BUENOS AIRES, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi has launched his own collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), crypto art that was created with his image by digital designer BossLogic and will go on sale on Friday.

"My efforts will be focused on expanding Binance´s international anti-money laundering and investigation programs, as well as strengthening the organization´s relations with regulatory and law enforcement bodies worldwide," Greg Monahan, the new appointee, said in a statement.

But with the benefit of hindsight and significantly more humility, Scaramucci also now recalls at the height of his 'investment arrogance' one of his worst investments to date among a 'series of losers' that all investors will suffer.

The hackers had previously said they did the attack for fun to expose a vulnerability in the platform's digital contracts and it was always their plan to return the tokens. Some blockchain analysts have speculated they just found it too difficult to launder so much stolen cryptocurrency.

Crypto may be a mixed blessing, said US-based adult content creator Deon Glows, helping circumvent some of the restrictions in the banking system but also bringing in customers "seeking anonymity for unethical reasons."

The new round more than triples the broker's valuation from March, when it raised $170 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion. British hedge fund manager Alan Howard, REDO Ventures, LeadBlock Partners and Jump Capital also invested in the current round.

"I prefer the dollar, because we already know it and know it well, there's no problem. But as we don't know (bitcoin), we don't know how it will work," said Jose Guardado, a 48-year-old farmer in the Aguilares municipality north of San Salvador.

On Thursday digital messages shared on Twitter by Tom Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of crypto tracking firm Elliptic, showed a person claiming to have perpetrated the hack had said Poly Network offered him the bounty to return the stolen assets.

Bitcoin has had a volatile year, climbing above $80,000 in March when billionaire Tesla chief Elon Musk announced he had bought $US1.5billion of the world's most valuable cryptocurrency and would accept it as payment for his electric cars.

HAVANA, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Cuba said this week it would authorize and regulate the use of cryptocurrency, a move that could help the Communist-run country skirt U.S.
sanctions that have complicated transactions through the international banking system.

"The purpose of this law is to financially support the alternatives that the state provides, without prejudice to private initiatives, that allow the user to carry out the automatic and instantaneous convertibility of bitcoin to the United States dollar," a congressional document said.