The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club. The SEC is looking into whether certain non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) from the Miami-based company are more similar to stocks. NFTs are digital assets that can be used to denote ownership of items such as paintings or sports memorabilia. The SEC is investigating whether fractional NFTs, which involve breaking down the assets into units that can be easily bought and sold, are securities. The SEC is also looking into whether ApeCoin, which was distributed in March to certain holders of Bored Ape NFT’s, is a security. The SEC applies the Howey test, which comes from a 1946 US Supreme Court decision, to decide if something is a security as defined by the agency. The price of Ape Coin fell about 9% to $4.76 as of 1:45 pm in New York.
As a patch for the exploit that depleted the platform of an estimated $100 million, Binance’s smart contract-enabled chain, BNB Smart Chain, will experience a hard fork. On October 12 at 8:00 am UTC, the hard fork known as Moran is scheduled to take place at block height 22,107,423. A block header in sequence checks will be added, and an issue with the iavl hash check will be fixed.
The first significant U.S. bank to protect both traditional investments and digital assets on the same platform is BNY Mellon. The keys needed to access and transfer those assets will be kept by the bank. The move represents a significant turning point in traditional institutions’ adoption of digital assets. The first of the eight U.S. banks of systemic importance to hold and transfer digital currency is BNY Mellon. The bank is storing those digital assets with Fireblocks software. This week, the platform will launch with a few investment fund companies.
That’s it for today, see you tomorrow
