Breaking crypto news from the last week (Jan. 29 – Feb. 4, 2022):
Jan. 29: Bahrain-based crypto exchange CoinMENA has obtained a cryptocurrency license from the European Union. As a result, CoinMENA will now be able to expand to new jurisdictions in the MENA region and beyond, as well as increase the number of crypto assets and crypto financial services on the platform.
Jan. 30: Visa revealed that cryptocurrency-linked card usage hit $2.5 billion in its first fiscal quarter of 2022. The payments company has shown a significant effort to support widespread digital currency adoption.
Jan. 31: Crypto exchange FTX Trading Ltd. has raised $400 million in a Series C funding roundv, valuing the company, which has leaned heavily on sports and gaming, at $32 billion. The investment values the crypto exchange at the same level as Deutsche Boerse and more than Nasdaq or Twitter.
Feb. 1: UAE’s engineering firm Al Habtoor Group in partnership with Luna PR, a Dubai-based digital marketing agency, announced “Last Hopium,” an NFT project aimed to use blockchain technology to bridge digital asset holders to big hotels like Ritz, Hilton, and Waldorf. The release of the NFT collection will be during Q1 2022.
Feb. 2: DeFi Technologies subsidiary has been given the green light by the Boerse Frankfurt Zertifikate AG to list an exchange-traded product (ETP) that tracks the price of Solana cryptocurrency (SOL). The ETP provides traditional investors exposure to crypto within a regulated and “fully backed” environment.
Feb. 3: The DeFi platform Wormhole became the victim of the largest crypto heist this year when an attacker exploited a security flaw to make off with close to $325 million. The attack on the popular bridge linking Ethereum and Solana is among the top five largest crypto hacks of all time.
Feb. 4: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rallied on January 4, reversing losses from a few days ago. Ether (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, gained 13% over the past 24 hours, while an 11% rise in BTC and the NEAR token surged as much as 20%. The rise in altcoins relative to Bitcoin could reflect a greater appetite for risk among crypto investors.