Ripple Labs Inc., a San Francisco software company that develops XRP, one of the five largest cryptocurrencies, was blackmailed at the height of the crypto mania three years ago, CoinDesk has learned. Documents obtained by CoinDesk through a Freedom of Information Act request show that an unidentified individual emailed Ripple on Oct. 19, 2017, demanding 5 million XRP — then worth $1.05 million — in exchange for withholding videos it claimed portrayed the company in a negative light. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s San Francisco and Canberra, Australia, offices investigated the extortion attempt from Oct. 23, 2017, to April 20, 2018, […]
Ada Hui
16 posts
Venture capitalist Tim Draper’s investment office Draper Goren Holm is sinking larger investments in virtual currency-only startups. Draper Goren Holm, a cryptocurrency investment firm in Los Angeles, told CoinDesk that it raised $25 million for its first venture capital fund to buffer its startup accelerator and back blockchain companies at higher investment valuations. The venture fund, announced last week, is planning to invest $250,000 to $500,000 in seed, Series A and a few later investment rounds, the firm said, whereas the accelerator funds pre-seed rounds for between $10,000 and $50,000 and 4% to 10% ownership stakes in startups. “A majority of […]
International financial authorities and seven of the world’s largest economies are establishing official standards for regulating and issuing sovereign digital currencies. The Group of Seven (G7) — an organization of finance ministers and central bank governors representing the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan — said in a report last week that it is working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to formalize the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in banking systems. According to a new report released today, by the end of 2022, the […]
Pantera Capital, a cryptocurrency investment firm known for its blockbuster bitcoin returns, has been on the upside when investing in startups, though the returns have been falling below or closer to other types of equity investors. The venture funds Pantera Capital raised in August 2013 and August 2014 have returned 46.5% and 15.9% from their inception to September 2019, respectively, according to firm data obtained by CoinDesk. The returns underperform index funds most retail investors can buy into and outperform venture funds limited to smaller pools of accredited investors. Up to September 2019, the S&P 500 index, for example, has returned, […]
An official for China’s central bank has unveiled usage statistics of state-backed digital currency trials that were conducted in three Chinese cities. Speaking virtually at the Sibos 2020 conference on Monday, Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said the bank opened 113,300 consumer digital wallets and 8,859 corporate digital wallets for residents of Shenzhen, Suzhou and Xiong’an to pilot a digital yuan. The digital wallets processed RMB 1.1 billion ($162 million) across 3.1 million digital yuan transactions between April and August when the pilots launched and ended, Fan said, making it the most widely used central bank […]
Three of the largest asset managers are diversifying their funds to hold blockchain stocks, throwing more establishment financial might behind bitcoin’s technology. Charles Schwab has begun purchasing shares of Riot Blockchain, joining Fidelity and Vanguard – already investors in Riot, HIVE Blockchain Technologies, Hut 8 and BC Group – in allocating mutual fund holdings to a cryptocurrency company, according to financial filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Filings for the first half of this year show Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc. purchased 22,977 Riot shares for $52,000. Two Vanguard funds – the Vanguard Index Fund and Vanguard Valley Forge […]
A boom in decentralized finance (DeFi) has turbo-charged returns for Pantera Capital’s bitcoin and mixed cryptocurrency hedge funds this year. From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, Pantera’s bitcoin (BTC) fund gained 61%, its digital asset fund 168%, its initial coin offering (ICO) fund 323% and its long-term ICO fund 270%, thanks in large part to Yearn Finance’s YFI, Terra’s LUNA, Polkadot’s DOT, Flexa’s AMP and Ampleforth’s AMPL DeFi-related tokens, according to an investor letter sent out last week. Year-to-date, the funds have outperformed the S&P 500 stock index, as well as index and hedge funds. The returns also tipped the ICO […]
An Asian cryptocurrency exchange’s funds have been compromised in a security breach. The Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange KuCoin said in a statement that it detected large withdrawals of bitcoin and ethereum tokens to an unknown wallet beginning at 19:05 UTC time on Friday. In a live stream on 4:30 UTC time Saturday, KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu said that one or more hackers obtained the private keys to the exchange’s hot wallets. Kucoin transferred what was left in them to new hot wallets, abandoned the old ones and froze customer deposits and withdrawals, Lyu said. KuCoin’s cold wallets were unaffected, Lyu claimed. […]
