NFTs to the individual holders; they notably won’t be transferring the full copyright, but is a step further than Larva Labs ever went and something owners had long desired. Read more

Russia stokes fears of first foreign currency default in more than a century as it attempts payment - Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov claimed Russia had the necessary funds to fulfill its obligations and pay $117 million in interest on two sovereign eurobonds due on Wednesday. However, he said the U.S. should first clarify whether the settlements are possible from Russian foreign currency accounts. Read more

Big banks launch syndicated loan platform Versana - Founded by J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citi and Credit Suisse and expected to launch later in the year, Versana “will aim to reduce the corporate loan market's operational challenges by digitally capturing agent banks' reference data directly from its source on a real-time basis,” the company said in a news release. Read more

EU votes 32-23 against 'de facto bitcoin mining ban' - The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) has recently been wrestling with the proposed Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA)—a hallmark piece of legislation designed to coordinate the European Union’s approach to crypto. This week, ECON rejected versions of the legislative package that contained what has been described as a “de facto” ban on proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining, used by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Read more

Ukraine partners with FTX and Everstake for crypto fundraising website - The initiative, dubbed Aid for Ukraine, is a collaboration between FTX, staking service Everstake and Ukraine. FTX converts the crypto donations to fiat and sends them to the fundraising account of the National Bank of Ukraine, where the donations will be used to support humanitarian aid programs and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Read more

Tencent dives on report of record fine for money-laundering - The People’s Bank of China found Tencent’s WeChat Pay had allowed the transfer of funds for illicit purposes such as gambling, the newspaper reported. WeChat Pay was also judged non-compliant with other rules that required Tencent to identify users and merchants transacting on the platform, the Journal said. Read more

El Salvador prepares to launch bitcoin bond: ‘If this fails, a lot of doors close’ - Josué País, owner of an El Salvador taxi business that accepts payments in bitcoin from the tourists who use the service, is enthusiastically backing the country’s latest plan to cash in on the cryptocurrency craze. “The curiosity is what gets me,” said País, 36, who was planning to buy about $200 of the Central American country’s “bitcoin bond”. Read more

Binance forges links in the Gulf as it seeks fixed base - Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is setting down roots in the Gulf as it seeks to placate global regulators by establishing a fixed home base and regulatory ties for its international business. The group this week announced that it had secured cryptoasset licenses from both Dubai and Bahrain. Read more