Dock(DOCK)

Possible approval of bitcoin ETFs in 2024 is likely to change perceptions of digital assets following a year when the industry faced a backlash, Beth and Clay Haddock argue.

Reams of dockets from FTX.com have been filed alongside a proposed reorganization plan which could see FTX resurrected as an offshore exchange.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission is under pressure to accept spot Bitcoin ETF applications as deadline looms. They have already accepted BlackRock’s refiled application sparking speculation that approval could be granted. Deadline For Approvals On The Horizon The clock has started ticking for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve or reject BlackRock’s application for a spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund. According to the SEC’s official calendar, BlackRock’s application for a spot Bitcoin ETF will be published in the Federal Register and kickstart a 21-day comment period. The application has been added to the SEC docket as part of the rule change process. The development is a significant milestone for the application being considered by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The world’s largest asset manager had submitted its original application in June. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission knocked back the application, prompting BlackRock to amend it. The updated application included a “surveillance sharing” provision with Coinbase, addressing one of the SEC’s primary concerns with the initial application. More Bitcoin ETFs In The Pipeline BlackRock has over $9.4 trillion in assets under management and is known for obtaining ETF approvals. As a result, the asset manager’s initial application for a spot Bitcoin ETF sparked a rush of applications from other firms looking to do the same. If the ETF is approved, BlackRock customers will be able to invest in Bitcoin without having to hold the token. Instead, these assets can be traded on traditional stock markets. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already approved the first Bitcoin Futures ETF. The Securities and Exchange Commission also has to decide on other applications apart from BlackRock’s for a spot Bitcoin ETF. These include Bitwise’s Bitcoin ETP Trust’s application which was included in the Federal Register on Tuesday. The other applications under consideration are WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust, VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF, Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust. The Securities and Exchange Commission had published documents for public consultation on Bitcoin ETFs last week. However, the review process officially starts when the filings are included in the Federal Register. The initial deadline for approval or rejection is 45 days but can be extended to 240 days. Additionally, there is no guarantee that the SEC would approve any of the applications filed. However, BlackRock’s application has led to considerable optimism surrounding approval. Other applications have already hit the Federal Register, with the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF included in the register on the 15th of May. However, the SEC extended the approval deadline in June. Meanwhile, Valkyrie’s application for a spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund has not yet been listed on the Federal Register. Europe’s Spot Bitcoin ETF While American regulators are still considering approval, Europe has moved ahead, with its highly anticipated and long-delayed spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund set to debut later this year. The ETF was filed by London-based multi-asset investment platform Jacobi Asset Management and was originally set to debut on the Euronext Amsterdam Exchange in July 2022. However, the launch was delayed indefinitely thanks to unfavorable market conditions caused by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and the FTX exchange. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

CryptoDaily™is thrilled to announce the winners of our annual international award for daring Web3 builders and popularizers. Between May 22nd and June 5th, the expert jury reviewed dozens of stars that were shining in the industry throughout the past year, recognizing honorees across 4 categories: Entrepreneurship, Development, Design, and Marketing & PR. Driven by the genuine belief that the community should acknowledge its heroes, we establishedCryptoDaily™ Awards in 2022 to reward the most outstanding talents based on their merits. They all contributed to the Web3 ecosystem in many ways, from significantly improving its infrastructure and user experience to amplifying the Web3 business sector and promoting decentralized applications to the mass population. While the main goal of CryptoDaily™ Awards remained the same, we brought a couple of novelties to the evaluation process. So, before we proceed with disclosing this year’s results, let us first introduce you to the changes made. Panel of Judges To highlight the Web3’s best and brightest minds of 2023, we invited the Fantastic Four team of subject matter judges, each contributing to the long-term trends in their own focus area throughout a year. We have thoughtfully chosen the jury members among 20 candidates for each category, paying special attention to their in-depth knowledge of the industry, multi-faceted activity, and remarkable individual achievements. Some of them have promoted dozens of new millionaire businesses for the Web3 and blockchain era. Others have traversed the severe crypto market turmoil of 2022 with honor, and still others have proved that they were rightly praised by the previousCryptoDaily™ Awards. So let us dive straight into the list without further ado. Entrepreneurship João Fouad, a disruptive entrepreneur specializing in Web3, finance, investments, and the startup ecosystem; an international speaker and entrepreneurial mentor; CEO and founder of Highline Venture Builder. Development Kirill Arutyunov, a professional software engineer and developer with over 10 years of experience in Web3, fintech, and edtech; a seasoned entrepreneur and C-level executive; CTO of Münzen. Design Valery Lebedenko, an internationally acclaimed UX/UI designer for Web3, crypto and blockchainprojects; an expert blogger, columnist, and judge at Web3 hackathons; the 2022 CryptoDaily™ Awards winner. Marketing & PR Mike Ermolaev, a recognized crypto journalist and PR specialist; author of the signature series “Crypto Opinion with Mike Ermolaev” for Benzinga.com; market analyst for Cointelegraph Brazil; founder of Outset PR agency. Honorable Jury’s Member Cal Evans,a Managing Associate of Gresham International - the world’s largest Digital Asset only legal service and law firm; headliner of several large events alongside people such as Gary Vee and Nick Spanos. Renewed Methodology This year, the focus of the award was slightly shifted towards showcasing Web3's famous personalities and rising superstars who stood out with brilliant results and dynamic development. Our jury leveraged their professional outlook to make decisions, following a numerical and quantitative methodology with specific weighting given to: Evidence of leading the development and delivery of cutting-edge Web3 projects; Evidence of engagement with the business to drive Web3 adoption; Evidence of skill set growth and personal accomplishments; Evidence of exceptional leadership and excellence in the field; Evidence of results implemented because of the honoree's work; Demonstrable enthusiasm for and creativity in Web3. All judges had two weeks to carefully evaluate more than 50 most ambitious Web3 innovators in their respective categories. Adhering strongly to the award’s criteria, each jury member finally came up with two winners, presenting them as: Jury’s choice– unrivaled gainers whose individual performance is the most worthy by all criteria; Jury’s runner-up pick– those who were one step away from the Jury’s choice but couldn't outperform the winners. In order to prolong the pleasure, CryptoDaily™ decided not to depart from participation in the assessment of nominees. The judges had final say, but we gave an opportunity to enjoy the celebration to our 4 personal favorites, rewarding them with a very special honorable mention– the prestiges title from CryptoDaily™ editorial board. Winners And now, when all the formalities are met, it’s time to pull back the curtain – we are ready to reveal the official results of the 2023 from CryptoDaily™ editorial board. Entrepreneurship Jury’s choice – Drew Beechler, CEO and founder of Holder Drew Beechlerhas won the Jury’s choice prize due to the launch of Holder, a revolutional CRM and marketing automation platform, in April 2022. The company helps NFT projects and Web3 businesses to align their products with customer needs and engage with their audiences in a more meaningful way. Before starting Holder, Beechler, a career brand and marketing leader with a huge love for decentralized tech, startups, and data-driven marketing, has helped to co-found 30+ B2B SaaS startups in 7 years as the CEO of the High Alpha venture capital firm with over $200 million in AUM. Jury’s runner-up pick – Daniel Rose, CEO and co-founder of Doshi The Jury’s runner-up pick title goes to Daniel Rosewho is a passionate company builder holding leadership roles in strategy and product development, data-driven experimentation, and operations. As the CEO of Doshi, a crypto wallet designed for teenagers, Daniel combines his commercial skills in technology and gamification with a purpose-led mission to establish greater financial confidence for next-gen investors, making learning about Web3 and blockchain easy, engaging, and relevant. Before he started Doshi, Rose was a full-time crypto trader and worked as an innovation consultant for IKEA and King Games. CryptoDaily™ honorable mention – Andrés Soltermann, co-founder of Grizzly.fi We decided to assign our honorable mention to Andrés Soltermann, the long-term crypto enthusiast and the frontman of Grizzly.fi, a sensational startup that aims to create the DeFi 2.0 platform and revolutionize token launches. Soltermann is an early adopter of DeFi, fueled by the desire to make it accessible for everyone. At Grizzly.fi, Andrés is responsible for the innovations and technical developments that brought his project to the list of top hits on Product