ChainCatcher News, the U.S. government has sanctioned two Russian cryptocurrency exchanges, PM2BTC and Cryptex, related to underground financial activities, as well as two individuals.The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Treasury Department has designated PM2BTC and its associated individual Sergey Ivanov as "primary money laundering concerns," as the exchange is suspected of handling proceeds from ransomware and other illegal activities. Cryptex is alleged to be linked to Russian cybercriminals, involved in over $720 million in illegal transactions.The U.S. Secret Service Cyber Investigations Division, Dutch police, and the Dutch Financial Intelligence and Investigation Service have seized the network domains and infrastructure associated with PM2BTC, Cryptex, and Ivanov.

ChainCatcher news, according to IT Chosun, the CEO of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinone, Cha Myung-hun, has denied rumors that he is negotiating with the gaming company Com2uS Holdings to sell a portion of the company's shares.As of last year, Cha held a total of 53.46% of Coinone's shares through his personal company The One Group and personal holdings. Although there were previous speculations that if the deal went through, Com2uS would become the largest shareholder of Coinone, representatives from both companies have denied these rumors.Previous news, the CEO of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinone, Myung-hoon Cha, is in negotiations with the mid-sized gaming company Com2uS Holdings regarding the sale of company shares.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin developer Robin Linus proposed a theoretical method last year aimed at making the Bitcoin blockchain more programmable. Today, he has launched a second iteration called "BitVM2," which reportedly has significant improvements that bring this concept closer to real-world deployment. The project will rely on advanced cryptography and innovative design to establish a secure "bridge" that transfers Bitcoin from the main network to a secondary network known as "rollup."According to a white paper released this week by Linus and five co-authors, the basic setup involves using cryptography to compress programs into subprograms, which are then executed in Bitcoin transactions. Subsequently, these programs are "verified" in three on-chain transactions, essentially ensuring that no one is attempting to cheat or steal. According to one of the co-authors, Alexei Zamyatin, previous versions required up to 70 transactions for verification. It is reported that Alexei Zamyatin is working separately on the Bitcoin L2 network Build on Bitcoin (BOB).A key improvement in the new version is that anyone can challenge suspicious transactions, a feature known as "permissionless challenges." The original BitVM was released last October but was never truly deployed in practice, with only a fixed group of operators able to initiate challenges."This design brings us these significant improvements," Zamyatin said in a video interview, "We now have a complete and comprehensive description of the BitVM paradigm."

ChainCatcher news, BOB co-founder Alexei Zamyatin posted on social media that Bitcoin scalability developers have released a new white paper on the second version of the Bitcoin Virtual Machine, BitVM2, and the updated BitVM Bridge. The white paper details the latest achievements in improving transaction efficiency within the Bitcoin network by enhancing transaction processing capabilities and, in some cases, updating cryptographic methods.The white paper states that the main goal of BitVM2 is to increase Bitcoin's transaction capacity without modifying the core Bitcoin code or principles of decentralization. Unlike V1, BitVM2 introduces a permissionless system that allows any user to challenge suspicious transactions.Additionally, the white paper mentions improvements to the BitVM Bridge, focusing on reducing capital requirements and shortening asset lock-up periods, which support cross-chain transactions between Bitcoin and Rollup.Previously, Robin Linus, the project lead of ZeroSync and creator of BitVM (who is also involved in the development of V2), first introduced BitVM last October.

ChainCatcher news, Myung-hoon Cha, the CEO of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinone, is in negotiations with the medium-sized gaming company Com2uS Holdings to sell shares of the company.As of the end of last year, Myung-hoon Cha held a total of 53.46% of the shares, which includes his stake in the private company The One Group (34.31%) and his personal holdings (19.15%). Com2uS Holdings holds 21.95%, while Com2uS Plus holds 16.47%. Com2uS Plus is a 100% subsidiary of Com2uS Holdings. Through this share acquisition, Com2uS Holdings is expected to become the largest shareholder of Coinone.In addition, Coinone CEO Myung-hoon Cha has informed Com2uS Holdings that he will resign from his position as head of Coinone.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the latest analysis released by Philip Swift, founder of the on-chain data platform LookIntoBitcoin, on June 5 shows that global liquidity (M2) is approaching $100 trillion, which will be a favorable condition for the rise of Bitcoin prices in 2024.In dollar terms, M2 has now reached $94 trillion, setting a new historical high, which is $3 trillion higher than the historical peak of $69,000 for Bitcoin at the end of 2021. Since hitting a local low of $85 trillion at the end of 2022 (coinciding with the low point of the cryptocurrency bear market), M2 has rebounded by 10%.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, the mobile NFT shooting game studio Carbonated announced the completion of a $11 million financing round, led by South Korean gaming giant Com2uS, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bitkraft Ventures, Cypher Capital, Blocore, Goal Ventures, and WAGMI Ventures. The studio previously raised $8.5 million in 2020, with a16z and Bitkraft also participating at that time.It is reported that MadWorld will be launched to the public sometime in 2024, and testing has already begun on iOS and Android operating systems. Its founder, Travis Boatman, is a veteran in mobile gaming, having served as an executive at Zynga and Electronic Arts.

