Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany in The New York Times.
Thoughts tagged "crypto"
Short thoughts, notes, links, and musings by Molly White. RSS
It’s a shame to see Sci-Hub falling for web3 hype and adding a pumpfun memecoin ticker to their webpage. Blockchain-based DNS does not automatically mean “decentralized”, and 3DNS — the company behind .box — is based in the US and would be subject to US court orders.
Someone unaffiliated with Sci-Hub created the memecoin, claiming to be fundraising, but said only 20% of proceeds would go to Sci-Hub. Founder Alexandra Elbakyan herself condemned this.
I guess things changed bc there is now a crypto ticker showing the memecoin price on the Sci-Hub front page, and the donations page also prominently lists it.
Sci-Hub has long fundraised by accepting donations of major cryptocurrencies, which makes sense. But the memecoin seems like a terrible idea, and it’s not clear what they’re even trying to do with the web3 domain.
I recently helped the New York Times with blockchain analysis for this story on the Trump memecoin, where more than 800,000 wallets lost money.
SEC moves to freeze lawsuit against Binance
Although early reporting suggested the SEC would likely look to “potentially freeze some litigation that does not involve allegations of fraud”, the first case the SEC has proposed freezing is SEC v. Binance: a case alleging serious fraud and knowing violation of US securities laws.
The original complaint alleges that not only did Binance lie about trying to prevent fraudulent behavior on Binance.US, one of the primary companies involved in illegal wash trading on the exchange was controlled and operated by Binance’s founder and Binance employees.
Despite claims from the SEC’s new leadership that they intend to provide “sensible, clear rules” without providing a “haven for fraudsters”, this action definitely seems to reveal their true marching orders.
It’s likely that they will soon request to pause ongoing enforcement cases against companies including Coinbase, a company which has alone spent more than $100 million on political lobbying over the past two years.
What could contribute more to government efficiency than by securing lucrative contracts for your crypto donors to implement inefficient technology that is uniquely suited to solving problems you don’t have?
Crypto executive order establishes a digital assets working group to recommend regulatory changes and "evaluate the potential creation" of a digital asset stockpile, prohibits the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and revokes Biden's crypto EO.
My immediate thoughts: this is mostly symbolic. The revocation of the previous EO doesn't do much (because the prev EO didn't do much), and although a lot of people have blustered about banning the creation of a CBDC, no US entity ever really pursued creating one.
Regarding the stockpile, I suspect bitcoiners are going to be upset that it is now a "digital asset" stockpile and not a bitcoin stockpile. Furthermore, echoes Trump's original idea of establishing such a stockpile by merely not selling off cryptos seized by law enforcement.
The people who were most excited about a bitcoin stockpile were mostly looking at the proposals by RFK Jr., Sen. Lummis, etc. who had proposed going out and buying a bunch of BTC for a "strategic reserve" (thus pumping the BTC price), and this does not look like that.
The most meaningful portion of this will likely be the regulatory changes to come, though those were pretty clearly coming regardless of any EO.
In the last issue of my newsletter, I wrote: “Side note: If someone promises you a risk-free 20% annual yield if you just let them hold on to your dollars for you, the risk that that you never see those dollars again is in fact very high.”
Anyway, here’s a post from Justin Sun today:
apparently preventing fraud is “anti-crypto”.
according to this Fortune headline, the SEC going after fraud and deceptive business practices after a company publicly announced they were going to breach a previous agreement with the agency is an “anti-crypto campaign”
This is particularly hilarious given that Fortune has skewered Gary Gensler for failing to go after the FTX, Celsius, and Terra frauds.
Schrödinger’s regulator can’t go after fraud before the company collapses, but if it collapses and the SEC didn’t warn us, they failed.