United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has announced plans to expand into the Asia-Pacific region.

In a June 19 blog post, Gemini said it planned to increase the number of staff at the firm’s Singapore office as well as establish an engineering division in India. The crypto exchange hinted at larger plans for expanding into the region in the next 12 months.

The expansion plans come amid Gemini facing a lawsuit filed in January by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over Gemini Earn. The exchange’s product — offered in partnership with Genesis — allowed users to lend crypto assets to Genesis, which the SEC alleges violated U.S. securities laws.

Gemini seemed to be exploring different markets amid the crackdown on many crypto firms in the United States. In April, the exchange took the first steps to become a restricted dealer registered with Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission, one of the country’s major financial regulators. In May, the Winklevoss twins announced they had chosen Ireland as a base to grow the firm’s services across Europe.

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas has denied FTX debtors’ claims and expresses concern that the investigation has been impeded.

According to a statement released on Jan. 3, the SCB has had to correct material misstatements made by John J. Ray III, the representative of the United States-based FTX debtors, in press and court filings.

The document stated that the Chapter 11 Debtors had “publicly challenged” the Commission’s calculations of digital assets transferred to digital wallets under the Commission’s control in Nov. 2022.

It argued that these statements were based on “incomplete” information and the debtors did not do due diligence by requesting information from the Joint Provisional Liquidators.

The statement added that the FTX CEO John J. Ray III made public statements alleging that the Commission instructed FTX to “mint a substantial amount of new tokens” under “oath” during a court filing before the United States House of Financial Services Committee.

The Chapter 11 Debtors have also alleged that the digital assets controlled by the Commission in the trust of FTX customers and creditors were “stolen,” without providing any substantiated bases for these claims.

The Commission shared concern that its investigation is being compromised by the Chapter 11 Debtors’ refusal to allow the Court Supervised Joint Provisional Liquidators access to FTX’s AWS System.

Aptos Foundation announced  that it had rewarded its early network participants with free APT tokens. 

The foundation shared that it had allocated an estimated 20 million APT tokens, representing 2% of its initial total supply of 1 billion APT, to about 110,235 eligible participants. The airdropped tokens had an estimated value of about $200–$260 million USD based on the token’s market price at the time the drop took place.

According to the blockchain company, eligibility for the airdropped tokens was based on two categories: Users who completed an application for an Aptos Incentivized Testnet and users who minted “an APTOS: ZERO testnet nonfungible token, or NFT.Only the original minters of these NFTs were eligible, not the current or secondary owners of the NFTs.

The company shared that Aptos tokens could only be claimed via the official Aptos Community page with additional information provided in the eligibility email sent out by the company. They cautioned users to exercise extreme caution and only trust official sources and channels to avoid being defrauded.

Aptos Foundation’s first airdrop to its community members comes at a time when the project has been under much scrutiny by members of the crypto community on Twitter.