ChainCatcher News, the Japanese entertainment giant DMM Group's Web3 subsidiary DM2C Studio announced the completion of a $2.3 million financing through the issuance of convertible bonds, led by Galaxy Interactive, with participation from Shima Capital, Bitfinex, MARBLEX, SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS CO., LTD., Planetarium Labs, Mask Network, and DeFimans Co., Ltd. This is DM2C Studio's first round of financing, aimed at establishing strategic partnerships for comprehensive global expansion. DM2C Studio also released the white paper for its Web3 initiative "Seamoon Protocol" on its website today.It is reported that DM2C Studio was established in January 2023, with the goal of developing DMM's Web3 business, including blockchain games and NFT projects. In June of this year, DM2C Studio launched the web3 project "Seamoon Protocol," which utilizes its token to provide new entertainment experiences in the digital space. The project plans to launch its proprietary blockchain "DM2 Verse" on Oasys Layer2, introduce its "DM2P" token, and implement initiatives such as blockchain gaming.

ChainCatcher news, M2E Web3 lifestyle application Rebase announced that it will officially launch the token IRL at 4 PM Beijing time on December 19, and it will be listed on KuCoin, Bybit, MEXC, and PancakeSwap.It is reported that Rebase is an AR adventure game Web3 lifestyle application designed to explore, collect, and redeem exclusive digital rewards in real life. IRL serves as its governance and utility token, with a supply cap of 500,000,000 tokens.

ChainCatcher news, Movement Labs has launched M2, an Ethereum L2 layer based on the Move language infrastructure. It utilizes Celestia's modular data availability layer for scaling, aiming to accelerate the creation of high-performance consumer applications.The Move VM is optimized for high throughput, featuring a native fee market and embedded support for formal verification. M2 also scales through Blobstream, transferring Celestia's high throughput modular DA to Ethereum for integration by L2.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) has granted a Financial Services Permission (FSP) to the virtual asset company M2, allowing it to operate a multilateral trading facility in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, M2 stated in an announcement released on August 16 that the regulatory approval will allow institutional and retail clients in the UAE to "buy, sell, and custody virtual assets," such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The M2 platform is set to launch later in 2023. Once online, the M2 platform will also allow UAE users to purchase cryptocurrencies using fiat currency, as well as access derivatives and yield services.

ChainCatcher news, recently the Web3 development engine and on-chain protocol platform Spike released Spike Engine. Spike Engine is a completely independent and open-source application development engine. According to the official website, it is the world's first "Web3 native game engine." At the same time, Spike also disclosed the investors in its latest round of financing, with institutions such as Kucoin, M23, and Uphonest participating.It is reported that the founding team of Spike is the original team from Oasis, and the founder Jeff Yin is also the CEO of Oasis. Oasis was launched at the end of 2021 and has grown to over 30 million registered users globally in just six months, making it the fastest-growing metaverse application in more than 100 countries. The Oasis Editor has also served millions of metaverse creators. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, South Korean game developer Com2uS's metaverse subsidiary Com2Verse announced that it has received a strategic investment of 4 billion KRW from Hana Financial Group, Kyobo Bookstore (a large chain bookstore in South Korea), and Kyowon Group, totaling 12 billion KRW (approximately 9.5 million USD).It is reported that Com2Verse raised 15 billion KRW in initial capital (approximately 11.85 million USD) at its establishment from Com2uS, WYSIWYG Studios, and others, and additionally secured 16 billion KRW (approximately 12.64 million USD) through attracting external investments. (source link)