Your guide to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Web 3.0
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
Most leading coins grew in value this weekwhich largely offset the losses incurred last week – the first red week of 2023.
Meanwhile, regulators in Europe and America had heated discussions about how to reign in crypto. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slapped Kraken last week with a $30 million fine and ordered the exchange to shut down its betting service. This week, the agency Terra put itself in the crosshairs.
Across the Atlantic, the European Central Bank (ECB) asked European banks to cap their crypto holdings to hedge against crypto’s inherent risks. The move came a week after the block was published a new draft law which obligates banks to assign crypto the highest possible risk rating.
The conversation around regulation continued on Crypto Twitter. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was looking for people in Washington to talk strategy with over a cup of coffee on Monday:
Also that day, popular NFT collector Cozomo de’ Medici – who could be an alias for the rap legend and NFT fans Snoop Dogg– announced that he was donating a quantity of digital art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Valentine’s Day meant heartbreak for at least 22 former employees at NFT marketplace Magic Eden, as the company undergoes a “restructuring”.
Fox journalist Eleanor Terrett shared a proposal for stablecoin regulation by Lee Reiners, a policy director at the Duke Financial Economics Center.
Milena Mayorga, an ambassador for El Salvador to the United States, tweeted that she was in Texas talking to Texas Deputy Secretary of State Joe Esparza about opening up a Bitcoin mission, or “embassy,” in the nation’s second-largest state. .
If you think big crypto lobby groups like the Blockchain Association represent retail, think again, crypto attorney Chris Bles said Wednesday.
An account called @LeonidasNFT, who describes himself as an “NFT historian” on Thursday tweeted news of the sale of the most expensive digital rockedoodle on Bitcoin. It looks suspiciously like one EtherRock.
On Friday, an artist who goes hand in hand @Jdotcolombo accused Yuga Labs of shamelessly plagiarizing its iconic skull logo. The company blamed a freelance designer and promised to replace the drawing.
That day, Caitlin Long, founder of the crypto bank Custodia, posted a open letter to Washington and is asking for a seat at the table when it comes to crypto regulation discussions. She also hinted that she had previously shared concerns with the police that a major crypto company would go bankrupt and take its customers with it, long before it actually happened, but was met with deaf ears.
SEC against all
Crypto Twitter aggressively locked horns with the SEC this week as the agency continued its regulation-by-enforcement (crackdown) strategy on the industry with several aggressive maneuvers. Kraken founder and former CEO Jesse Powell was still seeing red from last week.
SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce on Thursday criticized the agency’s proposal for crypto custody. She specifically cited the proposal’s timing, feasibility and agency jurisdiction as potentially problematic and said the public needs more time to analyze and debate it.
Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal responded to the proposal by inviting the SEC to follow due process.
On the same day, news broke that the SEC, too loaded Singapore-based Terraform Labs and founder and CEO Do Hyeong Kwon—better known as Do Kwon—with securities fraud involving its algorithmic stablecoin Terra USD and the LUNA token.
US Attorney Gabriel Shapiro, General Counsel at Delphi Labs, the protocol R&D arm of crypto research and investment firm Delphi digital, shared his response to the Terra lawsuit in a thread.
In the end, the SEC on Friday imposed a $1.4 million fine against the former NBA star Paul Pierce for shilling EthereumMax, same token Kim Kardashian was fined $1.26 million to promote.
