https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/10/coinbase-india/

Coinbase plans to cease all exchange services for users in India, it has warned some customers in email, over a year after the company’s debut in the South Asian market faced regulatory challenges. The global crypto exchange is warning customers that it will be discontinuing services for them after September 25 and advising them to […]

https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/08/rario-dream11/

The two founders of Rario, the cricket NFT startup in which India’s Dream11 led a $120 million funding round last year, are leaving the firm, people familiar with the matter said. Ankit Wadhwa, who serves as Rario CEO, and Sunny Bhanot, Rario CTO, are being pushed out as investors at the startup, including largest backer […]

https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/24/worldcoin-launch-sam-altman/

Worldcoin, Sam Altman’s crypto startup with the vision to “drastically increase economic opportunity,” has started the global rollout of its services, more than three years after it began its work.

The startup, which has raised about $250 million altogether and counts Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Reid Hoffman among its backers, said it’s rolling out its identity technology as well as the token internationally. Individuals can download World App, the startup’s protocol-compatible wallet software and visit an Orb, the startup’s helmet-shaped eyeball-scanning verification device, to receive their World ID.

As TechCrunch has previously noted, Worldcoin is perhaps one of the most audacious efforts to bribe the world to embrace their currency. The startup, founded by OpenAI CEO Altman and Alex Blania, wants to put a crypto wallet (and some of their currency) onto every human’s smartphone, but in order to do so they have to build a way to determine whether someone is a unique human.

Worldcoin has been quietly signing up individuals in many countries, including India, giving those onboarding 25 Worldcoin tokens.

Worldcoin is holding about 20% of all its tokens, which are not launching in the U.S. for now, the startup told Financial Times.

“If successful, we believe Worldcoin could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans for AI online while preserving private, enable global democratic processes, and eventually show a potential path to AI-funded UBI,” said the statement in a statement.

Worldcoin is an “attempt at global scale alignment,” it said, prompting a jab from Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and no stranger to the world of cryptocurrency, who found it “cute.”

More to follow.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/23/pillow-discontinue/

Singapore-headquartered Pillow plans to discontinue all its services and app in the coming weeks, it warned customers Friday, citing regulatory uncertainty that has claimed countless other crypto startups in recent quarters.

Pillow allowed customers to invest in Bitcoin, stablecoins and altcoins, and promised returns of up to 18% — a figure that dropped to 14% as the market started to cool. It had raised about $21 million altogether and counted Accel India, Quona Capital, Elevation Capital and Jump Crypto among its backers. Pillow revealed its $18 million Series A funding in October last year.

In a post on Telegram, the two-year-old startup asked customers on Friday to withdraw all their funds from the Pillow app and said it will be terminating all its current services on July 31, 2023.

The move follows Pillow’s chief rival Flint shutting down its services last month due to what it termed as “regulatory hurdles” and “negative market sentiment.”

Both the startups, founded and operated in India, counted the South Asian nation among their largest markets. The Reserve Bank of India, the nation’s central bank, has been pushing lenders to stop engaging with crypto startups for over a year, making it virtually impossible for web3 startups to operate in the country.

Crypto giant Coinbase, one of the world’s largest exchanges, found this out the hard way. It suspended support for UPI payments instrument on its app in India last year, making its eponymous exchange nonfunctional for any purchase orders less than four days after launching the trading service in the world’s second-largest internet market.

Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong alleged last year that there are “elements in the government there, including at Reserve Bank of India, who don’t seem to be as positive on it. And so they — in the press, it’s been called a ‘shadow ban,’ basically, they’re applying soft pressure behind the scenes to try to disable some of these payments, which might be going through UPI.”

Crypto startup Pillow, backed by Accel and Quona, to discontinue all services by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/24/crypto-exchange-coinbase-sues-sec-over-rulemaking-petition/

Coinbase has filed a petition to compel the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to respond to a months-old petition that asks whether the securities regulator would allow the industry to be regulated using existing SEC frameworks, the exchange firm said on Monday, escalating its tensions with the regulator that has ramped up enforcement actions and warnings against crypto firms, including the American giant.

In the July 2022 petition, Coinbase asked whether the SEC would “propose and adopt rules to govern the regulation of securities that are offered and traded via digitally native methods.” The SEC never responded to the petition.

“The rulemaking process exists so that agencies can develop regulation with the benefit of public input, and have their position tested through judicial review. To date, more than 1,700 entities and individuals have submitted comments to Coinbase’s petition echoing the request for clarity,” Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal wrote in a blog post.

Grewal asserted that from the SEC’s public statements and enforcement activity in the crypto industry it appears that the regulator has already made up its mind to deny Coinbase’s petition, “but they haven’t told the public yet.”

The petition, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Monday, is the latest pushback the SEC has received in recent months as the regulator pushes actions against crypto firms Bittrex, Gemini, Genesis, as well as entrepreneurs including Justin Sun and Do Kwon.

Last month, the SEC threatened to sue Coinbase over some of the exchange’s products. Coinbase is the gold standard among the crypto exchanges for compliance with the laws but the American firm has suffered over the years because it couldn’t develop and roll out new products because of legal uncertainties even as its rivals scaled in international markets.

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and chief executive of Coinbase, has said the exchange may consider moving its headquarters outside the U.S. unless the country changes its approach to regulation. “Anything is on the table including, you know, relocating or whatever is necessary,” he said last week.

“Coinbase does not take any litigation lightly, especially when it relates to one of our regulators. Regulatory clarity is overdue for our industry. Yet Coinbase and other crypto companies are facing potential regulatory enforcement actions from the SEC, even though we have not been told how the SEC believes the law applies to our business,” Grewal wrote.

Crypto exchange Coinbase sues SEC over rulemaking petition by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch