| Bitcoin | $36,255 | 7 day: +13.4% | | Ethereum | $1,232 | 7 day: +25.3% | | All crypto | $1.02T | 7 day: +11% | | Bitcoin dominance | 66.2% | 7 day: -2.5% | Prices as of 5 p.m. EST
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A Delaware Chancery Court judge temporarily halted Ripple (XRP) transactions by Ripple Inc. as requested by Tetragon, a former investor and plaintiff against Ripple. - On Jan. 15, Vice-Chancellor Morgan Zurn of Delaware's Chancery Court agreed with a complaint filed by a former Ripple investor, Tetragon Financial Group Ltd, issuing a temporary restraining order against Ripple Inc.
- The order requires the blockchain company, which holds 6% of the world's circulating XRP, to maintain a "net-zero" position between sales and purchases of XRP to protect Tetragon's claims.
- Tetragon was a lead investor in Ripple's $200M Series C funding round alongside Japan's SBI Holdings (8473.T), Route 66 Ventures, and others.
- The privately-funded blockchain company reportedly refused many opportunities to act on Tetragon's redemption right, according to the private banking company's lawsuit and complaint filed on Jan. 7.
- Similar to the SEC's complaint, Tetragon alleges that the XRP token sale occurred in an "information vacuum" whereby investors received selective and misleading details from Ripple's executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.
- The SEC says that Garlinghouse and Larsen enriched themselves with $600M personally by selling unregistered securities.
Law360 
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The OCC conditionally approved Anchorage digital bank's conversion into a federally chartered digital bank. - The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said that it granted conditional approval to Anchorage to become a crypto custody provider through a national trust bank charter, making it among the first federally-chartered digital asset banks.
- In a statement published on Jan. 13, the federal charter allows Anchorage to offer custody in some states via its trust company chartered in South Dakota, called Anchorage Trust Co.
- According to Georgia Quinn, Anchorage's general counsel, the "relatively traditional" digital bank will not engage in lending or deposit-taking. It will provide digital asset custody only to institutional investors and other banks.
Law360
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Investors have accused Status Research (SNT) co-founders of conducting an unlawful offer and sale of unregistered securities. Plaintiffs suing the Switzerland-headquartered company pleaded a New York federal judge that U.S. securities laws apply to their proposed class-action lawsuit. The complaint: - Former investor Joel Deutsch alleges that co-founders Carl Bennetts and Jarrad Hope of Status Research & Development sold unregistered SNT tokens in 2017 as part of Status' initial coin offering (ICO) "as part of an industry-wide failure to follow federal and state laws."
- Status' legal counsel filed a motion to dismiss the suit in December 2020, suggesting that Deutsch has no standing for claiming harm since his shares doubled after his purchase.
- Status Research also stated in its motion that Deutsch bought his SNT tokens on a foreign exchange platform that exists outside U.S. jurisdiction.
- A modified motion filed Jan. 14 cites that the blockchain company pays multiple employees residing in the U.S.
- SNT is still listed on many crypto exchanges and had a $219M market cap as of the time of publication.
Law360
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Former customers of BitMEX have filed an opposition to the dismissal of the racketeering suit against the exchange, co-founders, and parent companies. Plaintiffs echo many of the complaints of the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission, accusing its founders of "myriad" illegal activities. More: - BMA LLC, Yaroslav Kolchin, Vitaly Dubinin, Dmitry Dolgov, and Păun Gabriel-Razvan, who filed a lengthy suit against BitMEX's co-founders, have opposed defendants' filings for dismissal.
- Plaintiff's counsel, Pavel Pogodin, reportedly provided U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick "a mountain" of evidence and 50 facts to prove its allegations against BitMEX.
- The previously submitted complaint alleges that BitMEX's purpose was to promote, aid, and facilitate illicit activities, including wire fraud and money laundering.
Law360
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Kik (KIN) developers have been migrating to the Solana (SOL) blockchain. - Kik lost its $100M lawsuit against the SEC.
- In a blog dated Dec. 13, 2020, Kik's remaining developers announced that the KIN ecosystem's 50M accounts began migrating to Solana on Dec. 15, 2020, leaving Ethereum.
- KIN originally launched as an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token.
- KIN underwent a mainnet update on Dec. 14, 2020.
- KIN also admitted in its latest blog post that the Solana blockchain suffered unexpected downtime on Dec. 11, delaying final simulation tests related to the migration. Developers decided to proceed with the migration to Solana anyway.
- A federal judge ordered Kik Interactive to pay a civil penalty worth $5M to the SEC for violating securities laws.
Decrypt
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- Michael Sonnenshein, the new CEO of Barry Silbert's Grayscale, reported its largest single asset raise within one day: raising $700M on Jan. 15.
- Rain Financial raised a $6M Series A led by U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase with participation by Middle East Venture Partners.
- MetLife Investment Management published a macro strategy primer featuring blockchain-based assets on Jan. 8, indicating that central bank digital currencies are "a logical progression of money."
- Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) submitted a request for information regarding the prospects of digital asset custody in the near future, according to Coindesk sources.
- Canada based digital asset manager 3iQ listed its bitcoin fund (QBTC.U) on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which reached USD$580M in total Net Asset Value (NAV) as of Jan. 15.
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 |  | Curated by Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, and bitcoin follower since $1, Aaron Wise. Temporarily listening to news squawk boxes in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Charlotte Hayes-Clemens is an editor and writer based in Vancouver. She has dabbled in both the fiction and non-fiction world, having worked at HarperCollins Publishers and more recently as a writing coach for new and self-published authors. Proper semi-colon usage is her hill to die on. | |
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