BlockFi Ends Free Withdrawals, ‘NFT’ is Word of the Year + More News

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Exchanges news

• Crypto lender BlockFi will move to a rate-based withdrawal fee structure beginning December 1, ending free withdrawals, as it cited “increasing transaction costs on the Ethereum network.” The move will apply to ether (ETH), chainlink (LINK), PAX gold (PAXG), uniswap (UNI) and basic attention token (BAT), while for bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC) and stablecoins, customers will continue receiving one free withdrawal per month.
• Kraken has announced free bank withdrawals for their US customers. For now, this feature is available to Intermediate and Pro customers outside the states of Texas, New York, and Washington.

NFT news

• The term non-fungible token (NFT) has been recognized by Collins Dictionary as its Word of the Year, per Bloomberg. The Collins Dictionary chose the term in recognition of the technology integrating the worlds of money, tech and art, defining it as “a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain, that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a collectible.”
• Asset management firm Arca has launched a USD 30m fund dedicated to NFTs, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company began accepting investments in the Arca NFT Fund on November 15 and has so far raised USD 11.4m from 68 inventors toward its total USD 30m goal.

Gaming news

• Digital asset custodian Hex Trust and publisher of mobile games Animoca Brands have formed a joint venture to provide institutional digital asset wallets and financial services for online gamers. Serving as custodian, Hex Trust will utilize its financial institution infrastructure to provide financial services to gamers in Animoca Brands’ ecosystem, including banking services for NFTs and other crypto assets, said the press release.

Investment news

• Crypto mining power management firm Lancium has announced it has raised USD 150m in a funding round led by clean energy provider Hanwha Solutions. Lancium said its “Clean Campus” data centers will host bitcoin mining, high throughput computing and other energy intensive applications, while providing power management services.
• Crypto lender Celsius Network (CEL) has had its Series B funding round expanded from USD 400m to USD 750m. The news had first been reported by Blockworks and the article later retweeted by the lender’s official Twitter account.
• End-to-end privacy protocol for decentralized finance (DeFi) Panther Protocol has raised over USD 22m as part of their public sale. With the sale closing in only 90 minutes, this brings the total amount raised to USD 32m, the press release stated. “This raise demonstrates the demand for privacy across the digits economy,” said CEO and co-founder Oliver Gale.