The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Someone put DOOM, the legendary first-person shooter video game first released in 1993, on the Dogecoin network, thanks to a relatively new protocol that lets developers inscribe large amounts of data on-chain. The game was deployed on Doginals —Dogecoin’s answer to the controversial Bitcoin Ordinals protocol — on its 30th anniversary as shareware that can be published without raising legal issues, according to developer @minidogeart. In May, hype for Dogecoin inscriptions bumped transactional volumes to a lifetime high, though activity has since cooled. |
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The Solana Foundation said after over year of work its "token extensions" upgrade, which increases the programmability of tokens, is live. Developers and businesses can now hard-code features into tokens, like whitelisting, automatic transfer fees and confidentiality on transfers, that didn't exist before. Paxos and the Japanese company GMO Trust are both issuing stablecoins on the Solana blockchain that utilizing the expanded functionality. A spokesperson for the Solana Foundation said token extensions give issuers "optionality to comply within a changing regulatory environment." |
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Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) moved more than 19,000 bitcoins from its publicly known wallet Wednesday morning, as investors continue to exit the fund after it converted to an ETF. Since Jan. 11, when spot bitcoin ETFs went live, Grayscale has moved nearly 113,000 bitcoin from its wallet (its website shows GBTC held ~537,000 bitcoin, down ~100,000 BTC). Arkham said the overwhelming majority has gone to Coinbase Prime, likely but not necessarily in preparation for sale. CoinDesk reported Monday the FTX estate has unloaded its 22 million GBTC holding. |
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Brink's, the 164-year-old cash handling firm known for its bullet-proof trucks, has made a strategic investment in crypto custody specialist BitGo, the companies said Wednesday. The financial details of the investment were not disclosed. “As much of our industry, and the financial services industry, prepares for the digital tokenization of potentially a lot of assets, it was very strategic on their behalf to reach out to us,” said BitGo VP Baylor Myers in an interview. “I think Brink’s is going to continue to allocate resources to its office of digital assets.” The partnership with BitGo is not the first Brink’s foray into digital assets; the physical security firm began working with Metaco, a Swiss crypto custody firm, back in 2022. |
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The Takeaway: A Pivotal Case |
(Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk) |
Good news emerged overnight for anyone who cares about the cause of privacy and about the threat of government overreach into our lives. The coders behind Tornado Cash, the mixing service at the center of a wide-ranging dragnet operation orchestrated by U.S. authorities, have raised more than $350,000 for their legal defense. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has given his support and you can raise the fund higher by participating at wewantjusticedao.org. A little recap of the case and why it matters:
In August 2022, Dutch authorities arrested Alexey Pertsev, co-developer of Tornado Cash, an open-source mixer on the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to hide their identity when transacting crypto. A second developer, Roman Storm, a dual U.S. and Russian citizen, was arrested on similar charges in Washington state last summer. A third developer, Roman Semenov, also faces money laundering and sanctions violations charges, but he has yet to be arrested. U.S. authorities claim the mixer has been used to launder more than $1 billion, including millions of dollars stolen by the infamous Lazarus hacking group sponsored by North Korea.
“2024 is the year that will define the rest of my life,” said Storm on X (formerly Twitter), announcing the funding plea. “Honestly, I’m scared. But also hopeful that this community cares with a passion. Please donate towards my legal defense.”
Snowden, who rose to prominence after he exposed numerous then-secret global surveillance operations, asked people to support the Tornado creators and added that “Privacy is not a crime.”
Indeed, it is not. We should have the right to transact freely online, whether it’s to communicate with words or to exchange value in the form of crypto. The operation against Tornado supposes that all money sent through a mixer is necessarily dodgy, when, in all likelihood, only a portion of the $1 billion was laundered and sent to North Korea. Vitalik Buterin, for instance, used Tornado to send funds in support of Ukraine (presumably because he didn’t want to make that donation public).
In effect, as my colleague Dan Kuhn noted adroitly last year, the U.S. government is sanctioning innocent coders in an effort to carry out a national security operation. “So far unable to actually persecute North Korea itself or bring to justice any suspected hackers – who are thought to be funding the wayward country’s nuclear missiles program, no less – the U.S. government is making an example out of a couple cryptocurrency coders,” Kuhn said.
But the Tornado case is about more than privacy and even government overreach. It’s about whether governments should be able to stop transactions over open-source protocols that nobody controls. The reality of this, ironically, is proven by the very case itself. Even if Pertsev, Storm and Semenov go to prison for a dozen years, the smart contracts they created will still operate, just like Bitcoin continues to operate without a CEO or recognized founder.
Authorities here claim that code creation means coders are responsible for everything that happens using that code. This isn’t and cannot be true. If it was, then the creators of, say, Gmail, would be responsible for every message of hate and violence sent over that service. In fact, the creators of Tornado decided to smash their keys way back in 2020, relinquishing their ability to control the use of the code they are supposed to be responsible for. They are being prosecuted for something they cannot do anything about.
The new legal defense campaign received support from prominent handles on X, including Pablo Sabbatella, of security firm Blockfence, Ameen Soleimani, the founder of SpankChain, and Ryan Sean Adams, co-founder of Bankless. Adams put the case for supporting the Tornado dissidents best: “People think this a battle for crypto – it's not. It's a battle for our fundamental freedom to write software and keep our data private. We lose this, maybe they come for https next.” Read the article on the web. – Ben Schiller
@btschiller ben@coindesk.com |
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BITB: The Low-Cost Spot Bitcoin ETF Backed by Crypto Specialists With spot ETFs eroding the barrier to bitcoin entry for many, the question has shifted from whether you can allocate bitcoin into your portfolio to whether you should. In evaluating the historical market data for both traditional market and BTC prices, bitcoin has demonstrated a potentially decisive role and substantial benefit to the traditional portfolio. Read more here. |
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Consensus is the biggest and most established hub for everything crypto, blockchain and Web3. Join us at the 10th annual Consensus May 29-31 in Austin, Texas for dialogue, discovery and dealmaking alongside developers, investors, startups, executives and more. Register before prices increase on Jan. 25 to save $1,600 on registration! Plus, use code NODE15 for an additional 15% off. Get your pass. |
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