Blockchain Bites: Coinbase’s Severance Offer, DeFi’s Latest Fund, Overstock’s Legal Win
Blockchain Bites: Coinbase’s Severance Offer, DeFi’s Latest Fund, Overstock’s Legal Win
Please consider using a different web browser for better experience. Please enable JavaScript in your browser for a better site experience. Blockchain Bites: Coinbase’s Severance Offer, DeFi’s Latest Fund, Overstock’s Legal Win Sep 30, 2020 at 16:05 UTC Daniel Kuhn Blockchain Bites: Coinbase’s Severance Offer, DeFi’s Latest Fund, Overstock’s Legal Win Coinbase will offer non-aligned employees a severance package, Kadena looks to cut into the DeFi market with a new decentralized exchange and Sushiswap is hemorrhaging liquidity. Top shelf Severance offer Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sent his employees a letter telling them to get in line with a new company “culture shift,” offering those unwilling to do so a “generous separation package.” CoinDesk has obtained a copy of the letter. The package includes four months’ severance for employees who have been at the exchange less than three years or six months for longer-term employees. Employees will have until Oct. 7 to submit a form to begin the process of severance if they are unhappy with Armstrong’s public commitments to remaining uncommitted and apolitical. The letter says that “life is too short to work at a company that you are not excited about.” Subscribe to Blockchain Bites , our daily update with the latest stories. Subscribe By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy policy . DeFi fund Robot Ventures has secured $4 million in funding, led by Galaxy Digital with additional participation by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam’s Paradigm, for a second DeFi-focused fund, called Scout. This seed level venture fund – run by Compound Labs’ Robert Leshner and Gauntlet Network’s Tarun Chitra – will act as a “scout” for larger funds looking for DeFi investment opportunities, CoinDesk’s Brady Dale reports. Chitra said DeFi has a clear advantage over traditional high-end trading desks because of its speed of product creation and innovation. Crypto, copycat A Chinese video site copycat that raised $2.1 million via an initial exchange offering in August 2019 lost a court battle. Dilidili launched in 2015 as a clear mimic of popular Chinese video streaming site Bilibili. Five years later, the Shanghai Yangpu District Court has said Dilidili has infringed the trademark of its Nasdaq-listed rival and must pay a fine of nearly $500,000. Last year a struggling Dilidili raised funds via crypto and launched a community governance ecosystem and token. “The episode is an example of a failed attempt by Chinese companies to use the concept of cryptocurrency and blockchain decentralization to rejuvenize their businesses,” CoinDesk’s Wolfie Zhao reports. New Dex Hybrid blockchain platform Kadena plans to launch a new multi-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) in hopes of wooing business from congestion-plagued Ethereum-based rivals. Called Kadenaswap, the new DEX, unveiled Tuesday and set to debut late this year, will process 480,000 transactions per second, its founder Kadena President Stuart Popejoy claims. Further, Popejoy said Kadena’s existing bridge infrastructure, which currently facilitates cross-chain KDA token transfers via the Pact smart contract language, can easily port over to the coming DEX. CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson reports. Overstock overcomes Overstock.com and former leader Patrick Byrne have prevailed over the dividend-doubting short sellers who cried foul (and filed suit) over the e-commerce site’s issuance of a digital security. Plaintiffs accused Overstock of fraudulently pumping its stock with misleading financial projections, promising to issue a digital dividend to shareholders via its tZERO subsidiary and placing a six month freeze on trading this digital share. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball tossed the federal class action, saying Overstock had a “legitimate business purpose” for issuing its digital security in its “transition from being a traditional online retailer to a blockchain technology business.” Quick bites
