Walt Disney, Fox Corporation, and JP Morgan are among a list of 20 publicly traded United States companies with some level of exposure to crypto and digital assets, based on data by Bank of America, or BofA. According to a BofA report published on Monday, companies like Morgan Stanley, Signature Bank and Warner Music Group also have some exposure to digital assets. In all, the 20 firms identified by BofA have their stocks rated as either “Buy” or “Neutral” by America’s second-largest bank by assets under management.

New Zealand-based crypto exchange Easy Crypto has raised $11.75 million (NZD $17 million) in Series A funding, as the firm eyes a potential initial public offering (IPO) in the future. The round was led by venture capital fund Nuance Connected Capital. According to an Oct.6 announcement from Easy Crypto, the NZD 17 million figure “seemed to have set a new record in New Zealand” for the largest Series A funding from a local firm. The funding round marks a significant milestone for the firm. Co-founder and CEO Janine Grainger ha expressed how difficult it had been to garner investment in the early stages the company due to working in the “fringe” crypto sector.

Pat Toomey, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, is attempting to pressure the nominee to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) into handing over her 1989 university honors thesis about Karl Marx. The Biden administration formally nominated Kazakh-born attorney Saule Omarova — who has been characterized by critics as both anti-bank and anti-crypto — to head the financial regulator on Sept. 29. In vague echoes of McCarthyism, Toomey believes the thesis may show that Omarova has sympathies toward Marxist views. While Omarova has lived in the US since 1991 and previously served as an advisor to George W. Bush, she previously attended Moscow State University during 1988 and 1989 on The Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship.

Dapper Labs, the $7.5 billion team responsible for NBA Top Shot and Flow Blockchain, acquired virtual influencer start-up Brud this week. In the Monday announcement, CEO Trevor McFedries announced a new initiative titled Dapper Collective, which will aim to support communities in building decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, through the Flow blockchain. Brud is infamous for its creation of social media avatars, most notably Lil Miquela, a fictional 19-year-old Robot living in Los Angeles with three million Instagram followers. The avatar influencer has intrigued social viewers with her fashion and beauty sponsorships, dramatized lifestyle with family and friends, and release of a nonfungible token (NFT) image series.

A surge in Bitcoin prices today may be in response to increased speculation that an exchange-traded product could finally be approved in the coming weeks. BTC prices are up 7% over the past 24 hours and have surged a whopping 32% over the past week according to CoinGecko. This bullish price action for BTC only, may be a form of front-running by big bag holders in anticipation of a futures ETF approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. On Oct. 7, Bloomberg senior analyst Eric Balchunas responded to an exclamation from founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital, Anthony Pompliano, stating “things are going to get insane” if an ETF is approved in Q4. Balchunas reaffirmed he was 75% certain approval was imminent.

An official from the Office of the Attorney General has said the United States government is going to take a more active role in enforcement action against actors using cryptocurrencies for money laundering and other cybercrimes. Speaking at the Aspen Institute Cyber Summit on Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Justice Department had launched the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, an initiative aimed at going after platforms “that help criminals launder or hide their criminal proceeds.” Monaco cited her office’s work against Darknet-based Bitcoin (BTC) mixing service Helix in August but said the U.S. government should be doing more. “We want to strengthen our capacity to dismantle the financial ecosystem that enables these criminal actors to flourish and — quite frankly — to profit from what they’re doing,” said Monaco. “We’re going to do that by drawing on our cyber experts and cyber prosecutors and money-laundering experts.”

U.S.-based publicly listed mining firm Riot Blockchain has revealed that its year-to-date Bitcoin production has more than tripled compared to 2020. According to a Oct. 6 announcement, Riot has mined 2,457 BTC (roughly $135 million) during 2021 so far — a 246% increase compared to the same period of the previous year. Production for September has more than quadrupled year-over-year, with Riot mining generating 406 Bitcoin last month compared to 91 BTC for September 2020. As of Sept. 30, 2021, Riot was in possession of 3,534 Bitcoin ($194.4 million). The firm says that it mined every Bitcoin it owns.

MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen has published an essay outlining measures that could be taken to make the protocol a vehicle for addressing climate change. In a lengthy Oct. 5 post published to the MakerDAO governance forum, Christensen asserts that MakerDAO should strive to ensure that all of its collateral comprises “sustainable and climate-aligned assets that consider the long-term impacts of financial activity on the environment.” Christensen asserts that the protocol’s collateral should be invested into sustainable real-world assets (RWAs) through senior credit positions in projects that build “solar farms, wind turbines, batteries, recharging stations and other cost-efficient renewable energy solutions, as well as their supply chains, sustainable resource extraction and recycling.” He further stated:

Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, has delayed signing a bill that would establish the nation’s regulatory framework around digital assets. The draft law, entitled “On virtual assets,” secured parliamentary approval on Sept. 8. However, according to an Oct. 5 statement issued by the presidential office, Zelensky remitted the legislation back to the parliament alongside a number of proposed improvements. As per the statement, the president’s major objection to the legislation in its current shape is the costliness of establishing a new regulatory body for digital asset oversight: In lieu of creating a separate executive agency focused on digital assets, Zelensky proposes to place them under the purview of the existing National Commission on Securities and Stock Market, a watchdog agency that is, according to its charter, “subordinated to the President of Ukraine and accountable to the Verkhovna Rada,” the nation’s parliament.

Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin issuer by market capitalization, has refuted the details of a Bloomberg story on its reserves holdings. In a Thursday report, Bloomberg journalist Zeke Faux made numerous claims against Tether, including that its chief financial officer Giancarlo Devasini has used the company’s reserves to make investments, that seem to contradict Tether’s public position that the holdings were fully backed at all times. In addition, Faux alleges that Tether has invested in Chinese firms and issued crypto-backed loans “worth billions of dollars.” According to the report, he was only able to confirm one bank in the Bahamas was working directly with Tether. “Tether still hasn’t disclosed where it’s keeping its money,” said Faux. “If Devasini is taking enough risk to earn even a 1% return on Tether’s entire reserves, that would give him and his partners a $690 million annual profit. But if those loans fail, even a small percentage of them, one Tether would become worth less than $1.”

Smart contract automation network Gelato has become the latest to receive big backing from crypto venture capital giants. Gelato has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by Dragonfly Capital and with participation from ParaFi Capital, Nascent, IDEO CoLab Ventures, and Aave founder Stani Kulechov. The funds were raised through a closed-door token sale and will go toward onboarding more blockchains to the network and increasing its staff from the current team of 15.

Under pressure from regulators around the world, major exchange Binance is looking to establish a headquarters in Ireland. Until now it has operated globally for years under what its chief executive, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has described as a “decentralized” structure. An Oct. 6 report from Irish media outlet Independant noted that Binance had established three subsidiaries in the country on Sept. 27 — Binance (APAC) Holdings, Binance (Services) Holdings, and Binance Technologies — with CZ listed as the director for each. In an interview with Reuters published the next day, CZ stated that Binance is currently “in the process of establishing a few headquarters in different parts of the world.” When asked if Ireland was part of Binance’s plans for formal headquarters, CZ responded: “Yes, it does.”

Creditors from the now-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox have until Friday Japan time to vote on a rehabilitation plan that could pay back millions in lost Bitcoin (BTC). Figures including Blockstream founder Adam Back and former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès took to social media this week to remind crypto users of the looming deadline. Claimants representing more than half of the lost value of the Mt. Gox collapse as well as half of all creditors must vote for the proposed rehabilitation plan by Friday for all to receive compensation. The court will mark any missing votes as a “no” according to Adam Back:

Compound Finance announced the passing of Proposal 064 on Thursday, titled the "Fix COMP Accrual Bug." The proposal states that this update will attempt to “patch the bug introduced in Proposal 62 and pessimistically allow COMP reward withdrawals until the bad COMP accruals can be fixed.” The proposal, which was written primarily by the same community members who proposed the original upgrade, received unanimous COMP votes of 1,037,107 for and 0 against from 27 key addresses including CEO Robert Leshner, Andreessen Horowitz’s A16z, Gauntlet and Pantera Capital. The proposal is now expected to execute on Saturday. Users who interacted with the six affected markets — cTUSD, cMKR, cSUSHI, cYFI, cAAVE, and cSAI — will not be able to claim rewards from their entitled staked COMP tokens until after the issue is fully resolved.

Allocating funds to crypto investment positions has been shown to have a positive impact on the performance of diversified investment portfolios. According to a research study by crypto asset management outfits Iconic Funds and Cryptology Asset Group, the ability of crypto investments to positively impact the performance of investment portfolios cuts across several asset allocation models. Crypto’s ability to improve the profitability of diversified investment portfolios comes despite its volatility, especially the recent market crash that occurred in May.

Stader Labs, a cryptocurrency staking management platform, announced on Thursday a $4 million financing round to accelerate development across multiple blockchains — including Ethereum, Near and Polkadot — as well as broadening its marketing campaigns. The funding raise was conducted by Pantera Capital, with participation from a prominent number of venture capital funds, blockchain foundations and angel investors, including Coinbase Ventures, True Ventures, Hypersphere, TerraForm Labs and the Solana Foundation. Stader Labs aggregates decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications into a simplified staking solution for delegators in a bid to maximize their returns. The current offering includes staking, liquid staking, derivatives and gaming as well as high-yield strategies.

Public.com, a neo-brokerage outfit based in New York has announced the launch of crypto trading services for its customers. In a statement issued on Thursday, Public revealed that users will be able to trade and store cryptocurrencies on the same app they use to manage their stock portfolios. According to the announcement, the new crypto trading feature will be made available to users gradually over the next few weeks.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has approved the Volt Crypto Industry Revolution and Tech ETF, providing investors with easy access to companies with significant exposure to Bitcoin (BTC). The exchange-traded fund, which was approved on Tuesday, is intended to track so-called “Bitcoin Industry Revolution Companies,” which are defined as entities that hold a majority of their net assets in BTC or derive a majority of their earnings from Bitcoin mining, lending or transacting, according to an SEC filing. Eighty percent of the fund's holdings will be allocated to such companies, the prospectus states. The new ETF will appear as a New York Stock Exchange Arca listing under the ticker symbol BTCR. U.S. securities regulators have been deliberating for years whether to approve their first Bitcoin ETF. Last Friday, the SEC announced it would delay its decision on four Bitcoin ETFs by 45 days, pushing back the timelines on the Global X Bitcoin Trust, Valkyrie XBTO Bitcoin Futures Fund, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust and Kryptoin Bitcoin ETF to Nov. 21, Dec. 8, Dec. 11 and Dec. 24, respectively.