What you need to know today in crypto and beyond 

June 4, 2021

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Today's must-reads

Top Shelf

HEART BROKEN: Coinbase retail users can now sell, buy and store dogecoin on the exchange, the company said yesterday in a blog post, and to stir interest it is running a $1.2 million dogecoin giveaway promotion. Doge traded downwards, but so did most other cryptocurrencies after Elon Musk tweeted an emoji associated with breakups and the bitcoin hashtag. 

SWINGING SINGAPORE: Alibaba and Google are among the 300 firms to apply for Singapore's payments and crypto exchange licenses. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) unveiled a comprehensive regulatory framework for companies handling activities relating to digital assets and is now working to speed up the application process. 

RANSOM WHERE? A top U.S. lawmaker wants answers from firms that decided to pay out cryptocurrency to cyber-ransomers, concerned the action sets a “dangerous precedent.” U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) sent letters to Colonial Pipeline and CNA Financial asking for documentation outlining how these victims decided to pay the perpetrators and any communications they had with the attackers or government agencies. She set a June 17 deadline.

DIVERSIFIED DAOS: DAO-led DeFi projects are preparing for the next crypto winter by selling off governance tokens and diversifying their treasuries. CoinDesk’s Brady Dale dives deep. “My goal would be a lot of these treasuries are relatively diversified so they have income to sustain operations,” Accelerated Capital said. “Hopefully, we get them all sorted out before the next bear market.”

BLOCKCHAIN BANK: JPMorgan Chase is on the hunt for six crypto-savvy candidates to fill a growing number of digital asset crossover jobs. The planned compliance, regulatory affairs and payments positions appear to stretch beyond JPMorgan’s Onyx blockchain project, an effort mostly concerned with wholesale banking. 

–D.K.

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“Bitcoin’s killer app is as a clearing layer for everything else.”

–Paxful CEO Ray Youssef, on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover.”

A message from CoinDesk

CoinDesk's new reward token soft-launched at Consensus 2021, but $DESK lives on. Attendees can still cash in at the $DESK store, or hodl and accumulate. Join the Telegram group for announcements and airdrops.

What others are writing...

Off-Chain Signals

• "Bitcoin will be remembered for pushing central banks to adopt digital money," CIO of $2.1T Amundi asset manager said, adding that the crypto is a “farce” and regulators will ultimately “stop the music.” (Reuters)
  
  
• FTX follows Gemini and Binance by launching an NFT marketplace (Decrypt)
  
  
• Anchorage offers ETH-backed loans with America's 10th oldest bank, BankProv. Anchorage will hold client ETH as collateral while BankProv extends lines of USD credit. (The Block)
  
  
• Chinese government mouthpiece says people have the freedom to trade bitcoin — at their own risk (The Block)
  
  
• Both Yearn Finance and Convex Finance are making Curve Finance’s CRV token a key part of the foundation in their revenue models. (The Defiant)
  
  
• FTX paid an e-sports team $210 million to include FTX in its name (NYT)

–D.K.

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Putting the news in perspective

The Takeaway

The Ransom-Ware

“I am extremely concerned that the decision to pay international criminal actors sets a dangerous precedent that will put an even bigger target on the back of critical infrastructure going forward.”

– U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), in letters to Colonial Pipeline and CNA Financial, pressing them to explain why they paid off ransomware attackers.

Or, as Rudyard Kipling might have put it...

It is always a temptation to crooks in far-off nations
  To hack into a corporate and to say: –
"All your data is now ours, it’s as good as behind bars
  Unless you pay us sats to go away."

And that is called asking for bitcoin,
  And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the bitcoin
  And then you'll get rid of the bane!

It is always a temptation for a lazy corporation,
  To poorly guard its systems and to say: –

"Our employee just got phished, now our stakeholders are miffed.
  We will therefore pay you sats to go away."

And that is called paying the bitcoin;

  But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid them the bitcoin
  You never get rid of the bane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of corporations,
  For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when firms are conscripted to pay up or stay encrypted,
  Perhaps we should require them to say: –

"We never pay anyone bitcoin,
  Even if our data is lost;

For the name of that game is extortion and pain,
  And the nation that plays it is toast!"

Now, for serious reading on this deadly serious topic, see CoinDesk’s recent news coverage…

• Top US Lawmaker Presses Big Companies on Ransomware Crypto Payments
• Biden Administration to Probe Crypto Use in Ransomware Attacks
• Enforcing KYC, AML Laws Is Key to Reducing Ransomware Attacks: Task Force
• Bitcoin Wallet Used by DarkSide for Ransom Payments ID’d by Elliptic
• Ransomware Attacks Growing More Profitable: Chainalysis
• Colonial Pipeline Paid Almost $5M Crypto Ransom Soon After Attack: Report

...a variety of informed perspectives from our opinion section….

• David Z. Morris: Banning Crypto to Stop Hackers Is Like Banning Cheese to Stop Mice
• Boaz Sobrado: Bitcoin Is Aiding the Ransomware Industry
• JP Koning: Ban All Ransomware Payments, in Bitcoin or Otherwise

….and listen to this podcast:

As a chaser, here’s a fun musical rendition of Kipling’s “The Dane-Geld”:

Have a good weekend folks.

–Marc Hochstein, executive editor, CoinDesk

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The Chaser...

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