$42K 😯 Why Is Bitcoin Up?
In today’s edition: ✅ Arbitrum DAO approves $23M, 🚀 Coinbase stock leaps ahead, 💼 Bitcoin ETF hopes fuel rise, 💸 Blast's rise, and more!
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What’s Poppin’?
by James Rubin, Sage Young, and Samyuktha Sriram
Bitcoin Surges Past $40,000 for First Time Since April 2022
Bitcoin breached the $40,000 mark for the first time in 18 months following dovish comments from the Federal Reserve and continued optimism about a potential spot Bitcoin ETF approval in January 2024.
Arbitrum DAO Passes $23M Backfund Proposal
The Arbitrum community passed a proposal to disburse millions of extra dollars towards projects that have been approved but not funded by its STIP.
Signs Increasingly Point to January Approval of Spot Bitcoin ETF Applications
Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart expects the SEC to approve the projects en masse between January 8 and 10.
Risk-Hungry Investors Have Already Locked $650M in Paradigm-Backed Layer-2 Blast
The Crypto Fear and Greed index, which aims to gauge current market sentiment, is at a level not seen since Nov. 2021.
Coinbase Shares Surge 60% in November Amid ETF Optimism, Binance Fallout
The crypto exchange giant was already enjoying a strong month before its rival agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties to regulators last week.
The Chopping Block: How This DeFi Hack Negotiator Gets Hackers to Return Stolen Money
Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the gang sits down with Ogle Crypto, a veteran negotiator in crypto hacks, to discuss the recent KyberSwap exploit, which involved an almost $50 million loss across various chains.
Ogle shares how he initially became a negotiator, including his first case in which he tracked down a group of hackers from Hong Kong when they fled to Great Britain after stealing $24 million in funds. Ogle also shares his negotiation tactics, the typical profile of hackers he encounters today and his empathetic approach towards these often young and financially struggling individuals.
Vivek Ramaswamy is likely the biggest supporter of crypto among the current crop of presidential candidates. But his enthusiasm comes not from an inherent love of the technology or its principles themselves, but a dissatisfaction with what he calls the “administrative state” that’s stifled innovation in a number of important industries, crypto among them.
On this episode of Unchained, Ramaswamy discusses his radical plan to slash the number of people working at federal agencies; his three-point crypto policy plan based on the freedom to code as a protected form of expression, the freedom of financial self-reliance, and the freedom to innovate free from regulatory overreach; why the current orientation of the U.S. government towards regulation of the crypto industry by enforcement isn’t helping anyone; his plans to stabilize the U.S. dollar by pegging it to a basket of commodities that could eventually include Bitcoin; why he’s so opposed to central bank digital currencies; and what industries he thinks could benefit from the use of blockchain technology.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
🔨 Terraform Labs and founder Do Kwon failed to dismiss a Singapore class-action lawsuit alleging a combined $57 million in losses by 375 individuals.
🚫A U.S. Judge threatened the SEC with sanctions for misleading the court in crypto firm Debt Box’s case, citing misleading arguments that led to an asset freeze.
💰 Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) seized $1.5 million in cryptocurrency from the former head of the State Special Communications Service, supported by the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court.
🌐 Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter began its JUP token airdrop, allocating 10% of its supply, amid user discontent over distribution fairness.
🔁 Decentralized exchanges Velodrome and Aerodrome faced their second website compromise in days, but quickly restored their service and secured domains.
🇫🇷 A French court cleared Platypus Finance hackers of criminal charges, ruling that their use of a flawed smart contract did not constitute fraud.
💸 North Korean hacker group Lazarus stole an estimated $3 billion in cryptocurrency over six years, with $1.7 billion plundered in 2022, funding state projects.
🚀 Mantle launched Mantle LSP, a liquid staking protocol, expanding its Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem, six months after the network launch.
🌌 Osmosis and UX Chain proposed a merger within the Cosmos ecosystem, aiming to create a comprehensive DeFi hub with integrated lending and DEX features.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
🌍 Standard Chartered-backed Zodia Custody joins Ripple-owned Metaco's global crypto storage network for institutional digital asset safekeeping and settlement.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
Unchained: What Is Real-World Asset (RWA) Tokenization? A Beginner’s Guide
DL News: Blast’s $650m in deposits would make it third biggest layer 2 — if it existed
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 6%, trading at $41,890
ETH is up 4.8%, trading at $2,260
BTC dominance: 50.5%
Crypto market cap: $1.61T
*All data as of today, 05:45 am ET
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