Monday April 11, 2022
◾ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen used her first speech on digital currency to call for a regulatory framework “to appropriately reflect the risks of these new activities” and said a digital dollar would take years to develop if the US ever decides to develop it. (Bloomberg)
◾ The EU has revised sanctions on ‘high-valued’ Russian crypto activity by limiting the size of investments digital currency services can accept to €10,000. (EU)
◾ Bitcoin 2022 brought 25,000 people to the bitcoin maximalist event in Miami. (See my takeaways below)
Our team was in Miami attending Bitcoin 2022 last week, here are our key takeaways from the conference.
Honduras’ economic free zone on the island of Roatán and the autonomous region of Madeira in Portugal plan to adopt bitcoin as legal tender
Investor Peter Thiel named a list of enemies trying to stop digital currencies led by “enemy number one… the sociopathic grandpa from Omaha” Warren Buffett, and described JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and Black Rock’s Larry Fink as belonging to the anti-crypto “gerontocracy.”
Efforts are being made to improve the lightning network by developing channel rebalancing systems
CashApp gave away over $500,000 in bitcoin at the event and around Miami. Many people commented on the ease in which they received $10 in free bitcoin. Here is an example of a true airdrop:
(The QR code is still operational this morning as of 6:14 AM EST if you would like try and get $10 in free BTC)
Strike announced an integration with Shopify allowing merchants on the e-commerce platform to accept bitcoin through the Lightning Network.
Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood said her firm has completely sold its positions in PayPal (PYPL) and increased its investment in the ‘organically growing’ Block (SQ).
MicroStrategy (MSTR) CEO Michael Saylor celebrated the Biden Administration’s executive order on digital assets saying it is the first time the Executive Office has embraced a new asset class.
Saifedean Ammous, the author of the Bitcoin Standard and Fiat Standard, called inflation the “most regressive tax” saying the rich can protect themselves by buying hard assets while the poor can only save in cash or basic bank accounts and are therefore “footing this bill.”
Robinhood (HOOD) rolled out its crypto wallet to everyone (2 million people) on the waitlist.
The event had 400 sponsor who in addition to the speaking on panels and keynotes, had booths in the exhibition hall. It seemed liked a majority of the booths were from mining companies offering new rigs and repair services.
The often discussed issue of bitcoin’s energy use was framed in context with 160,000 TWh of energy used globally every year and bitcoin only using 220 TWh/year today.
Government & NGO Actions
◾ Russia’s Ministry of Finance has revised its final draft of its crypto law to include a provision recognizing mining as an economic activity. (News.bitcoin)
◾ The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is asking US banks to notify the regulator of any crypto-related activities it has already initiated or intends to develop. (Reuters)
◾ New York’s State Senate has approved a new assessment by the NYDFS to bring crypto companies’ oversight fees more in line with traditional financial services firms. (Coindesk)
◾ Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) released a discussion draft of legislation establishing a new regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. (Senate.gov)
◾ European Central Bank executive Fabio Panetta said “issuing CBDCs is likely to become a necessity to preserve access to public money in [a] digital economy” but they “should not become a source of financial disruption that could impair the transmission of monetary policy in the euro area.” (ECB)
◾ Calling for a regulatory framework for stablecoins Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu said “stablecoin issuers are like the pre-Civil War state banks and crypto exchanges are like the ‘paper money men.’” (OCC.gov)
◾ The SEC approved Teucrium’s bitcoin futures ETF. (SEC)
Public Company Releases
◾ Talen Energy, the Texas-based power generation and distribution company, building a bitcoin mining facility adjacent to its nuclear plant with TeraWulf (WULF) is looking to borrow at least $750 million to carry the company through a planned chapter 11 filing. (WSJ)
◾ Crypto data center operator Applied Blockchain (APLD) has filed to up list from the OTC and raise up to $67 million in a Nasdaq IPO. (Marketwatch)
◾ The New York Supreme Court sided with Greenidge Generation (GREE) and said operating its mining facility in upstate “would not impact the air and water of Seneca Lake.” (Greenidge)
◾ Argo Blockchain (ARBK) produced 163 bitcoin in March bringing its total bitcoin on the balance sheet to 2,700 -- 259 were BTC equivalents. (Argo)
◾ Iris Energy (IREN) mined 121 bitcoin in March achieving an average operating hash rate of 850 PH/s. (GlobeNewswire)
◾ Greenidge Generation (GREE) entered into a common stock purchase agreement with B. Riley Principal Capital and will sell $500 million in new class A common shares. (Greenidge)
◾ Galaxy Digital (GLXY) ended March with $2.7 billion in AUM. (Galaxy)
◾ Voyager Digital (VOYG) provided guidance for the quarter ending March 31, 2022 and is expecting revenue between $100 – 105 million. (Voyager)
◾ Bitfarms (BITF) up-listed from the TSX Venture exchange to TSX. (GlobeNewswire)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Tesla (TSLA), Block (SQ) and blockchain technology company Blockstream are teaming up to mine bitcoin on a on a 3.8 MW solar array in Texas. (CNBC)
◾ Payment’s platform Bolt is acquiring crypto services startup Wyre Payments for approximately $1.5 billion. (WSJ)
◾ Meta (FB) is looking to develop “social” and “reputation tokens” to reward contributors to Facebook groups and “creator coins” for influencers on Instagram. (FT)
◾ ProShares is looking to launch a new ETF that would become the first inverse bitcoin exchange-traded fund. (Twitter)
◾ Twitter (TWTR) investor Elon Musk may not be joining the board any longer but he suggested several changes to Twitter Blue including the possibility that users could pay for the service in dogecoin (DOGE). (Twitter) (Note: After announcing he was no longer joining the board, Musk deleted these tweets)
◾ The Estate of David Kleiman has appealed a Florida court’s decision saying that Craig Wright has full ownership of the bitcoin mined during a partnership between Wright and Kleiman. (Reuters)
Metaverse Briefings & Activations
◾ Meta (FB) shareholders will get to vote on whether the metaverse is good for society at the next annual meeting in May. (Fortune)
◾ Unilever (UL) has developed Closeup City Hall of Love on Decentraland allowing users to get married and mint their own NFT marriage certificate. (Geekspin)
Exchange, Custody and Product Updates
◾ Binance has received in-principle approval from Abu Dhabi Global Market to operate as a broker-dealer in virtual assets. (Bloomberg)
◾ Days after announced an expansion into India, Coinbase (COIN) has temporarily disabled the option to buy cryptocurrencies using the Unified Payments Interface. (Economictimes)