The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Avi Eisenberg was found guilty of fraud and market manipulation for the $110 million Mango Markets exploit in 2022. Eisenberg faces up to 20 years in federal prison and will be sentenced on July 29 in New York. Eisenberg’s defense was essentially “code is law,” in that his scheme to borrow against highly inflated collateral “fully complied” with the protocol. “This ground-breaking prosecution epitomizes this office’s ability to employ innovative methods and cutting-edge law enforcement tools to continue to protect all financial markets," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a Thursday press statement. |
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Worldcoin, the crypto startup from OpenAI founder Sam Altman, is launching a layer 2 on Ethereum designed to prioritize verified humans over AI bots and trading algorithms. World Chain, as it’s known, will grant special treatment like cheaper gas and prioritized blockspace to users who scan their eyeballs in exchange for a "World ID" digital passport. The blockchain, slated for a release this summer, will be based on Optimism's OP stack blockchain-building framework to offer users cheaper fees and faster speeds. |
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Tether, the developer of the world's largest stablecoin, said it is reorganizing into four separate data, finance, power and education divisions to reflect its expansion into other areas of digital assets. Data will handle strategic investment in technology including AI; Finance will cover the USDT stablecoin, which has a $100 billion plus market cap; Power covers Tether's investments in bitcoin mining and "Edu" is the home for educational activities. |
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Binance may be allowed to re-enter India by paying a $2 million fine. The exchange, alongside nine others, were sent "show cause" notices by the Indian government months ago, which removed them from the Apple Store in India. After paying the fine, Binance may return to the country as an Financial Intelligence Unit-registered firm. It is unclear whether OKX, KuCoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex, the other firms sent notices, will also be allowed re-entry. |
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Crypto exchange Kraken is acquiring TradeStation Crypto, the digital asset-focused division of online brokerage TradeStation, to expand its regulatory licensing in the U.S. Florida-based TradeStation Crypto had acquired money transmitter and other types of regulatory licenses in most U.S. states over the past few years before a run-in with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its lending service, which resulted in a $3 million settlement. Parent firm TradeStation announced a withdrawal from crypto. |
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(Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk) |
This year’s halving — the quadrennial slashing of the amount of new bitcoin entering into circulation — may be the most important since the first one around 12 years ago. And yet, despite intense interest in the event, its price impact may be more muted this year than previous halvings. Recently launched protocols, like Ordinals, and an increasingly robust mining sector, mean the effect is expected to be relatively soft. The Bitcoin halving, expected to take place late Friday night, or early Saturday (April 20) comes with heightened expectations. In each previous case so far, the halving preceded massive sector-wide rallies. There is an ongoing debate whether the halving is “priced in,” or whether the reduced amount of bitcoin entering into circulation (this time dropping from around 900 BTC per day to 450 BTC) will create a kind of supply shock that will drive prices up (assuming demand for bitcoin remains constant or increases). There are two economic theories that explain this debate. On one side are those who believe the halving is priced in believe the efficient market theory. They say because the event is known in advance, and everyone shares the same information, it is impossible that bitcoin is currently undervalued. On the other side are those who point to the historic four-year boom and bust cycle in crypto and/or the aforementioned supply-and-demand constraints. Whatever theory you believe, it’s worth noting that this Bitcoin halving is already markedly different. For one, it’s the first time in Bitcoin history that bitcoin’s price has increased before the event. That’s largely because of the launch of nearly a dozen spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S., which have been vacuuming up bitcoin at unprecedented rates. BlackRock’s bitcoin fund, for instance, has the fifth-fastest inflows of any ETF so far this year. “There’s more work to do, but the industry has made significant progress in making bitcoin more accessible and easier to use since 2020,” Miles Suter, Bitcoin product lead at Cash App, told CoinDesk in an email. “While the recent rally has been led by institutional investors, with past halvings we’ve seen a positive sentiment shift in the market that attracts new retail traders; I think the cycle will repeat itself.” Read the full article online... – D.K. @danielgkuhn daniel@coindesk.com |
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Consensys Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters Bill Hughes, will speak at Consensus 2024 this May. Grab your pass here. What’s your pitch to the crypto/web3 space? Why should they want you to win? Two related questions: Do you think the SEC is possibly building a case against the Ethereum Foundation? And also, what is the best argument that ETH is not a security? So with respect to the first question I wouldn't make that argument specifically. I wouldn't say that the SEC is looking to bring a case against any particular party related to Ethereum. The way they've typically gone about declaring a token a security is generally going after some third party, and in the course of that case, calling some other token a security [like naming SOL or ADA in the Coinbase suit]. There are instances in which they've gone after the putative security token issuer [like Ripple], but they don't need to do that. I do think the reporting is robust enough that it can be said with confidence that the SEC is investigating Ethereum. It’s likely they will flip flop as to [ETH’s] categorization under the investor protection laws. I will note that as recently as October 2023, the SEC permitted Ethereum-based futures ETFs to be traded on securities exchanges. That implied the asset the futures contract was based on was not a security. So something has happened between then and now, which appears to have caused the SEC to flip positions. It’s certainly reasonable for the market to be very alarmed at this in part because a lot of people are invested in this ecosystem. The SEC completely changing tracks like this would undo years of established fact about what Ethereum was, at least as the market conceived of it, and is dangerously disruptive to all of it. So it's going to be something that should be closely watched. |
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