| |
| Here is a look at the hits from the week's second Inside Cryptocurrency newsletter: - The official dismissal of the U.S. securities regulator's charges against Ripple executives,
- Binance's new legal statements to support its request for the dismissal of a lawsuit against it,
- Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX's negotiations with three bidders for a potential relaunch of the trading platform, and more.
Enjoy your reading! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | A recent court hearing has revealed that the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX's new management is actively negotiating with three bidders to relaunch the crypto trading platform. The firm will make a final decision about the proposal it plans to proceed with by mid-December. More: - The company has yet to disclose the names of the bidders.
- Potential options include the sale of the entire exchange and a partnership that would help restart the platform.
- The firm also weighs in relaunching the exchange on its own.
- The defunct company outlined its plans for a potential relaunch in September, revealing that it contacted more than 75 bidders seeking to back a possible reboot since May.
- At the time, the firm also stated that it recovered around $7B in assets, with $3.4B denominated in cryptocurrencies, as part of its efforts to repay creditors.
- The new management plans to file a detailed payout plan in December.
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 the former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) used customer funds in FTX to compensate for losses at the sister company Alameda Research.
Q: Would you prefer to trade your crypto assets on a relaunched version of FTX? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, briefly surpassed the $35,000 mark within the day for the first time since May 2022, hitting a nearly one-and-a-half-year high. The popular token's price increased to as much as $35,066, up from $30,655 a day earlier. The surge represents a nearly 15% jump. Relevance: The jump in Bitcoin's price followed a court order on the recent spot Bitcoin exchange-traded (ETF) fund race. A federal appeals court recently ordered the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to re-review digital asset management company Grayscale Investments' application to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF. The order put a previous court order into effect, rejecting the objection of the SEC to the ruling. The previous order pointed out that the SEC's decision is arbitrary and capricious since the agency failed to explain under what conditions it approved the similar products, voting in favor of Grayscale Investments, whose application had been rejected. At the time, Bitcoin jumped in price again, reacting to the news positively. Brands that should care: Several other leading traditional finance (TradFi) giants like BlackRock, WisdomTree, Invesco Galaxy, Valkyrie, and Wise Origin are also currently waiting for the SEC to make a decision on their spot Bitcoin ETF applications. Analysts believe that the approval of such applications could bring significant amounts of capital to the crypto market, causing a stronger price increase in Bitcoin. | | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Sandhill. |  | | IPO Season is back! Recent IPOs from companies like Instacart, Klaviyo, and Arm have opened the door to more startups going public in the coming months. Sandhill Markets opens up access for accredited individuals to invest in these institutional Pre-IPO deals like Stripe, Anthropic, Databricks and Epic Games. How does it work?
Through Auctions. We don’t set the price. You and other investors do: - Databricks last round was at ~$73/share
- Rippling last round: ~$43/share
- Flexport last round: ~$14/share
Bids for all of these start at $1. New auctions every week. This week's auction is Notion 🥳 Check Auctions Prices Here | |
|
| 3 | | Lawyers for Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) have filed new statements to support their previous request seeking dismissal of the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against themselves. In the motion, the exchange's legal team pointed out that the agency's arguments would allow it to regulate any activity related to a derivatives product in the crypto space if accepted by the court. More: - The attorneys also added that the U.S. Congress did not declare the CFTC as the ultimate supervisor of the derivatives products.
- In light of this argument, the statement said the court should reject the regulator's efforts to expand the limits of its legal authority.
- The team further urged the court to dismiss the CFTC's complaint with prejudice.
- The CFTC filed a lawsuit against Binance and CZ in March with allegations of regulatory violations in seven counts.
- The accusations in the lawsuit include executing unregistered futures transactions, providing illegal commodities options, failing to properly register with the derivatives regulator, law evasion, market manipulation, obscuring the location of executive offices, and failing to supervise diligently or implement anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorism financing measures, among other things.
- In July, Binance filed another 49-page motion asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the CFTC overreached the limits of its legal authority, used theories relying on inconsistencies, and made unsound and irrelevant allegations.
- The platform is also under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and federal prosecutors in the U.S.
