Coinbase Ventures led a $14.6 million round for Bastion, a startup providing white-label stablecoin issuance with backing from Sony, Samsung, A16z and others. Update (Sept. 24, 5:45 pm UTC): This article has been updated to correct the date of Bastion’s $25 million raise in September 2023. Stablecoin infrastructure startup Bastion has raised $14.6 million in a funding round led by Coinbase Ventures, the company said Wednesday. According to a Wednesday announcement, the round also saw the participation of Japanese tech giant Sony, the investment subsidiary of South Korean phone maker Samsung, the crypto arm of venture capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz and crypto VC firm Hashed. Read more
Bitcoin traders supplied BTC price levels to cause “max pain” around a giant $17.5 billion options expiry, while Bollinger Bands set new records. Key points: Bitcoin price wars between bulls and bears continue as traders line up end-of-month BTC price targets. These include a return to $107,000 or lower before a rebound. Read more
While crypto focuses on US and EU markets, real adoption is happening in Argentina, Nigeria and the Philippines, where digital assets solve survival needs. Opinion by: Maksym Sakharov, group CEO at WeFi The crypto industry has been focused on the same markets: the United States and the European Union. The conversation has mainly concerned regulatory clarity, speculative gains and institutional access, whether Silicon Valley’s venture capital firms or Wall Street’s exchange-traded fund issuers. Unfortunately, this fixation is blinding much of the industry to a more pressing reality, where the future of crypto adoption isn’t in New York, London or Brussels, but rather in Lagos, Buenos Aires and Manila. Read more