With crypto prices cooling double-digit percentages during the week as fall approaches, it’s fair to say that any respite from crypto’s ongoing winter this year has been fleeting.
A recent wave of high-profile attacks and bankruptcies have put the industry on red alert. It’s not just thieves and insolvent crypto lenders who are sounding the alarm, it’s also Western governments – specifically the US and the Netherlands and their policies on Tornado Cash, a transaction privacy tool that works by mixing users’ crypto into a common pool before sending it off . to the intended destination.
Last week, the US Treasury Department decided to ban US citizens from using Tornado Cash or trading with Ethereum addresses linked to Tornado’s community. By that Friday, the Dutch Tax Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) arrested a “suspected” Tornado Cash developer. Advocates for the crypto community and privacy rejected the move as a declaration of war against coders.
Neeraj Agrawal, director of communications at crypto think tank Coin Center, announced that his organization is challenging the US Tornado sanctions in court.
Sam Canavos, a legal fellow at the DeFi Education Fund, reached out to the FIOD for more information on the arrest of the Tornado developer and shared the responses he has received.
The DeFi Education Fund followed up with a tweet the next day, saying the FIOD statement “raises more questions than it answers.”
🚨 New info from the Dutch agency that arrested tornado cash developer Alexey Pertsev
We wanted to get this *disturbing* statement from FOID out there (which raises more questions than it answers) while we hunt for more info + consider next steps
In a similar story, Chinese blockchain journalist Colin Wu tweeted that crypto exchange FTX had frozen the account of a user who was sending crypto to another blockchain privacy mixer called Aztec Network. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried responded by stressing that, as far as he knows, no accounts have been frozen.
To be clear – this gets garbled. We continuously monitor transactions for AML compliance, and do enhanced due diligence on some transactions, but that does not mean that any accounts were frozen.
Aztec Network responded later in the week saying that it is “take active measures” to ensure that the service is not used by money launderers and other criminals.
Falsified announcements
On Tuesday, internet security researchers at ESET Labs tweeted about a fake Coinbase job listing. The PDF file is actually a Trojan horse deployed by the North Korean state-sponsored cybercriminal hacker group Lazarus.
On Thursday, Twitter user @tier10k posted a warning that a fake notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission was also online.
Finally…
Ethereum Name Service kicked off the week by announcing that over the past three months, the number of .ENS domain name registrations has doubled. The Ethereum Name Service allows people to register memorable domains for their crypto wallets, rather than being limited to the unwieldy string of random numbers and letters that typically represent a blockchain address.
We are about to pass 2,000,000 ENS registrations.
We passed 1,000,000 about 90 days ago, which took five years.
On Wednesday, Twitter user @mochains shared news about new crypto regulation in Canada. According to the announcement he shared, the Canadian government has selected Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash as “unrestricted cryptocurrencies.” All other crypto will be subject to a cap of $30,000 per year.
new regulatory changes in Canada for crypto
you are allowed to buy as much btc/eth/ltc/bch as you want but any other crypto has a limit of 30k net buy per year
Later that day, Twitter CEO Brian Armstrong asked an important question.
It’s a hypothetical we hopefully won’t face. But if we did, we’d go with B I think. Must focus on the bigger picture. There may be a better alternative (C) or a legal challenge which may also help to achieve a better result.
— Brian Armstrong – barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) 17 August 2022
Also that day, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Federov shared a balance sheet revealing what his country has spent its crypto donations on since the beginning of Russia’s invasion.
With $54 M raised with @_AidForUkraine, we have provided our defenders with military equipment, body armor, medicine and even vehicles. Thanks to the crypto community for support since the start of the full-scale invasion! Donation by donation to the big win. Report below. pic.twitter.com/lifHAP8R4f
Tesla CEO Elon Musk jokingly announced that he is buying Manchester United. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has a better idea.
Finally, Bitcoin hodler Hodlonaut wants you to help him defend his claim that Dr. Craig Wright, a man who claims to have invented Bitcoin, is not the Satoshi he says he is.
Recently the British Supreme Court ruled that Dr. Wright presented false evidence as part of his latest defamation court battle against crypto podcaster Peter McCormack, who, like Hodlonaut, has repeatedly called Wright a liar. McCormack was ordered to pay Wright £1 ($1.18) in compensation.
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