29.03.2024

Los Angeles Mayor’s Office Hosts Blockchain Startup Competition

According to a Goren Holm Ventures press release published on Sept. 16, the event will take place in front of a panel of celebrity judges at investment-focused blockchain conference CIS.

The Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Budget Innovation and the city’s Information Technology Agency (ITALA) have partnered with Goren Holm Ventures (GHV) to host a blockchain startup contest called Block Tank.

As Cointelegraph reported earlier today, information technology service management giant Gartner foresees blockchain becoming transformative for most industries within 10 years.

Investing in local innovation

Winners will receive a $25,000 minimum investment offer from GHV and a $25,000 pilot project with the city. Ted Ross, the City of Los Angeles’ CIO, said:

“Utilizing cutting-edge technologies to improve the lives of Los Angelenos has always been a priority for ITALA. … We’re excited for our partnership with GHV to explore and source blockchain solutions at CIS.”

The areas eligible for the pilot project are environmental sustainability, online voting and secure resident IDs. Four startups will be chosen by the city to be judged by the panel including billionaire investor and Bitcoin proponent Tim Draper, who recently said that a $250,000 price prediction for Bitcoin is conservative. More judges will be announced after their participation is confirmed.

Loom Network Offers a Rewards Program to Its DApp Developers

Loom Network, a blockchain-based platform designed with large-scale social apps and games in mind, launched a new bounties and rewards program.

In the announcement published on Sept. 24, Loom said that it kicked off a new campaign to recruit decentralized applications (DApps) developers, which involves several large bonuses of Loom tokens to grow the ecosystem. Co-founder of Loom Matthew Campbell said:

“In order to help grow our ecosystem, we want to continue rewarding our existing stakers, validators, and current and future dapp developers with LOOM tokens for doing various tasks. Loom Network has the largest lead in blockchain scalability, but instead of continuing at a steady pace, we are shifting into an even higher gear. We want to accelerate hard over the next year and beyond to increase this lead.”

The bounties and rewards program sets out to give away millions of Loom tokens during the month of October. The developers of the first 10 DApps that get deployed on Loom Basechain and listed on DappRadar will receive a bonus of 500,000 Loom tokens each, which is worth around $17,500.

On top of this, any developer who can successfully launch a functional block explorer can earn an extra bonus of 2,000,000 Loom tokens, worth around $70K at press time.

Crypto rewards projects

As Cointelegraph reported earlier this year, Bitcoin rewards shopping app Lolli joined forces with major American grocery chain Safeway and pet retailer Petco to give its clients 3.5% back in BTC on all their purchases. Meanwhile, American Express is taking a look at its Hyperledger-based rewards platform, which enables partner merchants to create customized rewards offers for the financial corporation’s clients.

London-Based Hedge Fund Raises $50M to Launch New Crypto Investment Fund

Nickel Asset Management, a United Kingdom-based hedge fund manager, has raised $50 million for its newly launched crypto investment fund.

According to a report from Finance Magnates on Sept. 9, the hedge fund has raised $50 million for its newly launched crypto investment fund, Nickel Arbitrage Fund, which aims to take advantage of arbitrage trading in digital assets.

In arbitrage trading, traders buy an asset on one exchange and sell it on another at a higher price, thereby profiting from the price difference in separate markets. Alek Kloda, portfolio manager at Nickel added:

“As long as digital assets and their derivatives trade on multiple exchanges across the globe, with sufficient speed and execution quality, we can profitably make markets, while improving liquidity for other market participants”,

Approval from U.K. regulators

The company further explained that the Nickel Arbitrage Fund is one of the few investment funds focused on cryptocurrencies to have won a stamp of approval from U.K. regulators, in this case the Financial Conduct Authority.

Nickel Asset Management CEO Anatoly Crachilov added that it is just a matter of time until digital assets become part of institutional portfolio allocations for investors around the world.

Controversial U.K. party is first to reveal crypto policy

Cointelegraph previously reported that a far-right party in the United Kingdom published the country’s purportedly first coherent cryptocurrency policy. The National Liberal Party – the membership of which includes former members of the fascist National Front – argued on its website that the U.K.’s current cryptocurrency policy is non-existent and said that the government has failed to take any meaningful stance on crypto regulations.

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