Today in Crypto: Goldman Makes First Bitcoin-Secured Loan; Miners Turn to Debt Financing

Ethereum wallet Argent has concluded a Series B round in order to help further its mission to build one app for everything involved with decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3, according to a Tech Funding News report Thursday (April 28).

Argent is working to solve a lot of the problems associated with the crypto ecosystem, as the industry doesn’t have many standards for how brokers pass along the various costs or manage flows.

Argent said it will let customers buy, trade and earn crypto in a more streamlined way, cutting down on the red tape in those situations.

Meanwhile, CoinDesk reported Thursday that Wall Street analysts think debt financing could still be a positive catalyst for shares of publicly-traded crypto miners.

Crypto mining stocks saw rapid appreciation in 2021 because of the high correlation to the prices of the assets they mine. However, that rally went away with lower bitcoin prices this year, along with rising network hashrate and more competition.

In other news, Binance has shut down numerous accounts that were reportedly linked to the relatives of senior Kremlin officials, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

This comes as the world is still responding to Russia’s war invasion of Ukraine. According to Binance, which is the world’s biggest crypto exchange by trading volume, “Polina Kovaleva, the stepdaughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Elizaveta Peskova, the daughter of President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov” were among those whose accounts were closed.

The report said the exchange is still looking into people associated with Russian sanctioned individuals.

Finally, Bloomberg also wrote Thursday that Goldman Sachs has offered its first ever lending facility backed by bitcoin.

This will bolster the level of Wall Street involvement in crypto. The secured lending facility lent cash collateralized by bitcoin owned by the borrower, according to a spokeswoman, and the  deal was reportedly interesting to the bank because of its structure and 24-hour risk management.