The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Uniswap Labs will pay $175,000 to settle charges it offered illegal leveraged and margined commodities transactions, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Wednesday. Uniswap developed a user interface and a set of smart contracts that let users trade tokens on the platform, the CFTC said. This included tokens developed by third parties – meaning people who don't work for Uniswap – that exposed investors to margined or leveraged returns against the price of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). "During the Relevant Period, the digital assets traded on the Protocol through the Interface included a limited number of leveraged tokens, which provided users approximately 2:1 leveraged exposure to digital assets such as ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC), both commodities in interstate commerce," a CFTC filing said. Uniswap did not register as a designated contract market with the CFTC, and was not allowed to offer leveraged trading products as a result, the CFTC said. |
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The U.S.-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) had a rough day on Tuesday as growth concerns and a sell-off in Nvidia (NVDA) dented market sentiment. The 11 ETFs registered a cumulative net outflow of $287.8 million, the largest single-day tally since May 1, when the funds bled over $500 million, according to data tracked by Farside Investors. Fidelity's FBTC led the outflows, registering $162.3 million in withdrawals. Grayscale's GBTC registered an outflow of $50.4 million and BITB and ARK lost $25 million and $33.6 million, respectively, with others accounting for the rest of the cumulative outflow. BlackRock's IBIT drew zero for the second straight trading day. Bitcoin's price fell over 2.7% to $57,500 on Tuesday, reversing Monday's bounce. The losses came after the U.S. ISM manufacturing PMI printed below 50, indicating a continued contraction in the activity in August. The data revived growth fears, weighing over risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. |
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Trump DeFi Insiders Set For Big Upside |
World Liberty Financial, the new crypto lending platform promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons, advertises itself as a way of "putting the power of finance back in the hands of the people" and a solution to the "rigged" traditional finance system. CoinDesk has obtained a draft white paper for the project. It reveals that the vast majority of the power promised by World Liberty Financial will be concentrated in the hands of a select few insiders: 70% of WLFI, the project's "governance" crypto token, will be "held by the founders, team, and service providers." The remaining 30%, according to the white paper, will be distributed "via public sale," with some of the money raised from that also going to project insiders – though some will be reserved in a treasury "to support World Liberty Financial's operations." A 70% allocation to insiders is unusually high. Ethereum's Genesis block reserved a combined 16.6% of ether (ETH) for the Ethereum Foundation and early contributors (though co-founder Vitalik Buterin later said they received even less). The three companies behind Cardano, another popular blockchain project, retained a combined 20% of ADA at its launch. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, is estimated to hold a little over 5% of the total supply. Asked if a 70% allocation to insiders is high, one source who advises early stage projects replied: "LMAO. nice joke ser." World Liberty Financial has not finalized its plans yet, according to a person close to the project. |
Cantor CEO: TradFi Wants Bitcoin |
Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick has said traditional financial (TradFi) companies "want to transact in bitcoin" as a new asset class but are being held back by the existing requirements of U.S. regulators. Lutnick said in an X post on Tuesday that bitcoin (BTC) was an "outsider to the TradFi community [that's] only now dipping its toe into global finance." "If a bank were to hold your bitcoin, they would have to set aside their own money equal to that amount, sort of 'in jail'. That's why they don't hold it. But if the regulatory environment was good, you will see all the traditional financial companies go head first into bitcoin," Lutnick said. As well as being CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which unveiled its plans to open a bitcoin financing business in June, Lutnick was also picked by the pro-crypto Republican candidate Donald Trump to chair his presidential transition team. |
The Takeaway: Nigeria's Crypto Thaw? |
This is a guest post by Noelle Acheson, former head of research at CoinDesk and Galaxy Digital: The past couple of weeks have seen a couple of big crypto-related developments in Nigeria, the very same country which until recently had a complete ban on platform crypto trading. One is that Nigeria (population: 233 million) is preparing a crypto tax proposal — if the government is planning to tax it, then the government is planning to support its use. Although, as we saw with India, tax policy can be wielded to dampen crypto activity. Another is that the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has granted its first official licenses to two crypto exchanges, Busha and Quidax. It has also admitted five crypto asset startups (Trovotech, Wrapped CBDC, HXAfrica, Dream City Capital and Blockvault Custodian) into a pre-registration regime designed to “test run” digital asset business models. This is a big about-face for a government that has so far seemed determined to dampen crypto interest. In 2021, it banned commercial banks from servicing of crypto firms . While financial institutions still can’t trade or hold crypto themselves, the ban was removed last December and initial licensing requirements were established. No real change It hasn’t been smooth sailing for the industry since then. Far from it. In February, access to Nigerian exchanges was reportedly blocked (in some cases temporarily), and officials detained two Binance executives that had flown to Nigeria to help sort out issues with the tax authorities. One later escaped, but Tigran Gambaryan — a U.S. citizen — is currently still in a Nigerian jail, charged with money laundering and currency speculation (the charge of tax fraud was recently dropped). In April, four of Nigeria’s leading fintech platforms were blocked from onboarding new customers because of their use by crypto traders, and over 1,100 bank accounts linked to crypto traders were frozen. Not long after, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser classified crypto trading as a national security issue. According to officials, the crypto market is largely to blame for the country’s currency woes, not the eye-watering inflation, fiscal mismanagement and social unrest. The “big stick” approach seems to be softening, however. In May, the agency appointed Emomotimi Agama, a self-declared crypto and fintech “enthusiast,” to the post of Director General. Finally, there seem to be moves to encourage crypto ecosystem development, while insisting on regulation. Why the change of heart?
Read the full op-ed here.
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