Crypto
Cryptocurrency coverage and news on major investments, tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as blockchain and web3 startups that aim to build a more decentralized, community-owned future.
Crypto platforms will need to report transactions to the Internal Revenue Service, starting in 2026. However, decentralized platforms that don’t hold assets themselves will be exempt. Those are the main…
Kenya closes its probe of Worldcoin, opening the door to a relaunch of its orbs after a year-long suspension
Worldcoin — the crypto “proof of personhood” startup co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman — has been given the green light to resume iris-scanning and other operations in Kenya after a…
How Urvashi Barooah broke into venture after everyone told her she couldn’t
When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist. She got rejected from every school, and was told…
Stock-trading app Robinhood is diving deeper into the cryptocurrency realm with the acquisition of crypto exchange Bitstamp.
The next few weeks could be pivotal for Worldcoin, the controversial eyeball-scanning crypto venture co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, whose operations remain almost entirely shuttered in the European Union following…
President Joe Biden has vetoed H.J.Res. 109, a congressional resolution that would have overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s current approach to banks and crypto. Specifically, the resolution targeted the…
Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin confirmed on Friday that it had been the victim of a hack resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin, or about $305 million. According to…
TechCrunch Minute: Is meme tech the next big startup category?
Meme Depot, which launched earlier this week, is a startup aiming to create a new category called “meme tech.” More specifically, founder Alex Taub said…
Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet…
Deal Dive: Can blockchain make weather forecasts better? WeatherXM thinks so
Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right…
Farcaster, a crypto-based social network, raised $150M with just 80K daily users
Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol founded by two Coinbase alumni, announced on Tuesday that it closed a $150 million fundraise. Led by Paradigm, the platform also raised money from a16z…
Meta, Match, Coinbase and others team up to fight online fraud and crypto scams
The new coalition, Tech Against Scams, will work together to find ways to fight back against the tools used by scammers and to better educate the public against financial scams.
$450M for Noname, two billion-dollar rounds, and good news for crypto startups
Good news, crypto founders! Venture capital activity is picking up in the sector, recovering from the multiyear lows investments fell to in late 2023. Put…
Bankruptcy lawyers representing customers impacted by the dramatic crash of cryptocurrency exchange FTX 17 months ago say that the vast majority of victims will receive their money back — plus interest. The…
Crypto? AI? Internet co-creator Robert Kahn already did it … decades ago
Robert Kahn has been a consistent presence on the Internet since its creation — obviously, since he was its co-creator. But like many tech pioneers his resumé is longer than…
With U.S. regulators continuing to ramp up their scrutiny of crypto, startups and founders in the space are looking overseas to find friendlier climates to support their growth. One such…
Alliance DAO is attracting fewer US founders amid crypto crackdown
The graduates of Alliance DAO are often useful indicators of investor appetite and user adaption trends within the crypto space. The latest batch of the stage-agnostic crypto accelerator, unveiled today,…
TechCrunch Minute: Where CZ’s sentencing leaves the state of crypto
Four months behind bars and a massive fine, that’s what CZ is getting from the government for his crypto exchange’s misdeeds. Regardless of how you view the verdict — too…
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Haun Ventures is riding the bitcoin high
Haun Ventures has made 48 investments, including some of its token positions, across its early-stage $500 million and $1 billion later-stage acceleration funds.
Changpeng Zhao, also known as “CZ,” the founder and CEO of crypto exchange Binance, has been sentenced to four months in prison. Six days ago, the US Department of Justice…
After 6-year hiatus, Stripe to start taking crypto payments, starting with USDC stablecoin
The company announced that it would start to let customers accept cryptocurrency payments, starting with USDC stablecoins, initially only on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon
Carv, a data layer platform that lets web3 gaming and AI companies, as well as gamers, control and monetize their data, has raised a $10 million Series A round led…
Block lets Square merchants convert a part of their daily sales to bitcoin
Block, the company behind Square, Cash App and other services, announced a new program today allowing merchants using Square’s solutions to convert a percentage of their daily sales to bitcoin.…
Shakeeb Ahmed, a cybersecurity engineer convicted of stealing around $12 million in crypto, was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison. In a press release, the U.S. Attorney for…
Kiki World, a beauty brand that uses web3 for customer co-creation and ownership, raises $7M from a16z
If you think that choosing a nail polish color or which ingredients go into your face cream can’t have anything to do with blockchain, think again. Kiki World, a beauty…
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Nine crypto VCs on why Q1 investments were so hot and how it compares to previous bull market
If the 2023 crypto venture landscape was an ice-cold pot of water, the first quarter of 2024 is the part where the bubbles start to form right before water boils, Tom Schmidt, a partner at Dragonfly Capital, said to TechCrunch. And he’s not wrong: $2.52 billion in total capital has…
The AI world needs more data transparency and web3 startup Space and Time says it can help
As AI proliferates and things on the internet are easier to manipulate, there’s a need more than ever to make sure data and brands are…
TechCrunch Minute: Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing marks an end to the FTX saga
After a lengthy trial and conviction, we finally learned how long former crypto baron Sam Bankman-Fried will be behind bars: up to 25 years. It’s a lengthy sentence, but one…
SBF’s prison sentence marks the end of the crypto grift era — so what’s next?
Nearly everything else that’s being built on or enabled by blockchains replaces something that’s already being done fairly well.
Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison for fraud and money laundering at FTX, ordered to pay $11B in forfeiture
Before sentencing, Bankman-Fried acknowledged in court that he made a “series of bad decisions,” but argued they were not “selfish” ones.
