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| Hey Insider! Welcome to the first Inside Cryptocurrency newsletter of the week! Today's issue covers some of the most prominent stories hitting the headlines in the crypto market at the beginning of the week, such as Yuga Labs' decision to cut ties with OpenSea, Elon Musk's praises for crypto-advocate presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the former FTX CEO's request from the court to be released from jail five days a week, and more. Enjoy your reading, and if you find this newsletter useful, do not forget to share it with your friends and colleagues! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | The bankrupt crypto exchange FTX's former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), has asked the court to allow him to be released from the jail five days a week to work on his defense with his lawyers while preparing for his upcoming trial. The request came nearly a week after SBF's $250M bail was revoked by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. More: - Judge Kaplan revoked the bail after he found that the 31-year-old former executive tried to influence two witnesses in the case by speaking to the press and violating the bail terms.
- Following the bail revocation, SBF was taken from house arrest at his parents' home in California to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn pending trial.
- Lawyers for SBF said the former CEO could not properly review the huge number of documents in his case while he was in prison.
- Lawyer Christian Everdell stated that if the court allows him to meet his lawyers and use an internet-enabled laptop at the courthouse, the process would gain speed.
- Prosecutors initially expected SBF to be moved to the Putnam County Correctional Facility in New York, where he can use a laptop for internet access and review legal materials, but the idea was refused by prison officials.
- The former CEO will appear in court in October to defend himself against a bunch of charges, including money laundering and misappropriation of customer funds, to which he pleaded not guilty.
Zoom Out: - FTX, previously the third-largest crypto exchange, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022, with all the 130 entities under the roof of FTX Group.
- The downfall followed the claims that SBF used customer funds in FTX to compensate for losses at the sister company Alameda Research.
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What the numbers say: Crypto data website CoinGecko recently revealed the top 10 most popular crypto hashtags on TikTok by analyzing the number of views in the posts containing crypto-related hashtags. The results have shown that "#crypto" took place on the top, with 30 billion views. In the top five, "#crypto" was followed by "#bitcoin," "#nft," "#cryptocurrency," and "#btc," respectively. The research also pointed out that the 10 most popular crypto-related hashtags surpassed 100 billion views on TikTok in total as of Aug. 17. Relevance: On the flipside, another analysis from dappGambl in April showed that 37% of crypto videos on TikTok were misleading and did not feature a financial disclaimer. The research also found that the misleading content creators had 145,000 followers on average, and the deceptive videos had more than 189 million views in total. Besides, the analysis pointed to Bitcoin (BTC) as the most mentioned crypto asset across the misleading TikTok content, with a 34.9% rate. Brands that should care: Over the last few years, several other social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, have also become a preferred venue for the crypto community. The rising popularity of these platforms across the community prompted some institutions worldwide to make moves to prevent the potential risks of the misleading content. Most recently, the European consumer group BEUC presented a joint complaint against social media giants that allegedly host misleading crypto ads. | | | |
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| 3 | | Yuga Labs, the firm behind the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks NFTs, has announced that it would gradually halt its use of the NFT marketplace OpenSea's SeaPort smart contract as of February 2024. The move came as a response to OpenSea's decision to lift its royalty enforcement tool, Operator Filter. More: - The announcement was made by CEO Danieal Alegre on X, formerly known as Twitter.
- Alegre said they believe in protecting creator royalty fees so that creators can be properly compensated for their work.
- The decision will apply to all upgradable contracts and any new collections.
- SeaPort marketplace smart contract is used for the sales of Ethereum-based NFTs.
- Operator Filter allowed creators to prevent their collections from being sold on rival platforms where the royalty fees are optional.
- The feature will be disabled on OpenSea as of Aug. 31, though the royalty fees will be enforced until Feb. 29, 2024, for the collections already using the tool.
- The move will make the NFT royalty fees fully optional for traders on secondary sales on OpenSea.
Zoom Out: - Yuga Labs has also previously blocked several other marketplaces like Blur and SudoSwap that make creator royalty fees optional.
