News

A group of senior builders of The Open Network (TON), Telegram’s blockchain of choice, announced on Wednesday that they have spun off to create TON Ventures, a for-profit fund equipped with $40 million to support the next generation of on-chain Telegram mini apps.  The fund will be led by Ian Wittkopp, the former head of TON’s accelerator program, and Inal Kardan, the TON Foundation’s former head of gaming. It will focus initially on early-stage projects with investments of $500,000 or less, Wit...

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who last month became former president Donald Trump's running mate, has disclosed that he still holds between $101,000 to $250,000 worth of Bitcoin in his 2023 annual financial disclosure. The Bitcoin disclosure, which Vance notes is held in a Coinbase account, isn't new. The Republican senator also reported holding between $101,000 to $250,000 in BTC on his 2022 annual report and his 2021 candidate disclosure when he was running for his Senate seat. There's a wide discre...

A South Korean civil servant has been charged with allegedly embezzling over $400,000 from government funds and using some of it to invest in cryptocurrencies. According to a Yonhap News Agency report, the Cheongju District Prosecutors' Office announced that they had arrested and charged an unnamed grade six civil servant working at Cheongju City Hall. The accused, in their forties, is accused of misappropriating approximately 600 million won (around $438,000) over a seven-year period beginning...

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has sued the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the country’s largest exchange, alleging misleading statements regarding its blockchain-based Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) replacement project. ASIC claims that ASX's announcements on February 10, 2022, stating that the project was "on-track for go-live" in April 2023 and "progressing well," were misleading and deceptive. The regulator argues that these statement...

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has sued the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the country’s largest exchange, alleging misleading statements regarding its blockchain-based Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) replacement project. ASIC claims that ASX's announcements on February 10, 2022, stating that the project was "on-track for go-live" in April 2023 and "progressing well," were misleading and deceptive. The regulator argues that these statement...

Goldman Sachs has disclosed, for the first time, positions in several Bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds. The disclosure came via the bank’s latest 13F filing for the quarter ending June 30, released after markets closed on Tuesday. The financial services giant reported new holdings in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust valued at $238.6 million, representing 6,991,248 shares, per the filing. Goldman’s Bitcoin position reflects a broader trend within the financial industry, where initial skepti...

Deep-Live-Cam, a deepfake tool that turns photos into live video streams, has quickly become the most liked repository for developers to download on GitHub. Built primarily in the Python scripting language, Deep-Live-Cam is easy to download and modify, and the highly accessible nature of the Python language means that it can potentially be implemented into applications that will work on phones and other communications devices.  It is yet another reminder of just how rapidly deepfake technology i...