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

Crypto Anti-Money Laundering Specialist Notabene Raises $14.5M

The Series B funding round was led by DRW VC, with participation from funds managed by Apollo, Nextblock, ParaFi Capital, and Wintermute.

Notabene CEO Pelle Braendgaard (Notabene)

Finance

Decentralized Social Media Firm Lens Eyes Massive Scale-Up

Version 3 of Lens introduces flagship features like verifiable information feeds and curated content groups.

Stani Kulechov, Lens founder, at Consensus 2019 (CoinDesk archive)

Finance

New Global Dollar Stablecoin Backed by Robinhood, Kraken, Paxos and Other Crypto Heavies

The Global Dollar Network, whose participants will earn yield for helping foster adoption of USDG, also includes Anchorage Digital, Bullish, Galaxy Digital and Nuvei.

Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)

Finance

AI Data Collection Startup Sapien Raises $10.5M Seed Funding Led by Variant

The firm's founders, who have worked in the blockchain space for years, are using crypto to incentivize an army of people who can earn from labeling data for AI models.

Left to right; Trevor Koverko, Sunny Ray, Reed Ponak, Rowan Stone, and Tyler Koverko. (Sapien)

Finance

Binance Unveils 'Binance Wealth' for Elite Customers

The initial focus will be on Asia and Latin America, Binance said.

Two large stacked blocks displaying Binance's logo at a trade show.

Finance

DeFi Cover Provider Nexus Mutual Backs New Crypto Insurance Broker Native

Nexus Mutual is also behind a new insurance alternative on Coinbase’s L2 network called Base DeFi Pass.

Inside the Lloyd's of London insurance market. (Lloyd's of London)

Finance

Newly-Qualified Crypto Custodian Balance Aims to Bring ETF Assets Held in the U.S. Back to Canada

Until now, Canada’s crypto ETF assets have been held under sub-custody arrangements in the U.S. with firms like Coinbase and Gemini.

Canada's regulatory situation is both clear and more conservative than in the U.S. (Sebastiaan Stam/Unsplash)

Finance

FCA-Regulated Crypto Trading Firm Portofino Technologies Sees Staff Exodus

Co-founder Alex Casimo and CFO Jae Park were fired in July, which triggered a number of departures from the market making firm.

Jobs

Finance

U.K. Pension Giant L&G Looks to Enter Crypto's Tokenization Space

London-based L&G, which has $1.5 trillion in assets, is evaluating ways to join other big traditional players like BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Abrdn that are offering blockchain-based money-market funds and the like.

City of London, England (Shutterstock)

Finance

Binance, FalconX and the Curious Case of 1.35M Missing Solana Tokens

Crypto prime broker FalconX didn't know who the SOL tokens belonged to until crypto exchange Binance came asking for them years later.

Mysterious transactions and reconciliation head-scratchers happen in traditional finance, too, but crypto could be uniquely prone to a situation of this sort. (Wikimedia Commons)