- NFT royalties refer to the payments made to the original creator of an NFT for every secondary sale of the digital collectible, and they usually account for a certain percentage of the sales amount, typically 2.5% to 10%.
- These fees have lately become a source of tension between marketplaces and NFT creators, as the leading trading platforms like OpenSea and Blur adopted policies that make higher creator payouts optional for the collectors.
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| 4 | | Renowned CEO Elon Musk has praised U.S. crypto-advocate presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on X, formerly known as Twitter. In a recent post, the famous CEO said Ramaswamy is the youngest-ever Republican candidate and very promising. More: - Musk made his comments on Ramaswamy by responding to a snippet of a recent interview with the politician.
- The Republican candidate has recently become most famous for his support for digital finance and cryptocurrencies.
- During his appearance at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, Ramaswamy announced that he would accept campaign donations in Bitcoin (BTC), becoming the second candidate to do that in U.S. history after the Democratic politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.).
- At the time, Ramaswamy directed his supporters to a QR code that offers users a payment gateway with various payment options, including BTC and satoshi, or 1/100,000,000 of a full BTC, when scanned.
- Those donating Bitcoin to the crypto-friendly politician's election campaign are awarded an NFT.
- RFK Jr. and Ramaswamy's move was recently followed by Francis Suarez, who also started accepting campaign donations in Bitcoin.
Zoom Out: - Elon Musk and his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Twitter, are quite famous for their influence on the crypto market.
- Many candidates, such as Ramaswamy, Suarez, RFK Jr., and Ron DeSantis, have recently put the crypto to the core of their campaigns while preparing for the 2024 U.S. election race as U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and federal agencies increased their crackdown on the industry.
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| 5 | | The U.S.-based NFT startup Recur has announced that it would halt its operations, citing unforeseen challenges and shifts in the business landscape. The decision came despite the firm's NFT partnerships with leading brands like Hello Kitty and Nickelodeon. More: - Over the next several months, Recur users will gradually become unable to access some core features, including the ability to withdraw NFTs, cash out stablecoin balances, and trade NFTs on Recur-hosted marketplaces.
- Recur's platform was used for creating in-game assets, loyalty programs, and NFT-based digital collectibles.
- More than 380,000 NFTs have been minted through Recur to date.
- Metadata and media of Recur's NFTs will be migrated to a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network, the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), built by Protocol Labs.
- Other assets will be hosted on Filecoin's network.
Zoom Out: - In 2021, Recur raised $50M in a Series A funding round led by Digital at a valuation of $333M.
- At the time, the platform's investors included some big names, such as NFT creator Gary Vaynerchuk, crypto exchange Gemini's twin co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin.
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| 6 | | Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has recently deposited 600 Ether (ETH), accounting for around $1M, to the largest U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase. The transfer was revealed by the data from Ethereum blockchain scanning website Etherscan. More: - Buterin has yet to disclose the main reason for the loaded transfer.
- According to Etherscan's data, 600 Ether in question was sent to another account before being transferred to Coinbase.
- The move followed an around 10% price decline in Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, over the last week.
- The transfer also came amid a broader crypto market downturn in which more than $1B of positions were liquidated in the centralized crypto exchanges (CEX), such as Binance, Coinbase, and OKX.
Q: What is your prediction about the main reason behind this move? Share your thoughts with us in the comments box. | | | |
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- Crypto exchange Gemini has filed a brief, reiterating its request from the court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against its lending service, Earn.
- Popular NFT marketplace OpenSea has halted its support for BNB Smart Chain to align its resources with the most promising efforts.
- The collapsed Terra ecosystem's official website has been hacked, being replaced by a phishing website.
- Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has reportedly started facing troubles with fiat withdrawals in Europe due to issues related to the local payment processor.
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 | Staff Writer | | Doga is a tech and science editor who has been writing news for nearly 10 years. She worked for leading tech platforms and mainstrem media channels as an editor and presenter throughout his career. Then, she carried her know-how to more than one platform. She is a part-time cat lover and binge-watcher, and also fond of science, space, and emerging tech. She always has a story to tell. She is a bit addict to the laughter and -unfortunately- the '90s culture. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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