The Battle Begins ⚔️ SEC vs. Do Kwon
In today's edition: 🎙️ New podcast on the regulatory landscape, ☠️ the SEC sues Do Kwon, 🤔 Binance's $400M movement, and more!
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New Episode Today!
Is Gary Gensler on a Mission to Put Crypto Down for Good?
Mike Selig, counsel at Willkie Farr, has plenty to talk about this week, with a slew of actions from Gary Gensler’s SEC putting the future of crypto in the U.S. in question. From Kraken’s custodial staking settlement to action against BUSD issuer Paxos, the former CFTC law clerk voices concern that coordination among regulators could choke off the industry’s growth. Hear how Selig thinks Gensler’s SEC is working to bring crypto markets “within the regulatory perimeter.”
Show highlights:
whether regulators are using the FTX case to go against crypto as a whole
what likely caused the NYDFS action against Paxos for BUSD
whether there’s a coordinated effort to undermine the crypto markets
how issuers could argue that stablecoins aren’t securities
why there are limited implications for staking as a whole after Kraken’s SEC settlement
how the regulators are “discouraging access and participation in crypto markets at the banking level”
the differences between Gary Gensler’s SEC and that of his predecessor, Jay Clayton
how the Gensler administration is skeptical of governance and DAOs
why the SEC’s crypto custody rule proposal is refreshing, albeit not perfect
What’s Poppin’?
by Samyuktha Sriram
SEC Sues Do Kwon and Terraform Labs
The U.S. SEC has accused Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon of fraud in a new lawsuit.
SBF Could Face Jail Time if Internet Access Is Not Curtailed
Judge Lewis Kaplan signalled his willingness to send Sam Bankman-Fried back to jail if his access to the internet and electronic devices isn’t sufficiently restrained.
Binance US Moved $400M From Silvergate Bank to CZ’s Trading Firm: Report
Binance moved $400 million from its account at Silvergate Bank to a trading firm managed by Changpeng Zhao in the first three months of 2021.
Avalanche-Based DeFi Platform Loses $8.5M in Exploit
Avalanche-based stableswap platform Platypus DeFi suffered an exploit on Thursday and may have potentially lost access to the bulk of the stolen funds.
In Other News…✍️✍️✍️
BlockFi is seeking to dismiss the bankruptcy case of Emergent Fidelity Technologies, which is 90% owned by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and holds 56 million shares of Robinhood.
Compute North, a crypto mining firm, had its final reorganization plan approved by a federal judge and has "satisfied" all $250 million of its secured debt through 13 asset sales.
The Ethereum network's Zhejiang testnet was put through its paces prior to the upcoming Shanghai-Capella update and some technical issues were identified, but these will not delay the implementation of the upgrade.
The CFTC accused Vista Network Technologies and its CEO of deceiving customers by obtaining over $7 million in bitcoin and ether.
The legal team representing Avraham Eisenberg, who hacked Solana-based protocol Mango Markets, opposed a lawsuit that aims to recover the stolen funds.
Coinbase believes that its Coinbase Custody Trust Co. will still meet the SEC's standards for a "qualified custodian" even if new rules for investment advisers to securely store cryptocurrency for their clients are put in place.
A report filed by Bahamian liquidators revealed that FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamian entity of the cryptocurrency exchange, commingled customer and company funds.
Authorities in Norway recovered $5.9 million from the Axie Infinity Ronin hack.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
ZkSync, an Ethereum scaling solution, launched its "fair onboarding alpha" phase, allowing selected projects to deploy on its mainnet, with its existing network "zkSync 2.0" renamed to "zkSync Era".
The $$$ Corner…
Sending Labs, a web3 communications initiative, received a $12.5 million investment in a seed round led by Insignia Venture Partners, MindWorks Capital, and Signum Capital.
Web3 infrastructure startup Nefta secured $5 million in a seed funding round.
CleanSpark, a Bitcoin miner, acquired an additional 20,000 mining machines, bringing the total number of machines it purchased during the bear market to over 46,500.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 3.3%, trading at $23,769
ETH is up 1.29%, trading at $1,633
BTC dominance: 40.54%
Crypto market cap: $1.13 trillion
*All data as of today, 5 am ET
Recommended Reads
Ingonyama on zero knowledge and gaming
Haseeb Qureshi on the lawsuit against TerraForm Labs:
Crypto lawyer Gabriel Shapiro on the lawsuit against TerraForm Labs:
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