Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today: Messaging giant Line on the verge of regulatory approval for crypto exchange, big names back blockchain startup Roll and Coinbase fends off Zero-day hack.

After briefly consolidating for a few days around the $9,000 mark, bitcoin has risen to a 14-month high. The leading cryptocurrency is currently trading at $9,718.89 (+5.22%) with a daily volume of $3.19bn. Ethereum has fared even better rising to $285.85 (+7.01%) with a daily volume of $2.29bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 4,473.41 (-2.88%).

Messaging Giant Line on the Verge of Regulatory Approval for Crypto Exchange

Line, the company behind the most popular messaging app in Japan and Thailand, is reportedly set to gain approval from Japan’s Financial Services Agency to operate a cryptoasset exchange. Anonymous sources talking to Bloomberg revealed that Line may receive regulatory approval as early as this month.

If approved, the new exchange - to be called BitMax - will allow Line’s 80 million Japanese users to buy, sell, and trade cryptoassets. Link, Line’s own cryptoasset, will act as the native token of BitMax.

Big Names Back Blockchain Startup Roll

New York-headquartered startup Roll has successfully closed a seed round of $1.7 million. Roll aims to help content creators on platforms such as Youtube to better monetize their relationships with fans.

Leading the seed round was BitMEX founder and CEO Arthur Hayes. Other investors include seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor Gary Vaynerchuk as well as VC firm Techstars Ventures. Roll describes itself as:

“a social currency layer for the web…[which] utilizes the Ethereum blockchain to issue branded social money for anyone to own, control, and coordinate the value they create across their network.”

Coinbase Fends Off Zero-day Hack

Philip Martin, head of Coinbase’s cybersecurity team, revealed yesterday that “Coinbase detected [and] blocked an attempt by an attacker to leverage the reported 0-day, along with a separate 0-day firefox sandbox escape, to target Coinbase employees.”

Martin emphasized, however, that Coinbase has “seen no evidence of exploitation targeting customers.” Other companies in the crypto industry were also targeted in the attack, which exploited a recent Firefox zero-day.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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