A new survey has revealed bleak insights into the apparent willingness of retail investors to follow digital asset advice from the social media accounts of celebrities and influencers. According to a Morning Consultant survey of 2,200 U.S. adults, 45% of crypto-holding respondents indicated they would be likely to seek exposure to a digital asset if it is endorsed by a celebrity, compared to just 20% of participants overall. There were some more promising results, with three-quarters of crypto investors indicating they were likely to invest based on a family member or friend’s recommendation while 81% would invest in response to advice from a financial advisor.

The team behind the design of NBA Houston Rockets player John Wall’s nonfungible token may have ripped off one of the backgrounds directly from the popular online game Fortnite. Wall first announced he planned to release a line of “Baby Baller” nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, on Tuesday to raise $100,000 for charity and the “Ballers community.” However, once he posted a preview of the tokenized artwork on Twitter, social media users were quick to notice that the background appeared to be lifted from Fortnite. The image, available on eason 5 of Fortnite from Epic Games, shows a basketball court adjacent to a building near coconut trees. Though Wall’s preview included one of the Baby Ballers on the court spinning a basketball on his finger, many commented that the artwork was a seemingly lazy attempt to get into the NFT game.

Last week, some former users of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Cryptsy received a notice informing them of a new turn in the ongoing class settlement process. Authorized by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the document states that those who were defrauded in the 2016 collapse of the digital finance platform may be entitled to receive money from additional recovery. Cryptsy was a crypto exchange that went bust in January 2016 following months of user-reported issues with withdrawing funds from the platform. The court later found that Cryptsy founder Paul Vernon had stolen millions of dollars worth of customers’ digital assets before fleeing to China. Later that year, a group of the exchange’s users initiated a class action against the company and its founder, while what was left of Cryptsy went into receivership. The court-appointed receiver began to liquidate various assets associated with the defunct company, amassing some $1.5 million by June 2017 to be distributed between the victims.

Digital asset manager Cobo has raised $40 million to advance institutional pathways to decentralized finance products, offering compelling evidence that more Asia-Pacific investors are seeking secure access to the DeFi market. The Series B financing will be used by Cobo to develop the first DeFi-as-a-service, or DaaS, infrastructure, which allows institutions and their customers to access decentralized finance products in a compliant manner, the company announced Wednesday. Specifically, the capital will be deployed to acquire regulatory licenses and ensure that anti-money laundering guidelines are followed on all products. Cobo further explained that DaaS gives institutions more secure exposure to DeFi smart contracts without the need to understand market complexities.

Trading app Robinhood has opened up a waitlist to test a crypto wallet for users to hold their tokens. According to a Wednesday blog post, Robinhood plans to start testing a digital wallet feature on its app that enables users to send and receive cryptocurrencies in October. The move may encourage more Robinhood users to use the app for crypto trading, as it currently only allows them to buy crypto with United States dollars and trade on the platform — users can’t deposit or withdraw in crypto. Robinhood did not specify which tokens the digital wallet would support, but the app currently provides commission-free trading for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Ethereum Classic (ETC). The company said it planned for the wallets to have security features, including identity verification, multi-factor authentication, and email and phone verification “to keep coins safe from hacks and other threats.”

Tokenized sport collectibles projects have raised almost $1 billion in funding in the space of a week. On Sept. 22 Dapper Labs — the firm behind the Flow blockchain and the widely popular tokenized basketball collectibles, NBA TopShot — announced a further $250 million in a funding round led by tech-focused hedge fund Coatue. As reported by Cointelegraph on Wednesday, French-based NFT soccer trading card game developer Sorare raised $680 million in Series B funding led by Japanese fintech giant Softbank. The funding round raised the valuation of the firm to $4.3 billion.

Non-fungible token company Bookblocks.io has partnered with a New York-based organization to help women in Afghanistan have access to education amid the Taliban takeover. Bookblocks.io announced it would be releasing a non-fungible token, or NFT, on Oct. 5 with the proceeds given to Women for Afghan Women, an organization which helps provide women access to education and vocational training in both Afghanistan and the United States. The artwork, inspired by American author Louisa May Alcott, features half a woman’s face covered by a single butterfly wing with the quote “nothing is impossible to a determined woman.” When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in the 1990s, they banned education for almost all women and girls. History has practically repeated itself as the extremist Islamist group seized control of the government following the withdrawal of the U.S. military last month, only advising men and boys to return to school so far. The country’s Deputy Minister of Education Zabihullah Mujahidwhile has cryptically said the Taliban plans to give women and girls access to education “as soon as possible.”

El Salvador has made global headlines with its president's controversial introduction of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender — a move that has sparked dissent from many citizens and was met with skepticism by the International Monetary Fund. A new survey suggests that despite these developments, most El Salvadoreans still know little about the veteran cryptocurrency and even less about its smaller-market cap counterparts. Research conducted by the São Paulo-based agency Sherlock Communications suggests that 54% of Salvadoran respondents chose ‘none’ when asked which cryptocurrency they knew best out of a list of five leading coins. While 40% chose Bitcoin over the other listed cryptos — Ether (ETH), Bitcoin, Dogecoin (DOGE) and EOS — the survey did not seek to probe the level or depth of the knowledge these respondents have of the coin. In correspondence with Cointelegraph, Patrick O’Neill, director of Sherlock Communications, commented:

The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan is partnering with Ripple to pilot a central bank digital currency in the mountainous kingdom. In a Wednesday announcement, Ripple Labs said Bhutan’s central bank would be taking advantage of the company’s private ledger to issue and manage a digital ngultrum. According to Ripple, the move was motivated by the Royal Monetary Authority’s, or RMA’s, effort to improve cross-border payments, expand financial inclusion for its residents, and “extend its commitment to sustainability as the only carbon-negative country in the world.” With a population of roughly 800,000, Bhutan’s gross domestic product amounted to $2.5 billion in 2020. Although many news outlets report on the country’s "gross national happiness” as an alternative to traditional finance, thousands of Bhutanese citizens do not have access to a savings account or credit card. The RMA said that it plans to increase financial inclusion in the country by 85% by 2023 by making payments with a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, “easier, faster and more affordable.”

The Biden administration reportedly intends to nominate Kazakhstani-American attorney, academic and former policy advisor Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) — the institution that oversees the U.S. banking sector. Omarova has levied criticisms at both crypto assets and the legacy banking sector in the past, having once pledged to “end banking as we know it”. She has characterized cryptocurrency as “benefiting mainly the dysfunctional financial system we already have.” According to a Sept. 22 report from Bloomberg citing three anonymous sources “familiar with the nomination process,” Omarova could be nominated as soon as this week.