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Hey Waivly Crew! 🌊 NBA Top Shot is planning to auction off 30 NFTs later this month, each granting holders access to the next five All-Star Games. The FBI is launching a new crypto unit for blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure.

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NBA announces All-Star VIP Pass NFT auction

In partnership with Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot, the NBA has announced 31 All-Star VIP Pass NFTs, all offering real-world utility and access for basketball fans.

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Starting February 23rd, 30 of these 1/1 NFTs, each representing an NBA team, will be auctioned off on the NBA Top Shot marketplace. The auction winners will be granted access to the next five annual NBA All-Star events, beginning next year in Salt Lake City.

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“Going into this year’s All-Star, we really wanted to do something special for the NBA’s 75th anniversary and partnered closely with the NBA to lean into this exciting and innovative idea,” said Juan de Jesus, VP of NBA Top Shot Partnerships. “We are excited about this launch and to continue building the future of fandom with the NBA.”

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The remaining NFT, representing the NBA logo, will be gifted to one lucky fan through a giveaway. From now until February 21st, fans in the US and Canada can enter the giveaway for free with an existing or new NBA Top Shot account.

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For the 2023 event, pass holders will be given two lower-bowl tickets to the All-Star Game, an exclusive tour of the arena, a shootaround with an unnamed NBA legend, a merchandise bag including an All-Star jersey, and many other physical and virtual benefits.

Castle Island Ventures launches $250M Web3 fund

Crypto and blockchain venture capital firm Castle Island Ventures has raised $250 million for a new fund that will invest in blockchain startups and Web3 projects.

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According to a blog post, the fund, dubbed 'Castle Island Ventures III, will focus on three big areas that have gained the firm's interest: monetary networks, financial services, and internet architecture.

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Castle Island Ventures aims to help create a “more programmable and transparent, less politicized, exclusionary, and intermediated” financial system and will back entrepreneurs building projects that are “restoring the internet to the distributed ambitions.”

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“The new fund will support our mission to partner with visionary entrepreneurs building transformative companies powered by public blockchains,” the firm said. “We believe that public blockchains represent a paradigm shift in the way we interact with money, financial services, and the internet itself.”

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In the past, Castle Island has invested in well-known crypto startups and ventures, including MoonPay, Bitwise, BlockFi, CoinMetrics, Mash, and River Financial.

The Waves

🎉 Ukraine legalizes cryptocurrency

👋 Intel delays its first Arc desktop gaming GPUs until spring

❌ Binance stops all activities ‘focused on Israel'

🦠 Charlie Munger compares crypto to ‘venereal disease’

Crypto Special

FBI forms new digital currency unit

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco has announced that the FBI is forming a new team for blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure.

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While delivering a keynote address at the Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday, Monaco announced the FBI was putting together a “specialized team dedicated to cryptocurrency” named the Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit.

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The unit will consist of crypto experts dedicated to providing analysis, support, and training across the FBI, as well as innovating its cryptocurrency tools to prevent threats in the future.

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Yesterday, the Justice Department (DOJ) also announced that Eun Young Choi was appointed to lead its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), which will work closely with the Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit.

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"Ransomware and digital extortion, like many other crimes fueled by cryptocurrency, only work if the bad guys get paid, which means we have to bust their business model,” said Monaco. “The currency might be virtual, but the message to companies is concrete: if you report to us, we can follow the money and not only help you but hopefully prevent the next victim.”

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This all comes just over a week since the DOJ seized 94K Bitcoin stolen from crypto exchange Bitfinix in 2016 after they discovered unauthorized transactions” that sent the stolen bitcoin to a couple living in Manhatten.

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CoinJar launches first crypto-to-pound debit card in the UK

In partnership with EML payments and Mastercard, CoinJar has launched the UK’s first crypto-to-pound debit card in partnership initially with almost 50 cryptocurrencies available.

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The fully-featured debit card will allow users to make purchases by instantly converting cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether into cash, everywhere Mastercard is accepted.

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”With EML’s technological expertise and Mastercard’s universal acceptance, CoinJar Card gives CoinJar’s customers true day-to-day crypto functionality, whether through smartphones, wearables, digital or eye-catching physical cards,” said Lorraine Buhagiar, UK managing director at Brisbane-based EML.

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CoinJar, which operates in both the U.K. and Australia, was founded back in 2013 with the goal to create products and services that make it easy for customers to access and use cryptocurrencies. Since then, over 50,000 users have signed up to Coinjar, with over $1.5B traded in crypto.

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"CoinJar Card is the next step in our mission to make crypto both accessible and useful, to everyone, every day," Asher Tan, chief executive officer at CoinJar, added.

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Binance.US is dealing with an SEC investigation

Crypto exchange Binance.US is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

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The SEC is investigating the exchange’s relationship with two other firms: Merit Peak Ltd. and Sigma Chain AG, which serve as market makers that buy and sell crypto on Binance continuously. The firms’ continuous buying and selling help to lower the price of volatility.

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The concern that the SEC has on Binance.US’s relationship with the two firms is that the crypto exchange does not specifically disclose the names of affiliated market makers that are trading on their platform, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. 

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The SEC had asked the crypto exchange platform to provide them with more information about Merit Peak Ltd. and Sigma Chain AG. The corporate documents from 2019 that the SEC revealed that the two firms were linked to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. Former Binance executives have reportedly said that Zhao had begun to control both firms last year. To comply with US regulations, Binance had to create a separate branch called Binance.US back in 2019. 

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Binance being investigated is not new. The crypto exchange was being investigated by the IRS and the Department of Justice with the help of officials that specialize in money laundering and tax offenses. In September 2021, the investigations on Binance has expanded to include the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to look into potential insider trading and market manipulation. As of right now, the investigations on Binance are still ongoing.

Own and secure your crypto with Ledger

If you’re into cryptocurrency and own crypto assets, you need a secure place to store your coins and tokens. You probably already know that you shouldn’t store your crypto on an exchange due to potential hacks, not being solely in control of your crypto’s private keys, and for other reasons, and so a hardware wallet is the way to go and the best option to protect your private keys, therefore, you should make the move to a Ledger wallet.

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Ledger wallets are an extremely secure and premium way to secure, manage, and grow your crypto assets with their Bluetooth-enabled hardware wallets, and easy-to-use app which lets you manage your portfolio on the go. They let you manage multiple assets, buy, sell, grow, and exchange crypto, gain financial freedom by you being in full control and ownership of your private keys, and so much more.

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The wallets are really simple to setup, and to move your crypto over to, so there’s no reason not to secure your assets and take control of your cryptocurrency now and get yourself a Ledger device. You can manage 1800+ coins and tokens directly in the Ledger Live app once you’ve got your device up and running, so you’ll always have your entire portfolio covered.

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