Hunt. Apart from that, Soltermann contributes to the governance of $DCHF, a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the Swiss Franc and backed by Bitcoin and Ethereum. Development Jury’s choice – Magomed Aliev, chief developer and founder of the Gravixderivatives exchange Magomed Alievwas awarded with the Jury’s choice prize as a Web3 engineer and TVM developer. A graduate of the elite Higher School of Economics specializing in machine learning and data science, Aliev has since become one of the foundational developers of the Venom Bridgeand the Octus Bridge. He made major contributions to all key ecosystem applications in the Venom and Everscale networks, including DEXs, scanners, Venom Stake, portfolio analyzers, and Snipa.finance. Additionally, Magomed developed Locklift, the contract writing framework used to write all Venom applications. Jury’s runner-up pick – Illia Polosukhin, cutting-edge software engineer, co-founder of NEAR Protocol The Jury’s runner-up pick title was given to Illia Polosukhin, the co-founder of NEAR Protocolthat is currently evolving from a L1 blockchain for creating smart contracts to the full-fledged Blockchain Operating System (BOS) for Web3. This revolution is powered by Pagoda, a vertical in the NEAR ecosystem formerly known as Near Inc. With BOS, Polosukhin’s goal is to build an open web world where developers can easily create new experiences, while end users can control their assets, data, content, and power of governance. Illia has also been engaged in sharing his wealth of knowledge as the speaker of numerous Web3 and blockchain conferences. CryptoDaily™honorable mention – Anton Bukov, forward-thinking blockchain developer and engineer, co-founder of 1inch Network The CryptoDaily™ honorable mention goes to Anton Bukovwho elevates the potential of 1inch Network, the platform ensuring the most lucrative, fastest and protected DeFi operations. Due to his efforts, the company recorded a notable growth across its protocols, with the total number of users approaching 2.6 million. For 7 years in blockchain development, Bukov has achieved strong C++ skills, working deep with a network stack of protocols, algorithms, compilers, disassemblers, and profilers. Today Anton is actively exploring DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, P2E, the metaverse, and consensus problem solutions for crypto projects. Design Jury’s choice – Rahul Singh Bhadoriya, a Web3 designer collaborating with multiple trending projects An ex-design project manager at Polygon, Rahul Singh Bhadoriyais this year’s Jury’s choice winner. As a self-taught designer, Rahul also dedicated himself to supporting other self-learning designers by sharing his knowledge at subject matter conferences and showcasing his work on his personal website and social media. Bhadoriya was Polygon’s brand identity and experience designer from May 2022 to February 2023, expanding the attractiveness of the blockchain ecosystem with top-notch UX and UI. Since then, he has been engaged in building several Web3 projects such as Wagmipedia, Notific, Superteam, and Makerdock. Jury’s runner-up pick – Patrick N. Lewis, head of design at Floor Welcome Patrick N. Lewisas the Jury’s runner-up pick honoree. As the lead designer for the ground-breaking Floorapp, his mission is to create a more equitable future for Web3 and make NFTs easy-to-understand. Lewis is also the founding designer of LinksDAO, a Web3-oriented project building the world’s best golf club. Earlier in his career, Patrick acted as the first design hire and second employee at Button where he participated in developing products, design systems, and identity. His portfolio features commerce products for Uber, Amazon, and dozens of the world’s top companies. Crypto Daily’s honorable mention – Rob Svenšek, product designer at Sismo Our next honorable mention is for Rob Svenšek, Web3 product designer from Ljubljana. With his “strategic and pragmatic, yet playful and expressive” approach to design, Svenšek is currently creating functional and aesthetic relevant UX/UI solutions that bring value to Sismo, a breakthrough communication protocol enabling users to aggregate and selectively disclose personal data to applications. Prior to that, Rob was the lead product designer at Niftify, a buzzing no-code NFT store builder for businesses. His works are visually strong, with great emphasis put on usability and character. Marketing & PR Jury’s choice – Serge Baloyan, founder of X10 marketing agency The Jury’s choice fell on Serge Baloyanwho’s standing at the helm of X10 Agency, one of the most reputable and influential crypto and NFT marketing service providers in the industry. He has garnered significant attention over the past year due to catering over 150 projects as a recognized expert in his field. Baloyan's insightful predictions and deep industry knowledge enable him to participate in global conferences as a keynote speaker, popularizing the future of blockchain and demonstrating his commitment to innovation that has already made a lasting impact in the crypto world. Jury’s runner-up pick –Nicola Da Dalto, digital marketing manager at Exclusible Meet Nicola Da Dalto, awarded with the Jury’s runner-up pick