- Polygon reported that it raised $450 million from selling its MATIC token to investors led by Sequoia Capital India. The funding includes a three-year lock-in, with one-third of the tokens released for trading after each year. "This will allow the team to consolidate its lead in the race to scale Ethereum, obviating the need for alternative blockchains and paving the way for mass adoption of Web 3 applications," the company stated. With these funds, Polygon will look to continue to scale Ethereum and move toward developing and adopting Web3-focused applications, an announcement from the blockchain platform explains. The investment round, which dealt with the $450 million private sales of the scaling solution's native token, MATIC, was led by Sequoia Capital, SoftBank, Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global, Galaxy Republica Capital, and Galaxy Interactive, as well as investors Alan Howard and Kevin O'Leary, the popular investor and well-known shark from the show Shark Tank.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) expressed concerns about how digital asset manager Grayscale will avoid stock manipulation, fraud, and other potential problems in its proposal to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF). Since the SEC approved Bitcoin futures ETFs, Grayscale began transforming its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF. However, on Friday, in a public notice, the SEC expressed concerns about how Grayscale intends to do so. The regulator is not convinced that Grayscale's proposal for a Bitcoin ETF will prevent potential fraud or manipulation in the Bitcoin market. As previously noted, the SEC continues to drag its feet on approving or rejecting spot Bitcoin ETFs. Indeed, in 2021 the SEC approved some Bitcoin futures ETFs. However, a spot ETF remains unconvincing to them. In fact, on January 4, the SEC likewise delayed a decision on NYDIG's proposal for a Bitcoin ETF until March. Thus, according to Yahoo Finance, James Butterfill, Strategist at CoinShares Investment, assured that it is tough to know if in 2022 we will see a Bitcoin ETF, "but I feel it won't happen. In the near term." "Over time, once it becomes clear that rollover yields have a significant impact on performance ... maybe the SEC will feel that a spot ETF is better," Butterfill explained. He added that this happens when you move from one futures contract to the next and typically hurts performance.
- Malaysia is evaluating the potential benefits of adopting a digital currency. At the same time, the Asian country's central bank aims to accelerate the growth of financial technology, Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus. Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia ensured that new systems were subject to similar scrutiny and safeguards to manage risks. As reported by Bloomberg, the Central Bank of Malaysia "is actively evaluating the value proposition of a digital currency" for the country. As announced by the agency, "while no decision has been made to issue" a cryptocurrency, its use is being investigated "to enhance" technical and "policy capabilities, should the need arise to issue cryptocurrencies in the future." In September last year, Malaysia joined forces with the Bank for International Settlements, Australia, Singapore, and South Africa to test the use of central bank digital currencies for international settlements through a shared platform in a project dubbed 'Project Dunbar'.
- Former Manchester United soccer players such as Gary Neville and Paul Scholes have teamed up with wealthy Singaporeans Peter Lim and his son Kiat Lim to create a DAO called CO92, which will allow fans to make sports-related investments alongside them. They say "like father, like son," and Peter Lim and his son are a clear example of this. Kiat has wanted to follow in his father's successful footsteps in the business world and create his own, which promises to revolutionize the world of soccer. Because yes, just like his father, he will continue to be linked to the ball. The young man has created the first decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) of professional soccer worldwide. And indeed, after reading this, you are wondering what this means. Quite simply. The idea is that fans can get involved through this app.
- South Korean public blockchain platform Klaytn, developed by internet giant Kakao, signed five partnership agreements to pursue its global expansion plans, including a potential yen-linked stablecoin and an NFT auction for a renowned artist in the first quarter of 2022. The project has also previously secured the central bank digital currency project (CBDC) with Korea. Although the crypto market has been somewhat dormant, even pulling down, a few participants have delivered some surprises. The cryptocurrency Klaytn is one of them, which came to accumulate in 15 days, a gain of 160% in mid-March. Now, after such a strong rally, the price of this crypto has been resting a bit, but the previous strength tells us that it could soon resume the trend. At this writing, KLAY is trading at $2.93, accumulating a 3.15% gain in the last 24 hours. Its market capitalization is $7.181 billion, making it the 17th largest ecosystem.
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