USD 230M Avalanche, Binance Centralization, Influential Vitalik + More News

e/”>AVAX tokens, according to Bloomberg. Other participants in the token sale included R/Crypto Fund, Dragonfly, CMS Holdings, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital, and a group of angel investors and family offices, the report added.The Swiss crypto exchange-traded product (ETP) issuer 21Shares has chosen the crypto asset index provider Vinter to provide DeFi-focused indices for both its new and existing range of crypto ETPs, according to an emailed press release. “21Shares and Vinter are planning to offer a full suite of indices for the ETP market, more details of which will be available soon,” they said.Anthony Scaramucci’s investment fund SkyBridge Capital has filed for a crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) dubbed the First Trust SkyBridge Crypto Industry and Digital Economy ETF, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The new filing follows a filing from May for a bitcoin ETF from the same firm.Floating Point Group, a crypto trading software firm, said it has raised USD 10m in a Series A funding round with participation from Tribe Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Anthony Scaramucci, F A S T by Gettlylab, Borderless Capital, CapitalX, Formulate Ventures, and executives from GoldenTree Asset Management, HC Tech, Pythagorus Investments. The company said it plans to use the funds to grow its US software engineering staff to meet “surging investor demand.”Asset management firm Franklin Templeton seeks to raise USD 20m for what is believed to be the company’s first blockchain-focused venture capital fund, details from a recent SEC filing shows. Meanwhile, the firm also appears to be hiring engineers for a “Tokenized Asset Development Department.” Franklin Templeton is a major US-based asset manager with USD 1.5trn in assets under management.Exchanges newsBinance will abandon its concept of having a “decentralized headquarters,” according to a video interview CEO Changpeng Zhao did with the South China Morning Post. In the interview, Zhao said that “we have come to realize that for the regulators, we need to be centralized.”Coinbase has applied to become a member of the industry self-regulatory organization the National Futures Association (NFA) and register as a futures commission merchant (FCM), according to a tweet from the exchange. “This is the next step to broaden our offerings and offer futures and derivatives trading on our platforms,” Coinbase said.Community newsEthereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made it to Time Magazine’s list of the “Most Influential” people of the year 2021. “What makes Vitalik so special, though, is that he is a builder’s builder,” Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian wrote about Buterin for Time.Gaming newsStablecoin marketplace protocol HaloDAO has said it is teaming up with blockchain gaming platform Yield Guild Games (YGG) to support simpler cashouts for the YGG community in local regions with its updated V1 stablecoin optimized AMM (automatic market maker) on Ethereum and Polygon (MATIC). Singapore, the Philippines, and “other high growth regions” will be the main focus going forward, a press release from HaloDAO said.The global esports brand Fnatic has entered into a partnership with Crypto.com, an announcement from Crypto.com said. The 5-year partnership is worth more than USD 15m, and will open up cryptocurrency payment options for Fnatic users, as well as see the launch of digital products such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the announcement said.Career newsSatoshiLabs Group, the holding company behind the Trezor hardware wallet, said it expanded its top management team with the internal hire of Chief Product Officer Matěj Žák – formerly the company’s Head of Product. This role partially takes over from Marek “Slush” Palatinus, the current CEO and co-founder of the company, they added.Legal news24-year-old Australian national Stefan He Qin has been sentenced to seven years in prison in the United States for draining a “cryptocurrency fund” he operated for clients’ money and spending it on personal luxuries and unauthorized investments, an announcement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said. In February of 2018, Qin appeared on CNBC where he elaborated on his fund’s strategies.