Daily Digest - 6 April 2023

Headlines

▌Informed sources: Binance has refused to buy Huobi shares held by Justin Sun

Binance has turned down Tron founder Justin Sun’s ownership stake in rival exchange Huobi, according to a person familiar with the matter.

According to the source, Binance rejected the deal because of rumours that Huobi has ties to mainland China.

Policies

▌ECB official: Large encryption companies need stricter rules and more international regulatory cooperation

European Central Bank (ECB) supervisory board member Elizabeth McCaul said in a blog post on Wednesday that major global cryptocurrency companies like FTX and Binance need stricter rules and more international regulatory cooperation.

McCaul, who is part of the ECB unit that oversees banks, said recent regulatory attempts, such as the EU’s Market Regulation for Cryptocurrency Assets (MiCA), do not fully address the problem of complex international structures or “ecosystem” companies that claim to have no headquarters. Cryptocurrency companies need to take on more legal responsibilities. No jurisdiction should allow entities to conduct business without disclosing their legal status and who is responsible for doing business, and even companies that claim to have no headquarters, such as Binance, need to be regulated.

Blockchain application

▌Pfizer-backed VitaDAO votes to create for-profit company to fund longevity research

Members of Pfizer-backed VitaDAO tweeted on Wednesday that in order to make up for VitaDAO’s funding gap, a proposal to establish a US-based for-profit company is currently being discussed, which will bridge the gap between research and commercialization. The company will operate as a subsidiary or affiliate of VitaDAO.

If approved, the proposal will enter a 10-week implementation phase between April 3 and June 12, 2023. The company, called VitaTech, will use public funding to license longevity technologies developed at U.S. universities and support their continued development.

Cryptocurrency

▌The Arbitrum Foundation released two new proposals to expand the budget oversight and governance rights of ARB token holders

The Arbitrum Foundation proposed on Wednesday to expand the budget oversight and governance powers of ARB token holders through two new proposals to address the collapse of cryptocurrency governance over the weekend.

The first proposal, AIP-1.1, proposes placing the Foundation's remaining 700 million ARB in a "smart contract-controlled lock" that would be unlocked over four years. According to the proposal, the foundation will not be able to use tokens until community members approve the token allocation budget. Additionally, the Arbitrum Foundation has released a transparency report on how the organization was formed.

▌ANZ completes CBDC pilot for tokenized carbon credits

As part of Australia’s CBDC trials, ANZ confirmed that it had completed one of the projects. The use case involves the use of the ANZ A$DC stablecoin to settle tokenized carbon credit transactions, and the pilot is run by the Digital Finance CRC (DFCRC).

In the trial, ANZ partnered with Grollo Carbon Ventures (GCV) and tokenized existing Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU). Grollo buys carbon credits in near real time. Given the near-instant settlement, counterparty risk is minimal, especially since risk-free CBDCs are used to back stablecoins. Outside of the CBDC experiment, ANZ announced its first stablecoin issue on Ethereum a year ago.