2026-02-15
“Ask federal agents, officers or prosecutors whether crypto's traceability really makes their jobs easier, and the answer you're most likely to get is: If only.” Brilliant story from @JessicaVBrice on the grim reality of crypto crime. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
A deep dive into a global money-laundering ecosystem powered by crypto and messaging apps like WeChat and Telegram, used by drug cartels and criminal groups
A vast ecosystem supported by the gig economy has sprung up to clean all that cash. — The pitch was simple: Crypto for “cold hard cash.”LinkedIn:Tamer Yalav,Poppy Alexander,CAT L...
2025-09-28
Bloomberg's Justin Sun profile is a cracking read — and a laugh a minute. “He quoted a Chinese idiom, repeatedly made a confusing analogy about a policeman who bumped into an old lady's hens and compared himself to a comic-book superhero.” Nice job @MuyaoShen / @ZekeFaux.
Bloomberg
A profile of Justin Sun, who was facing an SEC fraud lawsuit before investing $90M in Trump family cryptocurrencies and becoming a business associate of Trump
Justin Sun was facing an SEC fraud case, but $90 million of Trump coins later, he's doing business with the president's family.
2025-09-24
Big scoop w. @_ToddGillespie! Tether is in talks to raise up to $20 billion through a private placement that could value the stablecoin giant at $500 billion. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
Sources: Tether is in talks to raise $15B to $20B in exchange for a ~3% stake through a private placement in a deal that could value the company at ~$500B
Tether Holdings SA, issuer of the world's largest stablecoin, is in talks with investors to raise as much as $20 billion …
2025-05-14
My profile of @Tether_to CIO Richard Heathcote, who runs a private equity operation with investments ranging from farming to social media; a multibillion-dollar lending operation; and a $115 billion portfolio of US Treasury securities backing USDT. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
A profile of Tether Chief Investment Officer Richard Heathcote, who manages a $150B asset portfolio and has helped deepen Tether's ties with Cantor Fitzgerald
the “41-year-old Brit based in the Bahamas who oversees an almost $150 billion portfolio of assets as chief investment officer” via @RyanJamesWeeks https://www.bloomberg.com/...
2025-01-26
So how long till @Meta fires up Libra/Diem again? https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
Trump's EO to protect the dollar bars any further work on a CBDC and aligns the government's interests with those of stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle
Bloomberg :
2025-01-25
So how long till @Meta fires up Libra/Diem again? https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
Trump's EO to protect the dollar bars any further work on a CBDC and aligns the government's interests with those of stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle
Bloomberg :
2024-08-13
A great read The highlight is when one of Pierce's flaks - while trying to claim their client isn't cash-strapped - accidentally directs a complaint about not getting paid to an NYT reporter https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York Times
How Tether co-founder Brock Pierce's plan to use crypto to revitalize Puerto Rico's economy became mired in legal disputes and fights with his business partners
On sun-drenched days in 2022, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce liked to take his friends sailing to the island of Vieques …
2024-06-28
Interview with @Bybit_Official boss Ben Zhou - Zhou puts much of Bybit's recent growth down to a margin trading system that filled a void left by FTX - About a fifth of volumes come from the CIS region, within which Russia is the largest source of business (More in thread)
Bloomberg
A look at Dubai-based Bybit, whose co-founder says it became the world's second largest crypto exchange by trading volume partly by serving former FTX users
Ryan Weeks / Bloomberg :
2024-06-16
Think of all you could have done with that money You could have paid @elonmusk twice
Bloomberg
DefiLlama: crypto startup funding has crossed $100B since 2014; The Block Research: Coinbase Ventures has made 443 investments or ~4% of all deals since 2017
- Investment picked up amid a rebound in the crypto market — Tokens from startups are a potential bright spot for exits X: @crypto and @ryanjamesweeks X: @crypto : Crypto startups...
2024-05-06
TLDR: We dug up examples of backers paying anywhere between less than $50m and hundreds of millions of dollars - in the same round.
