Ep. 75. Breaks the laws of the universe

Simon's in the studio with Anthony Macey at our brand new offices in Devonshire Square.

First up, Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled pay SEC cryptocurrency penalties. The US financial regulator said the men failed to disclose payments they received to promote certain cryptocurrency investments.The men neither admitted nor denied the claims, but agreed to pay combined penalties totalling more than $750,000. The SEC said Mr Mayweather received $300,000 to promote three separate offerings, including one by Centra Tech.

Defrauding Investors of $4 Million. AriseBank CEO Jared Rice, Sr. was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday, charged with duping hundreds of investors out of more than $4 million in a cryptocurrency scheme. Mr. Rice was indicted on three counts of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud. He allegedly lied to would-be investors.

Nasdaq Plans to Pursue Bitcoin Futures Despite Plunging Prices, Sources Say. Nasdaq Inc. is moving ahead with a plan to list Bitcoin futures, betting on sustained interest despite the cryptocurrency’s dramatic plunge over the past year. They have been working to satisfy the concerns of the U.S.’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before launching the contracts.

Behind Coinbase's quiet roll-out of OTC crypto trading this month. Coinbase rolled out an over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading desk earlier this month, but until now has been hesitant to openly discuss its ambitions. Tim Plakas, head OTC trades for Coinbase "We wanted to make sure we had all the boxes checked before we went public. We needed to have some of our trusted institutional clients on board and were in a beta mode to make sure that all the pipes were working."

AWS launches a managed blockchain service. It’s a managed blockchain service. It supports Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. AWS promises that the service will scale to thousands of applications and will allow users to run millions of transactions (though the company didn’t say with what kind of latency).

Messari Opens Disclosure Registry for Crypto Projects. The registry, will share a range of typically non-public information, including token design, supply details, any audits of the technology, official communication channels, treasury management and details of team members. Ryan Selkis commented: “What we’re trying to do is make key information about these various crypto assets available to anyone, whether it’s a retail investor, a regulator, an academic or a mutual fund.”

Coinbase Backs Security Token Startup’s $12.7 Million Funding Round. Led by Blockchain Capital, the equity investments were made to help the company bring on “knowledgeable investors” as it prepares for a security token offering. CEO Carlos Domingo explained that the company wants to transition the securities industry, currently estimated at some $7 trillion, to decentralized ledgers as they are more transparent, auditable and can facilitate instantaneous transactions.

Harbor Launches its First Securities Offering With Sale of $20 Million USC (Carolina) Dormitory Facility. The total investment opportunity is valued at $20 Million with each token is going for a cool $21,000. A total of 955 shares/tokens will be up for sale.

We also have a great Tweet of the Week from Marco Santori on the US Department of the Treasury adding two Bitcoin addresses to it's list of sanctioned parties.

All this and so much more on this week's episode of Blockchain Insider. And if you enjoyed our tweet of the week why not send us your best tweets? See if you can get a shout out on the show!

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This week's episode of Blockchain Insider was produced by Laura Watkins and Petrit Berisha. Edited by Alex Woodhouse. Special Guest: Anthony Macey.