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Normie memecoin team mulls hacker demands after token falls 99%

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The price of NORMIE sunk 99% after a smart contract exploit, temporarily gutting its market cap from nearly $42 million to $200,000 in less than three hours.

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Australian regulator asks High Court to allow appeal in Block Earner case

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Australia’s financial regulator will seek the High Court’s permission to appeal a lower court’s ruling favoring fintech firm Block Earner, which found the company’s crypto-linked fixed-yield earning service is not a financial product.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission said on May 21 that it wants to ask the High Court of Australia to clarify what the definition of a financial product is and clarify the circumstances when an interest-earning product and the conversion of assets from one form to another are regulated.

“The definition of financial product was drafted in a broad and technology-neutral way, and ASIC believes it is in the public interest to clarify this,” the watchdog said.

“This clarification is important as it applies to all financial products and services whether they involve crypto-assets or not.”

On April 22, Federal Court Justices David O’Callaghan, Wendy Abraham and Catherine Button found that Block Earner’s crypto-linked fixed-yield earning product is not a financial product, a managed investment scheme or a derivative under the Corporations Act.

ASIC said the court will consider its application. Special leave is required in an appeal to the High Court, and it’s only granted in cases where it would answer significant legal questions or matters of public interest.

A Block Earner spokesperson told Cointelegraph the matter has now escalated to a “broader legal question” around the definition of a financial product, which extends “well beyond Block Earner, and the crypto sector.” 

“We believe the Full Federal Court’s April ruling was a strong and well-reasoned decision that upheld the integrity of our operations,” the spokesperson said. “We remain confident in the soundness of that judgment and will respond to ASIC’s application through the appropriate legal channels.” 

Legal saga ongoing since 2022

ASIC first launched legal proceedings against Block Earner in November 2022, arguing the company needed a financial services license to offer its yield product, which was available from March 17, 2022, until the company shut it down on Nov. 16, 2022.

Related: Australia outlines crypto regulation plan, promises action on debanking

ASIC was arguing Block Earner needed a financial services license to offer its crypto-linked fixed-yield earning product. Source: ASIC

In February 2024, an Australian court initially ruled the fintech firm would need a financial services license to operate its crypto yield-bearing products

Another June 2024 ruling in Australia’s Federal Court released Block Earner from any financial penalties because it had “acted honestly” and pursued its legal opinions before launching the products, which ASIC appealed.

Block Earner appealed the Federal Court’s decision that it needed a financial services license on July 9, 2024. 

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

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VanEck to launch Avalanche ecosystem fund

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VanEck plans to launch a private digital assets fund in June targeting tokenized Web3 projects built on the Avalanche blockchain network, the asset manager said in a statement shared with Cointelegraph.

The VanEck PurposeBuilt Fund, available only to accredited investors, aims to invest in liquid tokens and venture-backed projects across Web3 sectors, including gaming, financial services, payments, and artificial intelligence. 

Idle capital will be deployed into Avalanche (AVAX) real-world asset (RWA) products, including tokenized money market funds, VanEck said.

The fund will be managed by the team behind VanEck’s Digital Assets Alpha Fund (DAAF), which oversees more than $100 million in net assets as of May 21. 

“The next wave of value in crypto will come from real businesses, not more infrastructure,” Pranav Kanade, portfolio manager for DAAF, said in a statement.

RWAs are among crypto’s fastest-growing segments. Source: RWA.xyz

Related: Tokenized stocks could top $1T in market cap — Execs

Thematic crypto funds

VanEck’s PurposeBuilt Fund is the latest in a series of funds from the asset manager and rivals designed to offer exposure to projects and companies in fast-growing segments of Web3. 

On May 14, VanEck launched a new actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) to invest in stocks and financial instruments providing exposure to the digital economy.

In April, VanEck launched another ETF investing in a passive index of companies operating in the crypto space. 

Asset managers such as VanEck are requesting the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) permission to list upward of 70 crypto ETFs. 

The wave of ETF filings is in response to US President Donald Trump softening the agency’s regulatory stance toward crypto after Trump took office in January.

Avalanche TVL as of May 21. Source: DefiLlama

Avalanche RWA ecosystem

Avalanche has emerged as a hub for real-world assets (RWAs) and other institutional-oriented crypto projects.

Its interrelated networks, called subnets, allow institutions to run Ethereum-style smart contracts in a controlled environment. On May 16, Solv Protocol launched a yield-bearing Bitcoin token on the Avalanche blockchain, targeting institutional investors

Avalanche has around $1.5 billion in total value locked (TVL) as of May 21, according to data from DefiLlama. 

“We’re seeing a shift away from speculative hype toward real utility and sustainable token economies,” John Nahas, chief business officer at Ava Labs, said in a statement.

Magazine: Danger signs for Bitcoin as retail abandons it to institutions — Sky Wee

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Solana Mobile reveals trustless architecture, token for Seeker device

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Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of blockchain technology company Solana Labs, has revealed the next steps for its soon-to-be-shipped Seeker device and the overall ecosystem. The steps include a new, trustless architecture, a native token, and the Seeker ship date.

According to the announcement, Solana Mobile will ship the device starting Aug. 4. Seeker is the company’s second-generation device, after the Saga Web3 phone that launched in April 2023.

The company unveiled the Seeker phone in September 2024, saying it wouldn’t just be a “memecoin phone.” So far, it has pre-sold 150,000 units.

The Solana Seeker has gone through two sale phases: The Founder window, where the price for each device was $450, and the Early Adopter window, where the price per device was $500.

Assuming the lower price window, Solana Mobile could generate at least $67.5 million in gross revenue from device sales. For comparison, the iPhone generated $199.3 billion in revenue for Apple in 2024.

The new architecture that will govern future Solana Mobile devices is called TEEPIN, which stands for “Trusted Execution Environment Platform Infrastructure Network.” It is a three-layer architecture — hardware, platform, and network layers — that will allow users, developers, and device makers to participate in a trustless environment.

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, called TEEPIN “the next evolution in mobile” and a framework where trust is “verified by cryptography.”

In addition, Solana Mobile is planning to launch “SKR,” the native asset of the Solana Mobile ecosystem. “It transforms the traditional mobile business model by giving stakeholders actual ownership in the platform,” said Emmett Hollyer, general manager at Solana Mobile.

Related: Solana lacks ‘convincing signs’ of besting Ethereum: Sygnum

Solana Saga

Solana Mobile’s first released device, Saga, initially elicited mixed reactions from the Web3 community — some hailed it as Web3’s “iPhone moment,” while others pointed to the network’s outages as a drawback.

The Saga phone didn’t take off until late 2023, when a surge in the value of memecoins stored on the devices turned them into unexpected profit machines. Some units were listed on eBay for thousands of dollars, driven by growing demand. By December 2023, the Saga had completely sold out.

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge

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