Monday June 13, 2022
◾ Celsius has paused “all withdrawals, swap, and transfers between accounts” on the lending platform. (Celsius)
◾ Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo warned that the US government is focusing on unhosted crypto wallets that allow investors to store digital currencies outside of regulated venues. (Coindesk)
◾ Leading digital currency think-tank Coin Center has filed suit against the US Treasury Department arguing a provision in the recent infrastructure bill is unconstitutional in its requirements to force recipients of over $10,000 in digital assets to report not only who sent the funds but also the sender’s date of birth and social security number. (CoinCenter)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ The European Union is nearing agreement on terms to regulate digital assets under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework by the end of the month. (Bloomberg)
◾ The government of Lithuania has released new laws to “strengthen regulation” of crypto service provider operations. (News.bitcoin)
◾ India’s Chief Economic Adviser warned that in the absence of regulation decentralized digital assets and DeFi platforms could result in “a world of Caribbean pirates or a world of ‘winner take all’ in terms of being able to really take it all from somebody else.” (News.bitcoin)
◾ Nigeria’s bourse plans to receive permission from regulators and adopt blockchain technology to settle trades by the beginning of 2023. (Bloomberg)
◾ Sweden’s Central Bank has issued a new report calling for energy-intensive, proof-of-work digital asset mining to be banned. (Cointelegraph)
◾ The Republic of Palau announced plans to issue its citizens digital identify cards on the Binance blockchain. (Nftnewspro)
Public Company Releases
◾ Retail onramp and crypto trading platform Abra is issuing the first crypto credit card on the American Express (AXP) network. (Businesswire)
◾ Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted a response to a since removed online employee petition (here is a copy) calling for the dismal of several members of his management team telling the signatories to blame him and not his executives if there is “no confidence” and to “quit” and find a company to work at that [they] believe in” (Twitter)
◾ MoneyGram (MGI) has introduced an on/off-ramp service for digital wallets to increase the utility of digital assets by creating a bridge between cash and cryptocurrencies. (Cision)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Nexo has publicly released a letter of intent stating the competitive crypto lender is willing to acquire “certain … qualifying assets, mainly collateralized loan receivables” from Celsius. (Nexo)
◾ Circle is acquiring crypto infrastructure as a service provider CYBAVO as a new corporate pillar. (Cision)
◾ Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the SEC has yet to issue a subpoena to his exchange about the native token’s (BNB) ICO. (Coindesk)
◾ Decentralized wireless network Hellium introduced a new incentive model to scale any type of wireless network, including 5G, with its own token. (Webwire)
◾ Jack Dorsey-backed TBD announced plans to introduce “Web5” a decentralized web protocol that brings identity and data storage to applications. (TBD)
◾ Huobi Global is launching an investing arm: Ivy Blocks. (Newsdirect)
◾ NFT domain name provider Unstoppable Domains is partnering with Blockchain.com to offer all 83 million Blockchain.com wallet users with a free .blockchain domain. (Cision)
Market Data
◾ A survey by DEXterlab finds that 64.3% of people are buying NFTs to earn a profit while only 14.7% are buying to be part of a community and 12.$ to collect digital art. (Dexterlab)
Thoughts on the Ecosystem
◾ Investor Stanley Druckenmiller said while we remain in a bear market, he would rather "own more bitcoin than gold" in an inflationary bull market. (Beincrypto)