Brazil's Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, said during an online event this Tuesday that Brazil "is about to" join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and that the Brazilian government has plans to launch a public offering of shares (IPO) for the newly-created digital bank of Caixa Econômica Federal. Caixa Econômica Federal created a digital bank during the pandemic to help the government send financial aid to around 64 million Brazilians. Guedes’ comments came during the Milken Institute Global Conference, during which he said that the Central Bank is working to attract new investors for the country. One …

A Gibraltar-based company says it is building a digital asset exchange that will be fully compliant with regulations from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the European Union. According to INX, the evolution of blockchain-based currencies and assets is finally beginning to gain steam — and governments around the world are beginning to realize that digital payments are here to stay. The company’s team consists of top executives from some of the world’s biggest financial institutions, including American Express, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered, HSBC, TD Ameritrade and Societe Generale. INX says its vision …

Decentralized exchanges have been around for a while now, but it’s only been since the grip of decentralized finance mania has taken hold that they’ve come into their own. The growth in DEX use has been nothing short of exponential, with volumes pretty much doubling in August and September compared with the preceding months. But is volume alone telling the whole story? Amid the DeFi frenzy, some of the biggest winners have been DeFi governance tokens. Kicking off with Compound’s COMP token in June, other projects that followed suit have seen similar patterns. Yam Finance’s YAM, SushSwap’s SUSHI and BurgerSwap’s …

Much of the current blockchain ecosystem has been built around traditional concepts. Therefore, it’s not surprising to see crowdfunding mechanisms tailored specifically for blockchain projects that resemble initial public offerings. For example, in 2017, the blockchain space witnessed the rise of initial coin offerings, and while the ICO framework quickly attracted billions of dollars in venture capital, the approach was flawed, as any investor could participate by sending cryptocurrency to a project that had nothing to show for in terms of proof but a website (and sometimes a white paper). Unsurprisingly, many ICOs turned out to be fraudulent, resulting in …

You can tell from Brian Armstrong’s opening words that he’s a numbers guy. “There have been a lot of difficult events in the world this year,” understated the Coinbase CEO in announcing that forthwith, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States would do a better job of ignoring them. According to Armstrong’s recent blog post, Coinbase’s mission is to “create an open financial system for the world.” He left out the second half of the company’s mission statement, the part about being “the leading global brand for helping people convert digital currency into and out of their local currency,” …

Ant Group, the financial affiliate of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, has filed an Initial Public Offering, or IPO, in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Created by Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Ant Group is targeting a valuation of about $226 billion, based on a target IPO raise of nearly $30 billion, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on Aug. 25. As reported, the new IPO could become the largest deal in history, potentially overtaking the record set by Saudi Arabian multinational oil and gas giant, Saudi Aramco — which raised around $29.4B earlier this year. According to Bloomberg data, the target …

Gibraltar-based crypto exchange INX will launch its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) on Aug 24, 2020, after a two year journey. The exchange aims to sell 130 million tokens at $0.90 netting up to $111 million after expenses according to its latest filing with the SEC. This will be the first security token offering (STO) that is registered with the SEC, allowing everyday investors to legally participate in it. Until now STO’s have typically only filed notices to the regulators while remaining unregistered, limiting participation to institutional and registered investors. The INX tokens will be a hybrid solution of both …

A Manhattan federal judge has ruled that Longfin — a now defunct firm whose shares surged 1000% in 2017 after it bought an undervalued crypto company — must repay $223 million plus interest to investors over alleged securities fraud. In a July 29 order, Judge Denise Cote determined the nine-figure sum is collectively owed by Longfin, its chief executive Venkata Meenaalli, CTO Vivek Ratakonda, and the director of two related companies, Suresh Tammineedi. The ruling granted a default judgment that had been requested by lead plaintiff Mohammad Malik in January. Malik’s argument emphasized a request from Longfin’s counsel to withdraw …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note Policy changes slowly. Crypto wants to move fast. Sometimes fairly, sometimes not, the crypto industry often portrays traditional financial regulators as calcified relics unprepared to deal with the coming new world. To be fair, everyone seems to acknowledge that markets and trading systems need comprehensive upgrades, but national and international regulators are accountable to a wider range of concerns than any specific industry. The crypto industry sometimes takes that as a personal slight, waiting for some sudden burst of …

Coinbase, Inc. is reportedly preparing for a U.S. stock market listing that could come this year, according to Reuters reporting. According to Reuters sources, preparations for a listing are underway but still need the green light from the Securities and Exchange Commission. If successful, this would mark the first time that a cryptocurrency exchange would be listed on traditional markets. Some mining companies have conducted or are preparing for initial public offerings, with Canaan doing so late last year. It is yet unclear if Coinbase will opt for an initial public offering to accompany public trading. While raising additional capital …

On June 26, Chinese firm Ebang was listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker EBON, becoming the second Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturer to go public on a United States stock exchange. The company intends to secure up to $125 million in the offering and follow up with an ambitious enlargement — namely, it plans to open up a cryptocurrency exchange and mining farms. So, what does going public mean for the mining player, and will other crypto companies follow suit? From telecoms equipment to Bitcoin mining According to documents Ebang filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, …

Major Chinese Bitcoin (BTC) mining equipment maker Ebang, which is reportedly getting listed on Nasdaq Global Market later today, is planning to expand its business by setting up a cryptocurrency exchange and mining farms. As told to Cointelegraph by an Ebang representative in a recent interview, the company intends to carve out a unique role in the industry by building “a global blockchain and a digital economy industrial ecosystem.” That would include setting up a cryptocurrency exchange and mining facilities, the spokesperson elaborated: “We will soon establish our own mining farms with [a] flexible cooperation model [...] as well as …