The hacker behind the recent $600 million hack on cross-chain decentralized finance protocol Poly Network has returned $258 million of the stolen funds and conducted an ask me anything (AMA) session.

$400 billion asset management firm Neuberger Berman has given its $164 million commodities-focused mutual fund permission to invest indirectly in bitcoin and ether.

Cryptocurrency asset manager Valkyrie Investments has filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a bitcoin ETF that would “not directly invest in bitcoin.”

Sponsored: The gaming social network, fruitlab, has partnered with layer-2 blockchain solution Aventus Network to process fruitlab tokens at speed, scale, and a fraction of the normal cost. Fruitlab's creators earn revenue from the sharing and engagement with their content in the form of fruitlab tokens, called PIPs.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Poly Network Hacker Returns $258 Million, Conducts AMA
• $400 Billion Investment Manager Greenlights Indirect Crypto Investments
• Crypto Asset Manager Valkyrie Becomes Latest Firm Filing for Bitcoin Futures ETF
• Daily Movers – XRP, MATIC, YFI
• Sponsored: Aventus Network Partners With fruitlab, Processes Half A Millions of Monthly Transactions.

Poly Network Hacker Returns $258 Million, Conducts AMA

The hacker behind the recent $600 million hack on cross-chain decentralized finance protocol Poly Network has returned $258 million of the stolen funds and conducted an ask me anything (AMA) session.

Tom Robinson, the chief scientist at blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has detailed the hacker has been returning funds after stating they were willing to do so on several occasions, leading some to suggest he was a white hat hacker.

To Robinson, the hacker returning the funds “demonstrates that even if you can steal crypto-assets, laundering them and cashing out is extremely difficult due to the transparency of the blockchain.”

Using embedded messages in Ethereum transactions, the hacker conducted an AMA session, where they revealed the hack was “for fun” and because “cross-chain hacking is hot.”

They then claimed the hack was noble, as after finding the exploit they asked themselves what to do and found they “can trust nobody” and the “only solution” was to save the funds in “a trusted account.” They added:

“Now everyone smells a sense of conspiracy. Insider? Not me, but who knows? I take the responsibility to expose the vulnerability before any insiders hiding and exploiting it!”

On Twitter, some users pointed out the hacker tipped those sending him advice on laundering the funds.

$400 Billion Investment Manager Greenlights Indirect Crypto Investments

$400 billion asset management firm Neuberger Berman has given its $164 million commodities-focused mutual fund permission to invest indirectly in bitcoin and ether.

The firm said in regulatory filings that the Neuberger Berman Commodity Strategy fund added cryptocurrency derivatives, bitcoin trusts, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to its list of permissible investment strategies.

As a mutual fund, the fund would be widely available to investors. It has been performing well year-to-date as commodity prices have been surging. Its top holdings included gold, corn, heating oil, and Brent crude at the end of June.

Crypto Asset Manager Valkyrie Becomes Latest Firm Filing for Bitcoin Futures ETF

Cryptocurrency asset manager Valkyrie Investments has filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a bitcoin ETF that would “not directly invest in bitcoin.”

The ETF would “seek to purchase a number of bitcoin futures contracts so that the total value of the bitcoin underlying the futures contracts” in it gets as close as possible “to 100%” of the fund’s net assets.

The filing comes less than a week after SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said at the Aspen Security Forum he would favor ETFs based on bitcoin futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

Atlanta-based asset manager Invesco has notably already applied for an ETF that would include exposure to futures, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), and Canadian bitcoin ETFs.

Daily Movers – XRP, MATIC, YFI

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 24-hour period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

XRP (XRP) - XRP positions itself as one of the most liquid currencies which is fast (settles in 3-5 seconds), scalable (can handle 1,500 transactions per second), decentralized (140+ validators), stable (7-year track record) and with a negligible energy consumption (due to the consensus protocol vs proof-of-work).

Polygon (MATIC) - MATIC provides scalable, secure and instant transactions using sidechains based on an adapted implementation of Plasma framework for asset security and a decentralized network of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) validators.

Yearn.Finance (YFI) - Yearn Finance is a suite of products in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) that provides lending aggregation, yield generation, and insurance on the Ethereum blockchain. The protocol is maintained by various independent developers and is governed by YFI holders.

Aventus Network Partners With fruitlab, Processes Half A Millions of Monthly Transactions

The gaming social network, fruitlab, has partnered with layer-2 blockchain solution Aventus Network to process fruitlab tokens at speed, scale, and a fraction of the normal cost.

Fruitlab's creators earn revenue from the sharing and engagement with their content in the form of fruitlab tokens, called PIPs. PIPs provide a secure method for creators to monetise content posted on fruitlab. With more than 600,000 registered players and 100,000 monthly active users, fruitlab expects to generate half a million monthly transactions on the Aventus Network.

Aventus will securely execute all fruitlab's token transactions on blockchain, bringing rewards for Aventus Network validators and a scalable, long-term framework for fruitlab’s community. Once PIPs are tokenised, transactions and associated fees will be processed via the Aventus Network with a minimum of ten million historic PIP transactions due to be onboarded on top of the expected half a million new transactions per month.

This brings the current total of historic transactions on the Aventus Network to more than 18.5m. These transactions are a significant boost in transaction volume for the Aventus Network and the potential value of staking as a validator for Aventus Token (AVT) holders.

Anyone holding Aventus Token (AVT) can easily apply to become a Validator. The Validator Registration Program is currently more than 80% full and will close to new Validators soon.

The partnership will also see fruitlab and Aventus establish a system whereby content uploaded to the platform can be represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) forming a secondary market in which creators will be able to sell NFTs to other community members. 

More about Aventus: click here

To become an Aventus Validator before the program is 100% full: click here

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