Crypto Weekly 9/8/24
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...
Crypto weekly is co-authored by @serdave
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Crypto Market Cap ($2.0T): -5% / +13%
- BTC ($54,337): -6% / +28%
- ETH ($2,272): -7% / -1%
- SOL ($129): -1% / +26%
- UNI ($6.33): +11% / -13%
- POL* ($0.37): -8% / -61%
- Tether Mkt Cap ($118B): 0% / +29%
- USDC Mkt Cap ($34.9B): 0% / +43%
- BTC / ETH Dominance: 53% / 14%
*ex-MATIC
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- A disappointing US jobs report caused a risk-off sell-off in the market, effecting assets like Bitcoin and equities. Link.
- SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda suggested the agency create a new form of its S-1 specifically for registering cryptocurrencies. Link. Link.
- The SEC warned FTX’s bankruptcy estate it could challenge the legality of paying back claims in cash or dollar pegged stablecoins, rather than in-kind distributions of crypto assets. Link. Filing.
- Ethereum has significantly underperformed gold and silver YTD. Gold and silver are up 23% and 19% respectively, while ETH is flat. Link.
- Monthly fees earned by DeFi protocols dropped almost 25% in August to $288 million. Link.
- Trading volumes on centralized crypto exchanges increased 6.6% in August to $1.2 trillion, with Binance capturing almost 40% of volumes. Crypto.com led in North America with volumes of $96 billion. Link.
- The Bitcoin network hash rate, a measure of the compute needed to mine Bitcoin, hit an all time high 746 EH/s despite BTC trading below $60,000. Link.
- Polygon’s migration of its MATIC token to POL went live. MATIC holders on Polygon PoS will be upgraded automatically, while MATIC holders on Ethereum, Polygon zkEVM, or centralized exchanges must migrate their tokens to POL. POL is the native gas and staking token on Polygon’s proof-of-stake blockchain. Link. Tweet.
- The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, the country's largest financial regulator, has rejected 87% of crypto company applications. Link.
- Uniswap Labs paid $175,000 to settle charges with the CFTC in connection with its offering of “illegal digital asset derivatives”. Link. Link. Press Release.
- Telegram CEO Pavel Durov criticized the French government for pursuing “misguided criminal charges”. Durov was arrested in France over alleged criminal activity on the messaging app, and the platform’s lack of cooperation with law enforcement. Link. Original Post.
- A Nigerian court postponed a bail decision for Binance's compliance lead, Tigran Gambaryan, who has been under arrest since February. He faces charges of money laundering and currency manipulation related to Binance’s activities in the country. Link.
- Crypto friendly United Texas Bank received a cease and desist order from the Federal Reserve over its risk management and AML policies for digital assets. Link. Order.
- Robinhood will pay the state of California $3.9m to settle claims that the platform prevented users from withdrawing digital assets to external crypto wallets from 2018-2022. Link.
- Investment manager VanEck is shutting down its ETH Futures ETF on September 16. The decision was related to the approval of VanEck's spot Ethereum ETF. Link. Announcement.
- Ripple’s CEO said it was very close to launching its US dollar-pegged stablecoin. He also said the company would not be seeking an IPO, given the SEC’s hostile stance towards crypto. Link.
- Polymarket's election prediction data has been integrated into Bloomberg Terminal. Link.
- Former Binance CEO CZ is barred for life from running the company, but will retain his majority ownership. Link.
- The FBI issued a warning to firms associated with the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs of new threats from North Korea to steal customer funds using elaborate social engineering tactics. Link. Announcement.
- Matter Labs, the company behind Layer-2 protocol ZKsync, cut 16% of its workforce. Link. Link.
- Galois Capital, the hedge fund most famous for predicting and profiting off of Terra’s collapse, settled with the SEC over charges of holding crypto assets on non-qualified custodians such as FTX. Galois shut down in February 2023. Link. Link.
- A leaked whitepaper for Donald Trump’s DeFi project "World Liberty Financial" reveals it’s built on Aave and features a non-transferrable governance token. There is no public launch date for the project. Link.
- Ethereum L2 Arbitrum announced the mainnet launch of Arbitrum Stylus, a blockchain that supports smart contracts in languages like C/C++ and Rust. Link.
- The FTC warned consumers about increasing fraud at Bitcoin ATMs, citing $66 million lost in scams in the first half of 2024. Link.
- WazirX, the Indian crypto exchange that was hacked for $234 million in July, said at least 43% of customer funds were unlikely to be recovered. Link.