Binance Tightening KYC Procedure, The Screaming Sheep NFT + More News

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

Exchanges news

• Crypto exchange Binance has announced they have tightened the customer verification requirements on their platforms, as they extend their response to heightened regulatory scrutiny over recent months. With immediate effect, new customers must supply government ID and pass facial verification to meet “Intermediate” verification for access to services such as crypto deposits, trades and withdrawals, while existing users who have not yet completed Intermediate Verification will have their account permissions temporarily changed to “Withdraw Only”, with services limited to withdrawal, order cancellation, position close, and redemption until they provide the necessary documents.
• Crypto exchange OKEx has announced the launch of a USD 10m fund to help develop play-to-earn (or GameFi) projects. They will also host a hackathon with the theme “BUIDL IN METAFORCE” on August 26, where the winning team will receive USD 1m in funding as well as additional support from the exchange, such as advanced listing and promotional marketing.

NFT news

• Social media and marketing company Brave Bison has announced a partnership with non-fungible token (NFT) platform Power Up NFTs to facilitate the sale of the viral The Screaming Sheep video as an NFT. Brave Bison added that it has represented The Screaming Sheep video for a number of years and has worked with the video owner to license the content out to brands and organisations. It argued that the video is now considered to be one of the most famous viral pieces of content the internet has to offer.

Adoption news

• Retail bank Lloyds Banking Group has posted a vacancy for Senior Manager in Digital Currency and Innovation to explore investment opportunities. The manager will develop payments use cases and initiate business or investments around digital currencies, according to the posting.

DeFi news

• Crypto custody firm Anchorage has announced it is offering blockchain governance voting services, starting with decentralized finance (DeFi) project (AAVE). Institutions and token holders can use Anchorage’s governance portal to participate in on-chain governance decisions critical to the Aave lending protocol, as the system uses a separate voting key so that digital assets can remain safely in storage.
• Cross-blockchain decentralized storage and computing network Aleph.im has announced the release of decentralized indexing for the blockchain Solana (SOL). They stated that until now, applications built on Solana have had to rely on their own centralized indexing solutions requiring high costs for physical hardware, unfeasibly fast internet connections, and computing power, while Aleph.im provides a decentralized alternative.

Mining news

• Crypto mining company Argo Blockchain has filed for US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval to sell American Depositary Shares (ADS). If approved, this would be their secondary Nasdaq listing, and would trade under the ticker “ARBK.”

Investment news

• Decentralized automated market maker-based protocol Chainflip has raised USD 6m in a funding round led by venture capital firm Framework Ventures. The funds will go toward Chainflip’s talent acquisition, marketing campaigns, and ensuring the product has been through robust audits and reviews before launch.