Tether: “Shadowy Intermediaries”? 👻
In today's edition: 🎙️ New episode of The Chopping Block!, 🙊Tether's backing companies, 🤯 Binance and Gary Gensler have a history, 🦄 Uniswap fights Apple, and more!
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The Chopping Block: Is Coinbase’s Base ‘the Binance Smart Chain for White People’?
In-person at ETH Denver, crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest crypto news. This week, Kyle Samani, scion of Solana, joins the show.
Show highlights:
why Coinbase decided to launch Base, a layer 2 on Ethereum and whether developers are building on it
whether it will be a permissioned, KYC’ed chain that requires users to reveal their identities
Kyle's opinion on the allegedly fraudulent operations of FTX, in which his firm, Multicoin Capital, was an investor
how due diligence changed in the investing space after the collapse of FTX
what the future of Paxos looks like now that its primary source of revenue, BUSD, was impacted
why Kyle thinks the latest nearly 20-hour outage of Solana is different from previous outages
how Jump, a VC firm, was able to “hack back” $150 million in previously stolen assets after a court order
Catch up on Friday’s episode:
Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs Are Hot and Getting Hotter. What's the Hype About?
How Could HyperPlay Benefit Users? 🎮
Weigh in in the comments on what you think is the future of web3 gaming.
What’s Poppin’?
by Samyuktha Sriram
Tether Backers Used Falsified Documents to Get Bank Accounts: Report
Entities behind Tether and Bitfinex used shell companies and fake sales invoices to remain in the global banking system, according to a report from the WSJ.
Binance Tried to Hire SEC Chair Gary Gensler in 2018: Report
High-ranking Binance executives met with the SEC chairman about becoming an advisor to the crypto exchange.
Apple Won’t Green Light Uniswap’s Crypto Wallet
Uniswap’s new crypto wallet is stuck in limbo after Apple rejected the final version of the app in December.
Silvergate Shuts Down Crypto Payments Network
After processing over $100 billion worth of transfer volume, the Silvergate Exchange Network is no longer operational.
Learn With Unchained✍️🤓
What Is Margin Trading? The Leverage Game of Crypto
by Siddhant Kejriwal
Margin trading is a high-stakes financial strategy notorious for producing both parabolic bull market gains and volatile, market-crashing losses.
In Other News…✍️✍️✍️
A bankruptcy judge ordered Silvergate Bank to release $9.9 million to BlockFi after the bank said it was "reevaluating its business."
Despite regulatory hurdles and the recent closure of its staking services, Kraken is moving forward with its plan to launch its own bank, according to Marco Santori, the Chief Legal Officer of the exchange.
Multicoin Capital's hedge fund lost 91.4% in 2022 due to the impact of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, according to the firm's annual investor letter.
The U.S. Department of Justice proposed that Sam Bankman-Fried's bail conditions should restrict his internet use, including the use of a non-internet-connected flip phone, and a laptop connected only to approved websites, due to suspicions of attempted witness contact.
Bybit discontinued USD deposits via bank transfer due to "service outages" from a partner, but deposits via Advcash or credit card purchases are still available.
On Sunday, Yuga Labs is auctioning off 300 Bitcoin NFTs, with 288 available for sale and 12 reserved for contributors, donations, and philanthropic efforts, starting at 3 pm PT and lasting for 24 hours.
Lido's LDO token dropped 10% due to rumors spread by Bankless’ David Hoffman of a Wells Notice served by the SEC to the largest Ethereum staking service.
An SEC official stated that Binance.US is operating as an unregistered securities exchange in the U.S. and that the sale of VGX tokens by Voyager Digital violated federal securities laws.
Gemini reported a phishing campaign targeting UK and European users, believed to have resulted from two third-party vendor incidents, but the company says that no account information or systems were impacted and all customer accounts remain secure.
Gitcoin community members voted to seed initial liquidity for its Staked ETH Index (gtcETH) amid growing interest in liquid staking.
Uniswap DAO established a committee to assess potential crypto bridge providers.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
ConsenSys, an Ethereum blockchain software firm, is launching a public testnet for its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) on March 28.
The $$$ Corner…
Coinbase acquired One River Digital Asset Management to form the foundation of its investment advisory service for institutional clients.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down .13%, trading at $22,401
ETH is down .57%, trading at $1,564
BTC dominance: 40.7%
Crypto market cap: $1.06 trillion
*All data as of today, 5 am ET
Recommended Reads
Toghrul Maharramov defends Optimistic Rollups
Emily Parker on why the US should care about crypto
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