3 Indian Crypto Firms Investigated, NYSE Delists Twitter Shares, Ripple’s XRP Holdings are ‘Below 50%’

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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 Legal news

• Three Indian cryptocurrency companies are being investigated by several agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate and the income tax department, following an alert by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) about their alleged role in illicit drug transactions worth ₹28,000 crore, according to The Economic Times. The agencies identified some 200 transactions using digital currencies.
• The US Trustee overseeing the Celsius Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, William Harrington, has objected to the lender’s motion that would see 62 of its 275 employees paid a retention bonus totaling $2.96 million. “It defies logic, not to mention the Bankruptcy Code, that a company where the majority of its functions are no longer providing services, would now propose a multi-million dollar bonus scheme,” he said in an October 27 statement.

Investment news

• The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has delisted Twitter shares after Elon Musk officially acquired it, as it is no longer a public company. NYSE website said that trading in Twitter shares will be frozen on Friday. 
• US-based start-up Ripple’s XRP holdings “are below 50% of the total outstanding supply for the first time,” according to the company’s Q3 2022 report. Across Ripple’s various wallets, they said, the amount of XRP held is now below 50 billion.
• Celo’s ecosystem of companies, including Loam, impactMarket, Circular Impact, Hyperlane, RedStone, Jia, and Tatum, has raised $77.3 million in funding to further global adoption of Web3 by everyday users around the world across various use cases, said the press release.

Regulation news

• The European Commission announced a proposal to offer instant payments across the EU’s 27 states, with the same or lower fee as existing credit transfers. “We would estimate that if we left it to the market, it might take a decade for instant payments to become the norm. And therefore we are nudging this sector in this direction,” European Commissioner for finance Mairead McGuinness said in a press conference on Wednesday. 
• UK media regulator Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes said that metaverse platforms like Meta will be subject to the upcoming Online Safety Bill, as metaverse self-regulation wouldn’t be acceptable under UK law, CNBC reported. “I’m not sure I really see that ‘self-regulatory phase,’ to be honest, existing from a U.K. perspective,” Dawes said. “If you’ve got young people in an environment where there’s user-generated content according to the scope of the bill then that will already be caught by the Online Safety Bill.”

Payments news

• Payments giant Visa filed two trademarks on October 22, suggesting possible plans to manage digital and crypto transactions, crypto wallets, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and digital currency, among others. The trademark filed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was reported by licensed trademark attorney Michael Kondoudis. 

NFT news

• Grease Monkey Games, an Australia-based multi-platform video game studio and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, has announced a partnership and collaboration with Nissan Motor Company. Grease Monkey Games’ Torque Drift 2 Motorsport title will be the first digital experience in which officially licensed Nissan, NISMO, Infiniti, and Datsun NFTs will be available, said the press release. The two companies will release up to 15 unique Nissan models within the next 12 months.