title. The Web3 projects Nicola works with have become the latest talk of the town in the NFT and Metaverse sector due to his creative marketing approach. As of today, Da Dalto is responsible for the management and implementation of digital marketing strategies at Exclusible, a one-stop platform and marketing agency that helps both individuals and businesses to successfully navigate the world of digital assets. Nicola is also recognized for his role as CMO and co-founder of Cryptoverse, a Web3 agency that brings brands to the Metaverse. CryptoDaily™ honorable mention – Maria Isabel Félix de Matos, head of marketing on blockchain projects The last but not least honorable mention from CryptoDaily™ goes to Maria Isabel Félix de Matoswho has been the head of community at the WYTLAND gaming & AI studio since December 2022. Thanks to her efforts, the company has built a reputation for being accessible and responsive and has earned the trust and loyalty of its community members. Maria keeps onboarding users to the possibilities of Web3 for the travel industry, while also representing WYTLAND in the metaverse. As a result-driven marketer, she believes in the power of storytelling and defines her biggest value as being empathic. Looking Forward to the 2024 CryptoDaily™ Awards We would like to express a sincere gratitude to our expert judges whose participation has made the 2023 CryptoDaily™ Awards possible. And of course, a heartfelt thank you to all of the talented builders who keep shaping our common future. We believe that each honoree should be incredibly proud of what they’ve accomplished and will continue to demonstrate exciting performance throughout their professional journeys. We can’t wait to celebrate another wave of trailblazers through the next Crypto Daily Awards, from entrepreneurs and developers whose careers in Web3 are resounding success to designers and marketers with outside-the-box thinking. Let’s do it again in 2024 and see who will earn a standing ovation! Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Former senior technology and security executives from venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Riyaz Faizullabhoy and Nassim Eddequiouaq, have reportedly started an institutional-focused cryptocurrency custody firm. The duo, who had held the positions of Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at a16z, have received the firm's blessing and seed backing for the new venture. Before joining a16z, the tandem co-created the crypto custody infrastructure for Facebook's Novi (formerly Calibra) wallet. Calibra, introduced by Facebook in June 2019, was designed as a digital wallet to facilitate transactions using the proposed cryptocurrency Libra. The project faced significant backlash from regulators and policymakers, leading to the withdrawal of support from several founding members of the Libra Association. In December 2020, Facebook rebranded Calibra as Novi and the Libra Association changed its name to Diem Association, signaling a shift in focus. The Diem Association redesigned the project into a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar and other major currencies, aiming to comply with regulatory requirements. Novi, as a digital wallet, supports Diem and other cryptocurrencies, providing users with a secure platform for digital asset transactions. Throughout Novi's development, security has been a top priority, with Nassim and Riyaz playing a significant role in building its crypto custody infrastructure. Previously, a16z Crypto had onboarded Nassim and Riyaz to consult with projects in the a16z Crypto portfolio, helping scale the firm's operations. The pair ventured further into the crypto space at Anchorage, focusing on securing private keys within large distributed infrastructures. Institutional crypto custody is a competitive space, with various technologies available to manage cryptographic keys for hedge funds, asset managers, and banks. Before their involvement with blockchain technologies, the duo met at Docker, where they worked on securing application provenance, authentication systems, and designing the secure OS used in Docker Desktop. Docker is an open-source platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of cloud applications by shaping containerized environments for cloud deployment. Containers are lightweight, portable units that allow developers to package an application along with its dependencies, such as libraries, configuration files, and runtime environment, making sure that an app runs consistently and predictably across different environments, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. With this experience, the two are now shifting their focus to building a new crypto custody firm, leveraging their expertise in blockchain security and engineering. Crypto custody is a crucial component of the blockchain ecosystem, offering secure storage and management of digital assets for institutional investors. With their solid background in crypto custody infrastructure development, Nassim and Riyaz are well-equipped to address the growing need for secure and reliable custody services in the rapidly evolving crypto landscape. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.