A Silicon Valley fund manager holds bitcoin purchased eight years ago as it mulls being publicly traded. Palo Alto, Calif., investment firm Social Capital invested in bitcoin (BTC) in 2013, CEO Chamath Palihapitiya revealed Wednesday in an investment conference call. Bitcoin was trading between $13 and $1,200 in 2013 and today trades around $10,000, according to Coin Metrics data. Palihapitiya made the disclosure on a Sept. 16 call about Social Capital’s plans to list Opendoor on the New York Stock Exchange through Social Capital Hedosophia II, one of six special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) registered with former DST Global partner Ian […]
A hacker has stolen data on more than 1,000 users from CryptoTrader.Tax, an online service used to calculate and file taxes on cryptocurrency trades. The hacker broke into a CryptoTrader.Tax marketing and customer service employee’s account on a support center platform, according to a source who came across the hacker on a dark web forum. With this access, the hacker could see customers’ names, email addresses, payment processor profiles and messages sometimes containing cryptocurrency incomes. The hacker then screengrabbed samples of this sensitive information, posted them on the forum to entice potential buyers of the data trove and sent additional pictures […]
Neural Capital, a hedge fund that traded cryptocurrency assets, has quietly shuttered. The fund’s managers, Arij “Ari” Nazir and Christopher Keshian, were new to the hedge fund industry and involved in more than one fund when they started Neural Capital. Keshian told CoinDesk he has not kept in touch with Nazir since parting from Neural Capital. “Right now, I’m working on a project that is still very much under wraps,” said Keshian, declining to comment further. Nazir did not respond to requests for comment. Disclosure The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic […]
Cryptocurrency hedge fund Tetras Capital is calling it quits. Tetras Capital’s closure adds to a growing line of cryptocurrency hedge funds folding after crypto prices slid from peak highs in 2017. The fund launched in 2017 with a focus on altcoins, Tetras Capital co-founder Alex Sunnarborg said in a 2019 Forbes interview. Requests for comment from Tetras Capital, Sunnarborg, Bernstein and Garrambone were not returned by press time. Disclosure The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary […]
Two technology developers are trying to keep their workplace harassment lawsuit against the Tron Foundation on the path to trial. A legal challenge is calling on a court to overturn an order allowing the central organization developing the Tron cryptocurrency to privately litigate a lawsuit through arbitration. Richard Hall and Lukasz Juraszek, employees fired from the Tron Foundation last year, filed a writ of mandamus with the First District Court of Appeals in California in San Francisco on June 17 to reverse arbitration in a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination and hostile work practices at BitTorrent, a file-sharing service acquired in 2018 […]
A cryptocurrency hedge fund helmed by three Brazilian bankers has lost half of its money even though it returned positively over the past 16 months. The value of São Paulo-based BLP Asset Management’s crypto-asset hedge fund, Genesis Block Fund, is down 56.3% from its inception to date. That is because despite gains of 34.9% in 2019 and 46.6% from January to May 2020, it suffered a 77.9% plunge in 2018, its first year. BLP Asset Management’s returns are a reminder cryptocurrency funds that took a hit in 2018 — when prices of digital currencies crashed — have a harder time getting […]
A little-known virtual currency fund heavy on math and statistics is turning a steady profit under a lead trader who once oversaw a major cryptocurrency exchange. Galois Capital, a San Francisco cryptocurrency hedge fund that launched in January 2018, said in an investor letter and financial filings that it increased its holdings from $10 million to $23 million in two years with high-frequency trading and funds from new investors lured by returns. A quantitative fund manager, Galois Capital computationally makes bulk volumes of speedy, precise trades shaped by its founder and lead trader Kevin Zhou, previously head of trading at American […]
Heavy losses are rocking alternative crypto-asset funds at Pantera Capital, one of the oldest cryptocurrency investment managers, and providing stark contrast to its bitcoin fund’s gains. Pantera Capital’s flagship bitcoin fund – a fund holding bitcoin (BTC) since 2013 and bitcoin cash (BCH) since 2017 – lost 75.6% in 2018 and gained 87.7% in 2019, according to internal materials seen by CoinDesk. The last two years dragged the bitcoin fund’s historical returns to 10,162%, down 54% from 2017’s peak of 22,321% but still exceeding all-time returns at elite funds hundreds of times over. On the newer end, three hybrid Pantera Capital […]