Today in Crypto: Germany’s Exchange Nuri Files for Insolvency; Reserve Bank of Australia Explores CBDC Use Cases

Jenny Johnson, CEO of money management giant Franklin Templeton, said in a Bloomberg interview that bitcoin is “the greatest distraction from the greatest disruption I see happening to financial services today.”

She said the “real game changer” is blockchain, which has a “dramatic” impact on many industries.

Franklin Templeton has recently been building alternatives offerings, with deals to buy companies like Alcentra, a European credit and debt subsidiary.

Meanwhile, crypto intelligence platform Messari is looking to raise $35 million in financing, a Coindesk report said.

According to Ryan Selkis, the company is making moves.

“We’ve scaled to 130 people on zero net-operating burn, had a record July, and are hiring $35 million worth of developers to help bring transparency and an institutional-grade data tool to the crypto market,” Selkis said.

Furthermore, Kujira, a former Terra-affiliated project, is issuing a stablecoin, a Medium post from the company said.

The company will make an “over-collateralized” Cosmos stablecoin soft-pegged to the USD, the post said, as a reaction to the fallout of Terra Classic earlier in the year and what it sees as too much reliance on centralized stablecoins.

In other news, NFT distribution platform Pinata has raised $18 million in Series A funding, Coindesk wrote.

The round was led by Greylock Partners and Pantera, a crypto-native investor.

Pinata provides infrastructure letting creators distribute NFTs across markets, metaverses, apps and blockchains.

In more crypto news, the Reserve Bank of Australia will collaborate with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) on exploring a potential way forward for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a press release said.

There’s been research into the way to use new tech like distributed ledger technology for a CBDC, the release said, and the Reserve Bank is looking at economic benefits of a CBDC.

Additionally, crypto exchange Nuri has filed for insolvency, Reuters wrote.

The company cited the selloff in the crypto market, the bankruptcy of Celsius and various financial uncertainties as reasons.

Moreover, Canadian regulators have been working alongside U.S. ones to look into the collapse of Celsius and what effects that will have, a Coindesk report said.

Celsius did not register with Canada’s regulators, the country has been working on investigating the issue anyway, including looking at how the company’s collapse has affected Canadian customers.

Finally, Latin American eCommerce company Mercado Libre will be expanding crypto trading after it had success in Brazil, Coindesk wrote.

“We will be expanding in the region the possibility to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in your account,” Mercado Libre’s fintech vertical director Osvaldo Gimenez said, speaking with Spanish newspaper El País. “It works with bitcoin, with ethereum and with a stable currency that reflects the value of the dollar.”