Today in Crypto: FTX Raises $400 Million; Meta Joins Crypto Open Patent Alliance; Coinbase Accepts Two Solana Ecosystem Tokens

Crypto exchange FTX has raised $400 million in a Series C round, giving it a $32 billion value – more than the Nasdaq exchange or Twitter’s value, a report from CoinDesk says.

With the new funding, FTX plans to add to its global expansion and obtain licenses in new markets.

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO, has said recently that the company was looking into acquisitions and other things to enter new countries.

“FTX will look to continue interacting with regulators to facilitate access to digital assets in a safe and compliant manner,” Bankman-Fried said in a statement today. “We look forward to working alongside our investors to achieve our mission and continue our tremendous growth throughout 2022 and beyond.”

Meanwhile, Meta will be joining up with the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a group of tech and crypto companies led by Jack Dorsey’s Block, the payment company formerly known as Square.

Meta is among over 12 other companies who are now pledging not to enforce their “core cryptocurrency patents” through joining COPA.

That’s defined by COPA general manager Max Sills as any tech allowing for “the creation, mining, storage, transmission, settlement, integrity, or security of cryptocurrencies.”

Meta has recently been winding down its Diem project, which would’ve debuted its own digital coin, due to regulatory concerns.

Finally, CoinDesk reports that Coinbase has begun accepting inbound transfers of two Solana ecosystem tokens – FIDA and ORCA.

The tweet announcing this said the expansion will add the SPL tokens to Coinbase’s token lineup. The SPL tokens are Solana’s ERC-20 equivalent.

Coinbase used to stick to the layer-one coins and tokens built atop the Ethereum blockchain.

Orca and Bonafida are decentralized exchanges for Solana’s assets, including wrapped tokens.

ORCA, already in the green on Monday (Jan. 31), rallied minutes after the Coinbase announcement – then it gave back a lot of the gains later on in the day. Meanwhile, FIDA dropped, the CoinDesk report says.