This Week on Crypto Twitter: CZ Says “Ignore FUD” After CFTC Lawsuit, Matt Damon Cashes in on Crypto.com Commercial
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
In the crypto media this week, the single biggest news was the announcement that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – America’s lead derivatives regulator – is sue crypto’s top exchange by trading volume, Binance, along with CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, allegedly for unlicensed derivatives trading.
The trial does not end there. The exchange is also accused of having inadequate anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) controls, knowingly evading or helping US clients avoid regulators, and even trading against its own clients.
The new lawsuit was not a big talking point on crypto Twitter, likely since the industry already knows that federal enforcement actions against Binance at this point are like water off a duck’s back. The exchange is also in the midst of ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigations.
When the news broke, Zhao simply tweeted “4” — which, as he made clear in a tweet back in January, is short for “Ignore FUDfake news, attacks, etc.”
Crypto analytics company Nansen conducted an on-chain survey and saw that Binance customers weren’t too intrigued by the news either.
Meanwhile that day, the worlds of Gucci and Bored Ape Yacht Club collided in an announcement from the fashion house. Just last year, Gucci started accepting crypto in some stores.
CryptoSlate data analyst James Stratten pointed out that Bitcoin’s hash rate growth over the past three months has been the third highest adjustment in the past five years, although the reason behind it mystified him. Hashrate is a metric to determine the combined computing power of the entire Bitcoin network, and it generally rises as more and newer mining rigs are deployed.
Polygon launched the long-awaited main grid for the new Polygon zkEVM network on Monday. Polygon zkEVM is an Ethereum scaling solution, meaning it processes transactions faster and cheaper than Ethereum’s own mainnet, easing the load on the world’s most popular high-performance smart contract-enabled blockchain. Ethereum’s creator Vitalik Buterin sent a hidden message in the first transaction.
That wasn’t all he did…
British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey became the latest addition to the cryptoverse this day.
Michael Saylor, the founder and chairman of the cloud software company MicroStrategy, felt good. He had paid off a large loan and bought more Bitcoin. His company’s total holdings today have an estimated value of 3.8 million dollarsalthough last year his war chest contained less BTC and was worth over $6 billion.
Tether CTO Paolo Ardino shilled some USDT on Wednesday.
Gabor Gurbacs, founder of the community-focused crypto-loyalty platform PointsVille compared the recent results of the two leading stablecoins and found two completely different stories.
Coinbase engaged in some political crypto propaganda on Wednesday, comparing the different regulatory climates of different first-world countries to suggest that US lawmakers are lagging behind.
Meanwhile, US Senator Elizabeth Warren launched her anti-crypto re-election campaign with some propaganda that day.
A video of Matt Damon explaining his decision to do the widely panned Crypto.com ad made the rounds on Thursday. In it, he tells a loving anecdote that redeems the crypto exchange a little.
A Twitter account dedicated to IRL collectibles posted some news about French soccer player Kylian Mbappe’s Sorare NFT. Judging by the responses, many were polarized on this question.
Finally, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Friday came out in opposition to a widely circulated open letter calling for a halt to AI research. The petition has so far been signed by Twitter/SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak along with many technicalvocational schools in both industry and academia.
