📃 Will This Bill Kill Crypto? ⚰️
In today's edition: Senators Warren and Marshall propose a new crypto bill, FTX executive's alerts to Bahamian authorities, MetaMask partners with PayPal, Maple Finance drops Solana, and more...
On the Pod…
How Will the FTX Collapse Affect Silvergate? A Bear and a Bull Debate
What’s Poppin’?
Warren-Marshall Bill Targets Self Custody Crypto Wallets, Validators and Miners
by Samyuktha Sriram
Senators Warren and Marshall have proposed bringing crypto under the same rules as banks, brokers and traditional money service businesses.
FTX Executive Ryan Salame Outed SBF to Regulators Before Bankruptcy
by Samyuktha Sriram
Ryan Salame, co-CEO of Bahamas-based FTX Digital Markets, alerted Bahamian regulators of potential fraud before he left for Washington D.C.
MetaMask Allows US Users to Fund Wallet With ETH Using PayPal
by Samyuktha Sriram
MetaMask expects its integration with PayPal will “drive more successful on-ramp transactions.”
Maple Finance Drops Solana Lending to Focus on Ethereum
by Samyuktha Sriram
Crypto lending platform Maple Finance has decided to stop lending on the Solana blockchain.
On Unchained Premium 💎
How to Rate Stablecoins with Economist Garett Jones
I interviewed Garett Jones, an economics professor at George Mason University. Garett is building a rating agency to analyze and rate stablecoins, with the goal of providing everyday users and investors more insights.
In Other News…✍️✍️✍️
The White House declined to comment on whether it would return campaign donations by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to President Joe Biden or whether other elected officials should return similar donations.
During the Senate Banking Committee hearing about FTX, Senators raised concerns about Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao warned staff that the cryptocurrency market is still in a "crypto winter" and that they should prepare for a difficult period ahead.
Lawyers for FTX's new leadership urged a bankruptcy judge to not grant the lawyers for FTX Digital Markets access to the computer systems of that Bahamas-based subsidiary, suggesting that the Bahamian government and FTX executives were involved in illegally shifting assets to avoid the US bankruptcy process.
BitGo prevented Alameda Research from selling off $50 million worth of wrapped Bitcoin before the firm declared bankruptcy.
Bankrupt lender Celsius Network is attempting to gain $7.7 million from Voyager Digital's estate as the legal status of Celsius's assets is questioned by judges.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Twitter stock influencers Zack Morris and PJ Matlock, the founders of Atlas Trading, and other alleged co-conspirators of stock manipulation, claiming that they made around $100 million in a three-year period.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported that nine individuals had been charged with perpetrating two crypto-based Ponzi schemes: IcomTech and Forcount.
Magic Eden, the largest NFT marketplace on Solana, is introducing a rewards program for NFT traders, providing them with discounts, free NFTs, and other perks.
CleanSpark, a bitcoin miner, reported significantly less than expected revenue of $26.2 million in the three months ending in September, missing the average estimate of $27.1 million.
Compound DAO and other defendants are being sued by plaintiffs for allegedly selling unlicensed securities and causing the plaintiffs to suffer damages by holding COMP tokens valued under $100.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
Curve Finance, the largest decentralized stablecoin exchange, is set to deploy on zkSync's mainnet, taking advantage of Ethereum scaling and privacy capabilities offered by the ZK-rollup technology.
The $$$ Corner…
B. Riley Financial wants to provide Core Scientific with a $72 million financing package to help the company remain viable and avoid bankruptcy. In response, the company's shares skyrocketed 94%.
Spaceport, a web3 intellectual property protocol, closed a $3.6 million pre-seed round co-led by Arca, Decasonic and Crit Ventures.
I spoke with Andy Slavitt, host of the In the Bubble podcast and a crypto skeptic, about the deception behind crypto and its use cases.
What Do You Meme
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down .63%, trading at $17,717
ETH is down 2.55%, trading at $1,289
BTC dominance: 38.19%
Crypto market cap: $892 billion
*All data as of today, 5 am ET
Recommended Reads
Coin Center’s Peter Van Valkenburgh on The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act
“The bipartisan act is the most direct attack on the personal freedom and privacy of cryptocurrency users and developers we’ve yet seen.”
“How Crypto Can Avoid the Next FTX” by Shlomit Azgad-Tromer and Matthew Green
“Rather than waiting for regulators to write rules that may not be effective, the industry should harness existing cryptographic tools to enforce compliance and demonstrate good faith. These technologies can ensure that users and regulators can continuously audit the health of various financial entities to prevent trouble before it manifests.”
Former FTX employee Dani Cloud on working in FTX:
⛓️ Join Unchained Premium to get access to:
Behind-the-scenes interviews, in which I talk with crypto experts and entrepreneurs to learn all about the latest developments in the industry.
A subscriber-only Telegram group, where you can talk with the other members of the Unchained community, build a network in crypto, and talk directly with me and the Unchained team!
And now, a new offering: transcripts of all the shows, for subscribers only.
If you liked what you read:
👍 follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and/or Medium
🎧 subscribe to Unchained on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora or wherever you get your podcasts
and/or 📚buy my book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze