Established by billionaire British hedge fund manager Alan Howard, the institutional crypto trading platform Elwood Technologies has raised $70 million in a Series A fundraising round led by Goldman Sachs and Barclays. The Financial Times reported on May 15 that crypto-friendly German bank Commerzbank, crypto investment management Galaxy Digital, and Dawn Capital had joined the round. According to the article, the company was valued at roughly $500 million during the fundraising round. Goldman Sachs and Barclays invest in UK crypto trading platform Elwood https://t.co/9DmeAgJb5h — Gaming Galah (@GalahGaming) May 16, 2022 Despite the recent decline in cryptocurrency markets, Elwood believes traditional financial institutions such as hedge funds and banks will continue to be interested in investing in cryptocurrencies. Elwood’s investment round was already set in motion before the recent decrease in pricing, which has seen the whole crypto market valuation drop by about 15% since May 9, according to CoinMarketCap. Elwood Technologies CEO James Stickland described the fundraising as “another evidence of crypto’s endurance,” dismissing recent price declines: “We’re getting investments from financial institutions that aren’t expecting to get massive returns in 15 minutes. They’re investing in the infrastructure; I think it’s a reassurance message.” Elwood Technologies offers institutional investors a crypto portfolio management solution that includes crypto market data and trading infrastructure and an interface that interfaces to crypto exchanges, liquidity providers, and custodians. Goldman Sachs’ investment signifies the bank’s further foray into digital assets. In early May, the investment bank was the first to provide cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase a loan secured by Bitcoin (BTC). It has long been interested in the area and in March, referred to digital assets and the Metaverse as “megatrends.”

Her Majesty’s Treasury, the UK Treasury Department is moving forward with plans to regulate stablecoin payments based on financial regulation outlined in the Queen’s speech on May 10, 2022. UK Treasury Ready to Regulate Stablecoins According to a report from the Telegraph, the UK government made a statement on Friday and that it stands ready to initiate further action on stablecoin regulation despite the recent crypto crash. However, their plan to regulate doesn’t include algorithmic stablecoins since they do not provide stability and will only consider stablecoins pegged to a fiat currency. “The Government has been clear that certain stablecoins are not suitable for payment purposes as they share characteristics with unbacked crypto assets. We will continue to monitor the wider crypto asset market and stand ready to take further regulatory action if required,” said a spokesperson from the Exchequer. “This will create the conditions for issuers and service providers to operate and grow in the UK, whilst ensuring financial stability and high regulatory standards so that these new technologies can be used reliably and safely,” the spokesperson added. US Regulator Too Called for Regulation Within its framework of electronic payments regulation, stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether become subject to supervision by the UK’s market regulator. US lawmakers also called for the urgent regulation of stablecoins last week following the fall of Terra. However, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen believes that stablecoins are currently not a real threat to the country’s financial stability.

The CEO of a validator runner in South Korea believes the old Terra chain should be shut down indefinitely until the dust settles following the Terra ecosystem disaster and the community chooses the next steps. Jiyun Kim, CEO of DSRV, a blockchain solutions company, published an opinion piece on his account, explaining how the Terra team danced around the possibility of ceasing block production when LUNA values plummeted and the Terra USD (UST) stablecoin was depegged. Major validator calls for ‘completely new chain’ to replace Terra https://t.co/YLlTujYaaQ #bizassetinsights #bacdaily #tokenization #NFT #STO — OPK Digital Asset. Trade Now! (@AssetOpk) May 16, 2022 He is now urging Terra ecosystem validators to reject a hard fork in favor of a completely new community-driven blockchain. DSRV hosts a validator node on Terra with 9.36 percent on-chain voting power. Because its node had received 14 billion LUNA worth roughly $1 million in LUNA by May 8, now worth about $3 million, DSRV has suffered as much as any other investment. According to Kim, the Terra Validator League, which was dubbed the “Terra Rebirth League,” did not decide to suspend the chain on May 12 lightly. However, he said that the Terra team failed to issue the required notification, which used the word ‘Affirm’ to confirm with all validators that the chain should be halted. He wrote, “And the announcement that they made [made it sound like] the chain restart was originally the validator’s opinion. YES, they didn’t use the term “Confirm”.” Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, promised to replenish the chain and reset the token supply to 1 billion LUNA on May 13. “The previous Terra chain should permanently vanish. And a completely new chain driven by the community should [be made to] save the Lunatics.” On May 16, Kim stated that he wishes to “rescue the community” but that no major coordinator is in charge of victim support activities “since there are still legal difficulties.” Panic ensued after a sell-off of UST tokens on May 8, causing the price of LUNA to plummet from $73 to $0.000000999967 on May 13, according to CoinGecko. UST is still disastrously depegged from the dollar, trading at $0.16, while LUNA is practically worthless, trading at $0.00026619.