On Wednesday, OpenSea, the largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), received a Wells notice from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), indicating the regulator’s intent to potentially initiate legal action, asserting that NFTs traded on the platform may be classified as securities. CEO Devin Finzer Responds To SEC...

OpenSea Faces SEC Wells Notice Over NFT Classification As ‘Securities’

Finzer sees the decision as a major move by the SEC against creators and artists. He believes digital art should not be regulated in the same way collateralised debt obligations are. OpenSea is not the first Web3 organisation to be issued with a Wells notice this year, the same happened...

NFT Marketplace OpenSea Receives Wells Notice from SEC

Crypto platform Abra is the latest to agree to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations of unregistered securities. The settlement focused on its Abra Earn product, which the agency said had amassed as much as $500 million at one point. Abra has agreed to a settlement...

U.S. SEC Settles With Abra Over Unregistered Sales of Securities

A few years ago, I wrote a guide to help people protect themselves, and understand that most of the companies you have an account with already offer you tools to take control of your accounts’ security, even before you contact them for help, which in some cases you still should do.

How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

The crypto market is experiencing notable shifts as altcoins rally, with Cardano trying to reach the $0.40 mark, while Aptos boasts a staggering 326 million daily transactions, driven by a surge in network activity. However, while these developments are noteworthy and these coins try to create a significant impact, BlockDAG is quietly transforming the space with its X1 Miner App, which has over 100,000 active users!

BlockDAG’s X1 Mobile Mining App Gains Over 100,000 Active Users! Insights on Cardano’s Price Prediction & Aptos’ Transactions

Phoenix, AZ

Waymo started offering driverless trips to the Phoenix Airport in November 2022, but it was only to an airport shuttle stop at the 44th Street Sky Station. The company eventually moved to curbside service, which directly competes with driver services like taxis, Uber and Lyft. Robotaxi rides to and from...

Waymo expands its curbside robotaxi service to Phoenix airport

Colorado State

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David Heitz

A bill quietly introduced this spring in the Colorado legislature to decriminalize the possession of drug paraphernalia obtained by harm reductionists has become law. As low-key as the legislation was introduced, the bill was signed into law without fanfare June 6. It garnered little to no media attention.

Colorado legalizes needles, pipes for meth and crack if obtained by harm reduction group

This is a crowded space, filled with a number of startups, including Tanda, Bloom Money, Majority, Welcome Tech, Maza and Pillar. So the fact that Comun was able to raise capital in back-to-back rounds in such a short amount of time is notable. PitchBook estimated its previous valuation, after its last raise, to be $62 million. CEO and co-founder Andres Santos said PitchBook’s valuation was “inaccurate” and that the company’s current valuation “has increased by more than 50%.”

Fast-growing immigrant-focused neobank Comun has secured $21.5M in new funding just months after its last raise

Kissner most recently served as CISO at cloud security startup Lacework. Prior to that, they were Twitter’s CISO until their departure in November 2022, weeks after Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the social media giant, now known as X. Kissner also previously served in senior cybersecurity and privacy positions at Google and Apple.

Ex-Twitter CISO Lea Kissner appointed as LinkedIn security chief

By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses embracing AI and automation for jobs that had previously been considered safe. It also serves as a reminder of the human impact of layoffs and what could be at stake in regards to increased innovation.

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

Georgia State

Daily Coffee Press

According to officials with the Southern District of Georgia, two recently unsealed federal indictments have charged 23 defendants in a series of broad conspiracies involving the use of drones to smuggle methamphetamine, marijuana, and cell phones into state prisons in Georgia.

23 Defendants Charged in Federal Indictments for Drone-Smuggling Drug Operation in Georgia

A widely followed crypto analyst says that Ethereum (ETH) rival Solana (SOL) could be gearing up for a large rally after printing a bullish technical pattern. Analyst Ali Martinez tells his 69,000 followers on the social media platform X that SOL is potentially printing an Adam and Eve pattern. An...

Analyst Says Solana Shaping Up for Big Breakout, Issues Warning on Large-Cap Crypto BNB

Wyoming State

Wyoming is already positioning itself for the next significant evolution in the crypto space: consumer payments, according to a report by Tanaya Macheel for CNBC. The state is planning to launch its own U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, named the Wyoming Stable Token, by the first quarter of 2025. This initiative aims to provide a faster and more cost-effective means of conducting transactions for both individuals and businesses while also generating a new revenue stream for the state, CNBC reported.

State of Wyoming to Launch USD-Backed Stablecoin in 2025 for Faster and Cheaper Consumer Payments

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is still convinced that cryptocurrency payments will eventually gain traction during this decade. "It's funny to look back on how I thought payments was going to be the first killer app for crypto, and it turned out trading was the best business in crypto for the first 10 years," he said in a social media post.

Coinbase CEO Predicts Crypto Payments Will Eventually Take Off

Cheyenne, WY

WyoFile

WHITE MOUNTAIN—“That’s a lot of horses,” lamented Cheyenne resident Robyn Smith from a high-desert ridgeline. It wasn’t her first exasperated exclamation. “Argh, oh crap,” was her immediate reaction to learning a federal judge had given the Bureau of Land Management the OK to proceed with plans to fully remove two wild horse herds from the landscape in southwest Wyoming.

BLM wins two lawsuits, clearing way for elimination of two Wyoming wild horse herds

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. Last week, the fintech world was abuzz with the crazy deal that Bolt had proposed to its shareholders. It was enough to make anyone’s head spin. So I talked to a VC lawyer and two of the potential investors and provided a bunch of context in this piece. The TLDR is that Bolt is trying to push investors to vote in support of a $200 million Series F raise and a $250 “marketing credits” deal. As part of that, founder Ryan Breslow would come back as CEO — and get a $2 million bonus, plus an additional $1 million of back pay, for doing so! We’re all on the edge of our seats to see what happens next.

Just how much cash does Stripe have?

Crisp County, GA

On Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the arrest of 24 individuals following Operation Shyne Down. The GBI and other agencies served a total of 120 warrants on the suspects involved in the investigation, which targeted the criminal street gang G-Shyne Bloods and their involvement in criminal activities in Crisp County, Georgia.

Operation Results in More than 20 Charged with Gang Offenses, RICO, and more

A good example of the latter is nOps. Like countless other vendors, nOps sells software designed to “optimize” the budgets that businesses allocate to cloud products and services. But the firm has managed to expand faster — and bigger — than many of its rivals, perhaps in part because it serves AWS customers exclusively.

nOps lands $30M to optimize AWS customers’ cloud spend

Fruition Production is set to release a documentary in November that examines XRP’s significant role and development within the financial sector. The documentary will feature insights from Ripple’s CTO and will be available on Amazon and Apple TV, choosing independent distribution over traditional media channels. The world of...

Unlocking XRP: Fruition Production’s Documentary to Explore Ripple’s Cryptocurrency This November

The leadership restructuring, which hasn’t been reported previously, comes after the venture-backed Fluid Truck lost tens of millions of dollars as of June 31, leaving vendors and fleet owners unpaid, according to documents that TechCrunch has viewed and sources with direct knowledge. It’s a hole that several rounds of...

Fluid Truck’s board ousted its sibling co-founders amid allegations of mismanaging funds

NewsBreak

SEC takes aim at NFT marketplace OpenSea

In a tweet, CEO Devin Finzer says the SEC is claiming NFTs on OpenSea’s platform are unregistered securities. He later notes that cryptocurrency companies have “long...

SEC takes aim at NFT marketplace OpenSea

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