The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced it’s almost doubling the staff of its Crypto Assets and Cyber team, a unit of the regulator’s enforcement division responsible for protecting investors from crypto scams and cyberthreats.

Nasdaq-listed business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has taken a non-cash digital asset impairment charge of $170.1 million in the first quarter of the year, up from $146.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has opened the waitlist for its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. The platform is set to be a “complete solution for exploring, curating and securing your NFT collection.”

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Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• SEC Nearly Doubles Size of Crypto Unit
• MicroStrategy Reports $170 Million Impairment Charge on BTC Holdings
• Kraken Opens Waitlist for its NFT Marketplace
• What is an NFT?
• Sponsored: Bybit - Earn Up to $60 in BTC Welcome Rewards!

SEC Nearly Doubles Size of Crypto Unit

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced it’s almost doubling the staff of its Crypto Assets and Cyber team, a unit of the regulator’s Enforcement division responsible for protecting investors from crypto scams and cyberthreats.

The regulator’s crypto unit is set to increase its headcount by 20 for a total of 50 dedicated positions. The new additions are set to include investigative staff attorneys, trial lawyers, and fraud analysts.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler and Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal have both applauded the hires as overdue and key to regulating the market. In a statement, Gensler said the crypto unit has “successfully brought dozens of cases against those seeking to take advantage of investors in crypto markets,” and added:

“By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets while continuing to identify disclosure and controls issues with respect to cybersecurity.”

Grewal noted that retail investors tend to comprise the bulk of victims of crypto-related securities fraud, and that cyber threats pose “existential” risks to the U.S. financial system.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has voiced her opposition to the addition of 20 new jobs to the regulatory agency’s crypto unit, saying the SEC is a “regulatory agency with an enforcement division, not an enforcement agency,” before questioning why it’s “leading with enforcement in crypto.”

MicroStrategy Reports $170 Million Impairment Charge on BTC Holdings

Nasdaq-listed business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has taken a non-cash digital asset impairment charge of $170.1 million in the first quarter of the year, up from $146.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.

The digital asset impairment reflects the decline in the price of Bitcoin versus the price at which it was acquired. Under standard accounting rules, the value of digital assets must be recorded at their cost and then only adjusted if their value is impaired.

If the price of these digital assets rises, however, the move does not get reported unless an asset is sold. For 2021, MicroStrategy posted total digital asset impairment losses of $831 million, versus $71 million in 2020.

The company held 129,218 BTC at the end of March 31, 2022, which it acquired for $3.97 billion, meaning it bought at an average cost per bitcoin of approximately $30,700. The current value of MicroStrategy’s holdings is close to $5 billion.

Kraken Opens Waitlist for its NFT Marketplace

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has opened the waitlist for its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. The platform is set to be a “complete solution for exploring, curating and securing your NFT collection.”

In an announcement, Kraken detailed the platform will seamlessly integrate the trading and custody of NFTs with users’ Kraken accounts, allowing traders to execute transactions with cash or crypto.

Sellers can list their NFTs in any of the fiat or digital assets that the platform supports, and buyers can bid in their preferred currency. Kraken is also set to offer Creator Earnings, which will reward NFT creators with a portion of each secondary market sale of their tokens.

The exchange’s NFT marketplace is set to include built-in tools to analyze and describe the rarity of individual NFTs compared to other tokens in the same collection.

Kraken’s NFT marketplace is set to enjoy zero gas fees for trades, and the waitlist is being launched shortly after Coinbase launched its own NFT marketplace, which started to pick up steam last week.

What is an NFT?

NFTs allow you to buy, sell, trade and verify ownership of a digital item on the blockchain. The phrase “NFT” beat “cheugy” to be Collins Dictionary’s word of the year, and as per Collins, it is defined as: “a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain, that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a collectible.”

An NFT can come in many shapes and sizes, varying from digital art, to songs, real-life artworks, collectibles in a video game and much more. Many outsiders that are new to the world of NFTs criticize them saying: “I just right-clicked saved this for free” or “This is just a JPEG”, but NFTs are far more than this, for they have created a way for artists to monetize digital versions of their content via the creation of ownership.

Usually, NFTs come in the form of an ERC-721 or ERC-1155 token on the Ethereum blockchain (other blockchains have different standards), for this is the chain that popularised the NFT trend.

Other blockchains, such as Solana, Avalanche and Tezos, have also seen a boom in NFT activity.

Read more about NFTs on CryptoCompare’s blog.

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