Circle expands Asia focus, Mila Kunis and Stoner Cats face SEC, Telegram provides crypto pockets and extra

Welcome again to Chain Response.

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One other week in crypto means one other alternative for the U.S. Securities and Change Fee to go after crypto tasks. On Wednesday, the SEC charged long-term celeb couple Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher for allegedly providing their NFT-based internet sequence “Stoner Cats” as unregistered securities. I really feel like I may make a joke right here, however it will in all probability be purr-ty cat-astrophic.

Individually, we’ve rolled out extra protection from Korea Blockchain Week and Telegram added a self-custodial crypto pockets globally (apart from, ahem, the U.S.), amongst different issues. Extra particulars beneath.

This week in web3

1. USDC issuer Circle expands Asia focus in push to enter the region’s flourishing payments ecosystem (TC+)
2. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s ‘Stoner Cats’ NFTs get smoked by the SEC
3. Institutional crypto adoption in Asia is growing as the US market remains a question mark (TC+)
4. MobileCoin, which powers Signal’s anonymous crypto payments, appoints new CEO
5. Telegram adds self-custodial crypto wallet worldwide, excluding the US
6. Coinbase ‘committed’ to India, but disables sign-ups amid regulatory roadblock

The most recent pod

For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn is sharing a panel she moderated reside at Avalanche Home, whereas she was in Seoul, South Korea for Korea Blockchain Week.

The panel centered on the most important alternatives and challenges dealing with web3 enterprise and included the next audio system:

• Dan Solar, startup success supervisor for web3 APAC lead at Google Cloud
• Gagan Mac, head of product and senior director of web3 providers at Circle
• Johann Eid, chief enterprise officer at Chainlink Labs
• Lihan Lee, co-CEO and founding father of Xangle

We mentioned the state of web3 enterprise adoption in the present day in comparison with previous quarters and years and dove into the ripple results that catastrophic occasions from 2022 had on the house.

We additionally talked about:

• Regulatory scrutiny
• Subsequent wave of enterprise adoption
• New web3 enterprise use instances

Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the most recent episodes, and please go away us a overview in case you like what you hear!

Comply with the cash

1. 0xPass raises $1.8 million from Balaji Srinivasan and others to construct safe login programs for web3
2. Brine Fi challenges Coinbase, Binance with decentralized trade because it nets Pantera-led $16.5 million round
3. NFT startup Rario founders to go away a yr after $120 million funding
4. Thailand’s KBank launches $100 million fund centered on AI, web3 and “deep tech”
5. Blockchain infra startup Motion Labs raises $3.4 million in pre-seed spherical

This checklist was compiled with data from Messari in addition to TechCrunch’s personal reporting.

What else we’re writing

Wish to department out from the world of web3? Listed below are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our consideration this week.

1. Apple Event 2023: Everything you need to know about iPhone 15, Apple Watch, USB-C connector
2. OpenAI to open its first EU office as it readies for regulatory hurdles
3. Microsoft reveals how hackers stole its email signing key… kind of
4. This startup has 12 co-founders (TC+)
5. Here’s how we raised a Series B for our AI startup during a downturn (TC+)

Comply with me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto information, memes and extra.