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Crypto market maker Wintermute was quick to distance itself from a new round of funding by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, co-founders of bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, echoing similar sentiments from the crypto community. Zhu and Davies partnered with Mark Lamb and Sudhu Arumugam, co-founders of crypto exchange CoinFlex, to raise $25 million for a new exchange called GTX, a platform where users can trade crypto, stocks and debt claims on bankrupt companies like FTX. The crypto community was quick to convey its skepticism. Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy was one of the prominent critics. "If you are investing into coinflex/3ac 'exchange' you might find it a bit more difficult to work with Wintermute in future (on the relationship building side)," he said in a tweet on Monday.

The digital yuan, or e-CNY, a token issued by the Bank of China, has been used to buy securities for the first time according to a local media outlet on Monday. Now investors can use the e-CNY to buy securities using the Soochow Securities mobile app. China's is further along than most other countries in developing a central bank digital currency. Last week, the country included the e-CNY in cash circulation for the first time. Around the same time, it also added a function to its e-CNY payment app that allowed users to make payments offline, according to media outlet Yicai Global.

BNB Chain, launched by crypto exchange Binance, has completed the burn of over $500 million worth of its native BNB tokens as part of a broader program, it said Tuesday. Token burn refers to the process of permanent deletion of coins from their circulating supply. More than 100 million BNB, or half of its total supply, are intended to be removed from circulation through a burning process and to eventually keep only 100 million BNB in circulation. BNB was up nominally in the past 24 hours, trading at $300 on Tuesday morning.

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows the number of bitcoin held in addresses owned by over-the-counter (OTC) desks.
• The tally has increased by 70% to 5,293 BTC since Jan. 11.
• "Higher OTC Desk holdings imply that institutional investors' demand for bitcoin has increased as these OTC trading desks are usually used by investors who perform large-scale transactions that need high liquidity on a bilateral basis," André Dragosch, head of Deutsche Digital Assets, said.
• Private wealth managers, high-net-worth individuals or hedge funds wishing to convert large amounts of cash into crypto assets seamlessly typically use OTC desks.

– Omkar Godbole

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