Robinhood To Acquire Bitstamp Exchange For $200 Million

Robinhood Markets has agreed to purchase Bitstamp, the longest-standing cryptocurrency exchange, for approximately $200 million in cash, marking its largest acquisition to date and enhancing its expansion into digital assets. This move positions Robinhood, whose shares rose by 3.4% pre-market, to compete with major players like Binance and Coinbase, and has caught everyone by surprise.

Bitstamp, established in 2011 with 50 global licenses, offers a core spot exchange with over 85 tradable assets, primarily in Europe and Asia, and is expected to bolster Robinhood Crypto's growth. Johann Kerbrat, VP of Robinhood Crypto, emphasized the acquisition's role in accelerating global expansion, particularly in the EU. Despite rapid growth in its crypto business.

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Franklin Templeton Exploring Crypto Altcoins Fund Options

Franklin Templeton is exploring the launch of a new crypto fund for institutional investors that would include altcoins and offer staking rewards, expanding beyond their current Bitcoin and Ether offerings. While the specific altcoins for the fund have not been disclosed, the firm has noted the significant growth of the Solana network in early 2024, which tripled its total value locked to around $5 billion.

Franklin Templeton, managing approximately $1.64 trillion in assets, has an active presence in the crypto space, including a popular Bitcoin ETF and a forthcoming Ether ETF. Additionally, the firm introduced a feature allowing USD Coin (USDC) to fund investments in its blockchain-based money market fund, facilitated by Zero Hash. The money market fund manages $357 million in assets.

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Taiko Layer 2 Blockchain Achieves Permissionless Sequencing

Taiko, an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain has achieved permissionless sequencing and proving, claiming to be the first rollup to do so. This allows anyone to sequence blocks in a decentralized manner, unlike other Ethereum rollups that use centralized sequencers. Based sequencing, created by Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, uses Ethereum mainnet validators and block builders for block ordering.

Participants can run Taiko nodes and provers to earn rewards. Taiko's mainnet launch followed extensive development and testing, including a genesis airdrop distributing 5% of its tokens, with more airdrops planned. Taiko has allocated a considerable portion of its token supply to key stakeholders, with a DAO launch later this year to transfer protocol control to the community.

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New US Law Grants The President Power to Block Crypto

A new law grants the US president extensive powers to block access to digital assets (crypto), raising concerns among commentators on X. Scott Johnsson criticized the law on June 6, highlighting its potential to allow the president to ban any digital protocol or smart contract linked to foreign sanctions violators, pushing users toward KYC-compliant and permissioned blockchain networks.

Senator Mark Warner strategically added legislative elements to enable these powers. The law defines digital assets broadly, including any digital representation of value on cryptographically secured ledgers, and allows the president to block transactions between US persons and foreign entities supporting terrorism, with implications for compelling users toward regulated blockchain environments.

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Data of the day

Using data from DefiLlama we can that decentralized protocols have grown substantially in the last month. In particular, the top 12 pools with over $500 million in total value locked (TVL) have shown an increase ranging from 36% to 188%. LayerBank tops the list and now has a TVL of $582 million.

Additionally, ether.fi now has $6.55 billion TVL after an +63.89% increase, surpassed by Pendle at $6.75 billion after a +50.98% gain. Swell, Ethena, and Spark have now surpassed the $3 billion mark, while Kelp DAO is comfortably sitting above $1 billion after the fresh +42.24% TVL inflow.

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More breaking news

• Chinese users living abroad can now register an account and utilize the services of crypto exchange Bybit, despite no excluded jurisdictions yet.
• Binance will once more allow Mastercard users to buy crypto on the world's largest CEX, after the card giant disabled that feature in August 2023.
• Kraken is reportedly considering raising a final funding round ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO), with an aim to raise $100 million.
• Telegram presented Telegram Stars, a new payment feature that allows users to pay for digital services via in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
• Wormhole launched Stake for Governance, raising W token's price by 4.44% and setting a daily transfer cap of 100 million for safety.

For the latest updates on digital asset markets, follow us on X @Datawalletcom.