Today in Crypto: Ukrainian Pharmacy Partners with Binance to Offer Crypto Payments, Sushi Shutting Down Two Products

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Payments news

• Major Ukrainian pharmacy chain ANC Pharmacy has partnered with Binance Ukraine to enable crypto payments via the contactless crypto payment service Binance Pay. The payment option is also available at ANC Pharmacy-operated stores including Kopiyka and Shara, said the announcement.

DeFi news

• Decentralized finance (DeFi) application Sushi decided to shut down two products, according to chief technology officer Matthew Lilley. “We made the decision to deprecate Kashi (Sushi Lending) and Miso (Sushi Launch Pad). 1. Kashi for a number of reasons, had a number of design flaws, ran at a loss, and had a lack of resources to dedicate to it. 2. MISO, had a lack of resources,” he said, and added: “We have the plan to launch successors of these products in the future once we have the resources to dedicate product teams towards them, but believe that requires focusing entirely on the breadwinner at the time being which is inarguably the DEX.”

Legal news

• The former chair of the South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb, Lee Jung-Hoon, was reportedly found not guilty by the Seoul Central District Court, according to Korea Economic Daily. Lee was accused in October 2018 of fraudulently violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes while negotiating for Bithumb’s acquisition.
• The Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) has denied the claims made in press and court filings by the FTX debtors representative and CEO John J. Ray III. Among other things, Ray made public statements alleging that the Commission instructed FTX to “mint a substantial amount of new tokens” and did so under “oath” during a court filing before the United States House of Financial Services Committee. “Such unfounded statements have the impact of promoting mistrust of public institutions in The Bahamas,” it said.

Regulation news

• The Governor of the central Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) Abdellatif Jouahiri announced that the draft law regulating the crypto market in Morocco is “ready” and will be presented to the various stakeholders within the market in the following days, the Morocco World News reported.  The Moroccan central bank will soon initiate a series of discussions with various players within the ecosystem prior to the implementation of the crypto-regulating document, including the Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC) and the Insurance Supervisory Authority and Social Security (ACAPS).

Gaming news

• Layer 1 blockchain Aptos is gearing up to launch its first Web3 game titled ‘Gran Saga: Unlimited’, built in collaboration with NPIXEL, a major game developer in South Korea. Per a press release, this will be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and will be the first gaming title from NPIXEL’s metaverse ecosystem METAPIXEL to utilize Web3 and blockchain technology. Users will have the opportunity to earn in-game assets and mint gaming equipment as NFTs, which they will be able to trade inside marketplaces built on the Aptos Network. Testing for ‘Gran Saga: Unlimited’ will begin in Q1 of 2023 ahead of the global public release in Q2.

Career news

• Zodia Custody has appointed former Bitstamp chief and Starling Bank co-founder Julian Sawyer as its new CEO, Finextra reported. Zodia is a subsidiary of the UK investment bank Standard Chartered and is backed by Northern Trust.