American technology conglomerate and the parent company of Google, Alphabet Inc., has reportedly invested more capital into the blockchain industry than any other public company, investing $1.5bn between September 2021 and June 2022, a new report shows.

Blockchain intelligence firm Chainanalysis has released a new report which shows that illicit activity involving cryptocurrency is down 15% in volume so far this year, compared to a 36% drop in legitimate transaction volumes.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a complaint against open-source hybrid blockchain startup Dragonchain for failing to register more than $16 million in crypto asset securities offerings over the course of five years.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Alphabet Invested $1.5B Into Blockchain Companies Since September
• Crypto Crime Falls 15% Alongside Bear Market: Chainalysis Report
• SEC Files Complaint Against Dragonchain

Alphabet Invested $1.5B Into Blockchain Companies Since September

American technology conglomerate and the parent company of Google, Alphabet Inc., has reportedly invested more capital into the blockchain industry than any other public company, investing $1.5bn between September 2021 and June 2022, a new report shows.

In previous years, Alphabet had diversified a much smaller war chest, investing $601.4mn in funding across 17 blockchain-based companies, featuring the likes of Dapper Labs, Blockchain.com, Celo, Ripple and Helium.

More recently, however, Alphabet concentrated its investments on four blockchain companies, namely crypto infrastructure firm Fireblocks, Web3 gaming company Dapper Labs, Bitcoin infrastructure startup Voltage and a Digital Currency Group, which is the parent company of Grayscale, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager.

Other big corporations that invested in the blockchain space include the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, which invested $1.17bn and financial services giant Morgan Stanley, which invested $1.11bn. Morgan Stanley and BlackRock adopted a similar strategy to Alphabet, concentrating their investments in two to three companies.

Crypto Crime Falls 15% Alongside Bear Market: Chainalysis Report

Blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis has released a new report, which shows that illicit activity involving cryptocurrency is down 15% in volume so far this year, compared to a 36% drop in legitimate transaction volumes. 

According to the firm, the total revenue made from cryptocurrency scams in 2022 is 65% lower than it was through to the end of July 2021, currently valued at $1.6bn. This decline, however, appears to be linked to the declining prices of cryptocurrencies. Chainanlysis reported that “since January 2022, scam revenue has fallen more or less in line with Bitcoin pricing.”

Chainalysis continued by stating “If we dig into specific forms of cryptocurrency-based crime, we find that some have actually increased in 2022, while others have declined more than the market overall.”

One such area is cryptocurrency that has been stolen in hacks of blockchain services, which is currently sitting at $1.9bn this year, compared to just under $1.2bn at the same time last year. This is a trend that doesn’t appear to be slowing, with a $190 million hack of Nomad and a $5 million hack of Solana wallets occurring in the first week of August alone.

SEC Files Complaint Against Dragonchain

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a complaint against open-source hybrid blockchain startup, Dragonchain, for failing to register more than $16 million in crypto asset securities offerings over the course of five years.

The complaint states that Dragonchain CEO, John Roets, along with three other Dragonchain entities, violated the Securities Act, raising millions from the DRGN token initial coin offering (ICO), which took place back in 2017. 

“Dragonchain undertook its distribution of DRGNs without registering its offers and sales of DRGNs with the SEC as required by the federal securities laws, and no exemption from this requirement applied,” the complaint states.

Back in 2017, ICOs were the primary method by which crypto startups raised money for their project, selling off tokens in exchange for capital. The SEC has since announced that it considers tokens to be securities that should be subject to federal securities laws and information disclosure.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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