Zoom Out: - Over the last several months, Binance similarly came under heightened regulatory crackdown in many other countries, including Australia, France, Belgium, and Brazil.
- The company also recently had to withdraw from several markets in the West, such as Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the U.K., and Germany, mainly due to compliance issues.
| | | |
| 4 | | U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres has officially signed an order to dismiss the charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the payment protocol Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Christian Larsen. The move came several days after the SEC filed the request with the court to drop its charges. More: - Torres' signature will pave the way for the trial scheduled for 2024 to be canceled.
- The court is still expected to issue the final verdict within the next year, though the case was declared to be substantially over.
- At the time the SEC filed the request, some legal experts interpreted the move as a case strategy that would allow it to appeal certain parts of the case it lost sooner.
- The legal battle between the two parties started in December 2020 when the SEC accused Ripple and some of its executives of the unregistered sale of nearly $1.3B of XRP tokens in a lawsuit.
- However, in July this year, Judge Torres ruled that XRP is not a security when sold to the general public, which was considered a partial victory for Ripple since the SEC classified XRP as a security in the lawsuit.
- At the time, the regulator requested an interlocutory appeal to the ruling, but the request was denied by the Judge.
Zoom Out: - The SEC classifies all digital assets other than Bitcoin (BTC) as securities in the light of current chair Gary Gensler's approach, claiming jurisdiction over the crypto market.
- Within the last several months alone, many crypto exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, and Bittrex, faced increased scrutiny by the agency over alleged securities law violations.
| | | |
| 5 | | SC Ventures, the U.K.-based banking giant Standard Chartered's venture capital (VC) arm, and Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest bank, have recently completed the first stablecoin transaction on the Universal Digital Payments Network (UDPN). The transaction was conducted between the USD Coin (USDC) and Stasis Euro (EURS) stablecoins as part of a test. More: - The stablecoin swaps that used the two institutions' digital wallets were signed with SC Ventures' private key.
- The UDPN was built to offer interoperability between regulated stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
- The network, launched in January, aims to connect digital currencies, commercial banks, and e-commerce platforms.
- Currently, a number of banks are testing the UDPN for future transactions.
Zoom Out: - A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another reference asset, mostly a fiat currency.
- Customers generally use these assets to trade with different cryptocurrencies without converting their funds back into fiat currencies.
- CBDCs, however, are issued and controlled by a country's government or central bank and backed by the local currency.
| | | |
| 6 | | Spanish crypto broker startup Atani has recently raised $6M in funding in an investment round led by Mexico-based venture capital (VC) firm Cometa. The fundraising round saw participation from several leading VC firms, including JME Ventures, Conexo Ventures, and CDTI. More: - Atani allows investors to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through its platform.
- Users can trade crypto assets on some of the best exchanges, track their virtual asset holdings with just one account, and do in-depth market research on Atani.
- The firm currently caters to more than 300,000 investors across over 200 countries.
- Besides, the platform hosts $1.5B of trading volume every month.
- The startup, launched in 2019, already has a virtual asset service provider license granted by the Bank of Spain, its home country's central bank.
| | | |
| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Improve conversations with clear speech understanding and quick sound processing from Horizon hearing aids. Start your 45-day, no-risk trial today.*
- A 54-year-old medical doctor has pleaded guilty to paying a hitman $25,000 in Bitcoin (BTC) using the dark web to murder his girlfriend.
- Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, has denied rumors that it would restrict Bitcoin withdrawals to $5,000 per week.
- Crypto-focused venture capital (VC) firm Paradigm's co-founder, Fred Ehrsam, has stepped down from his managing partner role at the company, moving to the general partner position.
- Crypto wallet provider Ledger has rolled out a new option dubbed Recover that offers a backup for users' recovery seed phrases on its most popular wallet, Nano X.
*This is a sponsored post. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
Term of the Day Capital expenditure: CapEx is the spending by a company for the acquisition, improvement, or maintenance of long-term assets such as buildings, equipment, or land Question of the Week What's one tool or app that has significantly made your life easier at work? Join the conversation |
INSIDE CRYPTOCURRENCY LEADERBOARD (30 DAYS) |
 | 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 | |
| |
| |
|
| |
Comments
Post a Comment