In today's edition: 🎙️ New episode on the US regulatory landscape, 📄 Coinbase goes after the SEC, 🧑⚖️ a South Korean ruling on Terra, 📱 SBF's phone, and more!
Two lawyers, Josh Klayman, head of digital assets at Linklaters, and Marc Boiron, chief legal officer at Polygon Labs, offer their takes on the SEC’s recent crypto crackdown. They share what they heard from SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s Congressional testimony, whether this crackdown was inevitable or sparked by FTX, and why a proposed change to the definition of an exchange could be an existential threat for DeFi in the U.S.
The funds stolen in the Ordinals Finance rug pull have already been sent to coin mixer Tornado Cash.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
Terraform Labs cofounder, Daniel Shin, was indicted in South Korea for capital markets law violations, along with nine others; prosecutors froze $185 million in assets connected to the indicted individuals.
A Gibraltar court instructed crypto exchanges Binance, Crypto.com (disclosure: a sponsor of Unchained), Bitstamp, and Kraken to cooperate with Globix liquidators in tracing $43 million, with Binance ordered to freeze transfers and the other exchanges required to identify suspect wallet owners.
House Republicans proposed draft legislation that would shift regulatory authority over payment stablecoins from the SEC to federal and state bank and credit union regulators.
Binance reportedly lifted restrictions imposed on Russian users over a year ago, allowing them to use locally issued Visa and Mastercard cards for deposits on the crypto exchange, according to crypto news site Forklog.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned three North Koreans for their support of the Lazarus Group, a hacking team notorious for crypto thefts linked to North Korea's weapons program, citing their involvement in cryptocurrency activities and connections to networks laundering stolen funds.
Arbitrum started distributing its governance token allocations to eligible decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) within its ecosystem, allocating 1.13% of the total 10 billion token supply, worth over $145 million, to qualified projects.
Crypto influencer Ben Armstrong aka ‘Bitboy Crypto,’ involved in the FTX lawsuit, told a federal court that a tweet he posted was a joke, not harassment or threat, while the judge advised him to be cautious with future communications.
European Central Bank (ECB) board member Fabio Panetta acknowledged that political opposition from European Parliament members could still prevent the issuance of a digital euro, despite the bank's plans to decide on its implementation later this year.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
Binance introduced Binance Sensei, an AI-powered ChatGPT chatbot for its Binance Academy, aiming to enhance user engagement in crypto education.
The $$$ Corner…
Thetanuts Finance, a decentralized finance platform, secured $17 million in funding led by Polychain Capital, Hyperchain Capital, and Magnus Capital.
Rise Works, a crypto-native payroll processor, raised $3.8 million in a seed funding round co-led by Sino Global Capital and Polymorphic Capital.
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