Bloomberg
Crypto startups embrace open-ended, rolling funding rounds that quickly lift valuations, as crypto funds seek to deploy unspent cash raised in 2021 and 2022
New from me: Crypto startups are capitalising on bull market vibes through rolling fundraises that keep VC money coming in to oversubscribed rounds at steadily higher valuations https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
Crypto startups embrace open-ended, rolling funding rounds that quickly lift valuations, as crypto funds seek to deploy unspent cash raised in 2021 and 2022
Some VCs say this curtails FOMO investing in that it rewards earlier, higher conviction backers. Another interpretation is that's it's peak FOMO - investors will pay just about any price to get into the hottest rounds.
Bloomberg
Crypto startups embrace open-ended, rolling funding rounds that quickly lift valuations, as crypto funds seek to deploy unspent cash raised in 2021 and 2022
2024-05-05
New from me: Crypto startups are capitalising on bull market vibes through rolling fundraises that keep VC money coming in to oversubscribed rounds at steadily higher valuations https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
Crypto startups embrace open-ended, rolling funding rounds that quickly lift valuations, as crypto funds seek to deploy unspent cash raised in 2021 and 2022
- Startups are embracing so-called open-ended funding rounds — Venture funds are seeking to deploy previously static cash
2023-08-03
Worldcoin suspended in Kenya. An investment deck I obtained previously showed that Kenya's capital city of Nairobi had been a key market for the project, responsible for more than a quarter of a million sign-ups as of December last year.
Reuters
Kenya's interior ministry suspended the local activities of Worldcoin while government agencies assess public safety risks; local media reports 350K+ signed up
- Worldcoin says it has measures safeguarding privacy — Kenyan authorities say will investigate Worldcoin's authenticity
2023-05-26
I don't care *too* much about these things, but it's kind of annoying that folks are covering the announcement and nodding to the FT's scoop from a week ago, rather than ours three months ago, simply because the FT failed to cite The Block. Example below. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg
Tools for Humanity, co-founded by Sam Altman to build Worldcoin, raised a $115M Series C led by Blockchain Capital, aiming to scan everyone's eyes to create IDs
But first, let's address the elephant in the room: biometrics. — 1. Orb scans user's iris to verify humanness … Tweets: Spencer Bogart / @cremedelacrypto : I thought Worldcoin wa...
2022-12-11
Depressing, baffling news. What angers me most is that we are now forced to defend our work - which I've been particularly proud of this year - because of the actions of one person. Bitterly disappointing. https://twitter.com/...
Axios
Sources: Alameda secretly loaned $43M to LLCs tied to The Block CEO Michael McCaffrey, used in part to buy and run the crypto news site; McCaffrey resigns
The Block, a media company that says it covers crypto news independently, has been secretly funded for over a year with money funneled …
2022-12-10
Depressing, baffling news. What angers me most is that we are now forced to defend our work - which I've been particularly proud of this year - because of the actions of one person. Bitterly disappointing. https://twitter.com/...
Axios
Sources: LLCs tied to the CEO of crypto news site The Block secretly received $43M in Alameda loans, used in part to buy and run the site; CEO has now resigned
The Block, a media company that says it covers crypto news independently, has been secretly funded for over a year with money funneled …
2022-07-07
“Rarely has a job application backfired more spectacularly than in the case of one senior engineer at Axie Infinity, whose interest in joining what turned out to be a fictitious company led to one of the crypto sector's biggest hacks.”
The Block
Sources: a senior Axie Infinity engineer was duped by a fake LinkedIn job ad before downloading a PDF containing spyware, leading to the $600M+ Ronin hack
2022-03-16
ConsenSys announces its latest fundraise at a $7bn valuation, confirming my scoop from January. Subscribe to @TheBlock__? https://www.theblockcrypto.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
CoinDesk
ConsenSys, which develops and invests in Ethereum projects, announces a $450M Series D led by ParaFi Capital at a $7B valuation and says MetaMask has 30M+ MAUs
2022-02-23
SCOOP: Luna Foundation Guard has raised $1 billion through a private sale of LUNA tokens to form a bitcoin reserve for UST, the algorithmic stablecoin. The token sale, one of the largest in history, was led by Jump Crypto and Three Arrows Capital. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/ ...
The Block