Ian Allison

Ian Allison is a senior reporter at CoinDesk, focused on institutional and enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He won the State Street Data and Innovation journalist of the year award in 2017, and was runner up the following year. He also earned CoinDesk an honourable mention in the 2020 SABEW Best in Business awards. His November 2022 FTX scoop, which brought down the exchange and its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, won a Polk award, Loeb award and New York Press Club award. Ian graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He holds ETH.

Ian Allison

Latest from Ian Allison


Finance

BlackRock Wants to Follow Bitcoin ETF With an Ethereum ETF. Marketing It Might Not Be So Simple

Larry Fink has been talking up a spot ether ETF, but index provider CF Benchmarks sees a conundrum when it comes to selling that product.

Larry Fink (Will Ess for Pixelmind.ai/CoinDesk)

Finance

OKX’s Middle East Business Wins Dubai Virtual Assets License

OKX Middle East Fintech FZE will be offering local currency trading pairs such as AED/BTC, AED/ETH, and more in the coming weeks, said OKX General Manager for MENA Region Rifad Mahasneh.

Dubai (Wael Hneini/Unsplash)

Finance

StarkWare CEO Uri Kolodny Steps Down Due to Family Health Issue

StarkWare president Eli Ben-Sasson will become CEO, and Kolodny will continue to serve on the StarkWare board of directors, the company said on Thursday.

StarkWare co-founders President Eli Ben-Sasson and CEO Uri Kolodny (StarkWare)

Markets

Grayscale Claims Bragging Rights for First Spot Bitcoin ETF to Begin Trading

Grayscale's conversion of its $27 billion bitcoin trust into an ETF was finally approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday

Grayscale ad in NYC (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)

Finance

Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane Back New Tokenization Platform Libre

Freshly out of stealth, Libre is also working with Nomura’s Laser Digital unit and has been built using Polygon’s chain development kit by tokenization pioneer Avtar Sehra.

Libre CEO Avtar Sehra (Libre)

Finance

In Bitcoin ETF Battle, Grayscale Is Bringing 'a Gun to a Knife Fight'

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust's (GBTC) $27 billion of bitcoin and $350 million of daily volume gives Grayscale an advantage versus BlackRock and other wannabe rivals, according to Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas.

Michael Sonnenshein (CoinDesk)

Finance

Grayscale Announces 1.5% Fees for Its Proposed Bitcoin ETF Uplist

Grayscale, which has some $27 billion in assets under management (AUM), said it was adding Jane Street, Virtu, Macquarie Capital and ABN AMRO Clearing as authorized participants (APs), in an updated S3 filing on Monday.

Michael Sonnenshein (CoinDesk)

Finance

BlackRock, Other Potential Bitcoin ETF Providers Reveal Fees

BlackRock said its fee will start at 0.20%, rising to 0.30%.

BlackRock's corporate office in New York, New York. (Jim.henderson/Wikimedia Commons)

Finance

Goldman Sachs Eyeing Bitcoin ETF Role Via BlackRock and Grayscale: Sources

Goldman Sachs is in talks to play the key role of being an "authorized participant" for BlackRock and Grayscale's bitcoin ETFs, if the SEC approves them, according to people familiar with the situation.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon (Lester Cohen/Getty Images)

Policy

Nexo's Money Laundering Investigation in Bulgaria Closed Due to Lack of Evidence: Report

The Bulgarian Prosecutor's Office is reported to have said that it found “no evidence of criminal activity,” adding that “no evidence of tax offenses or computer fraud was found against the defendants, either.”

Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev speaks at Consensus 2019. (CoinDesk archives)