Monday May 8, 2023
◾ Voyager Digital will liquidate its assets and wind down operations. (Courtlistener)
◾ The White House announced executive actions around artificial intelligence which include the upcoming release of a draft policy on the use of AI systems by the federal government, an increase in the number of National AI Research Institutes with $140 million in new funding, and an ‘independent exercise’ at a major hacker event to assess generative AI systems. (Axios)
◾ The Department of Justice is investigating whether Binance allowed Russians to avoid US sanction by trading on the exchange. (Bloomberg)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ The Central Bank of Argentina banned payment platforms from offering and facilitating crypto services. (bcra.gob.ar)
◾ Kenya plans to introduce a 3% tax on the transfer of digital assets. (Bloomberg)
◾ New York’s Attorney General proposed new legislation to increase the AG’s enforcement over crypto firms. (WSJ)
◾ China’s Supreme Court approved the use of crypto to settle debts. (Finbold)
◾ The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority announced new actions against unregistered crypto ATMs. (Fca.org.uk)
◾ The Central Bank of Zimbabwe is inviting individuals and institutions to invest in its gold-backed digital tokens. (Rbz.co.zw)
◾ North Carolina’s House voted unanimously to ban state payments using CBDCs. (Bitcoinmagazine)
◾ Kazakhstan received approximately $7 million in taxes from crypto miners in 2022. (Cointelegraph)
Public Company Releases
◾ Coinbase (COIN) beat consensus forecasts and reported revenue of $736 million and adjusted EBITA of $284 million. (Coinbase)
◾ Block (SQ) sold $2.16 billion in bitcoin for a gross profit of $50 million in the first quarter of 2023. (Block)
◾ Grayscale reported its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) ended Q1 with 17.9 billion in net assets. (Sec.gov)
◾ TeraWulf (WULF) produced 239 bitcoin with an average has-rate of 3.3 EH/s in April. (Businessswire)
◾ Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) entered into a new two-year hosting agreement with a subsidiary of Canaan (CAN) to operate 400 PH/s. (Strongholddigitalmining)
◾ Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) filed a $25 million shelf registration to sell 18,735,000 Class A common shares. (Sec.gov)
◾ Mawson Infrastructure (MIGI) entered into a direct offering to sell 2.08 million shares for approximately $5 million. (Businesswire)
◾ Cipher Mining (CIFR) filed a shelf prospectus to sell 187 million shares of common stock. (Sec.gov)
◾ Iris Energy (IREN) mined 319 bitcoin (3.9 EH/s) in April. (Globenewswire)
Restructuring, Losses and Legal News
◾ The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the SEC to respond to Coinbase’s (COIN) complaint over how the SEC applies securities laws to digital assets within ten days. (Coindesk)
◾ Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried have until today to respond to criminal charges brought against him by federal persecutors. (Reuters)
◾ A South Korean prosecutor is calling for the extradition of Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon back to his native country. (WSJ)
◾ A US Federal judge accused Craig Wright of showing “prima facie evidence” of contemptuous conduct for failing to provide evidence in his ongoing $143 million crypto trial with the estate of David Kleiman. (Coindesk)
AI Announcements
◾ OpenAI announced that its large language models will not be trained on customer data. (CNBC)
◾ Private company OpenAI lost around $540 million in 2022 due to increased operating costs from staffing and developing ChatGPT. (Theinformation)
◾ Google wants to use AI to make its search engine more “visual, snackable, personal, and human.” (WSJ)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ On Sunday Binance temporarily closed bitcoin withdrawals to deal with network congestion. (Reuters)
◾ BNP Paribas is partnering with Bank of China to offer a e-CNY management system to its clients. (SCMP)
◾ Deloitte Consulting is looking to issue reusable digital credentials to support KYC and KYB on a blockchain. (Deloitte)
◾ Digital token platform Securitize launched a new feeder fund to offer tokenized exposure to Hamilton Lane’s (HLNE) new evergreen private credit fund. (Hamiltonlane)
◾ Payment processor Stripe is launching a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp allowing customers to overcome the cold start problem by buying digital currencies immediately, when they need it. (Stripe)
Metaverse Briefings & Activations
◾ Chinese multinational tech company Alibaba (BABA) is introducing a metaverse launchpad allowing businesses to customize, launch and maintain their own metaverse spaces on Avalanche’s blockchain. (Techcrunch)
Market Data
◾ Since 2021 Israeli counter-terror authorities have seized around 190 Binance accounts including some linked to the Islamic State and Hamas. (Reuters)
Thoughts on the Ecosystem
◾ Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) Chairman Warren Buffet compared AI to the creation of the atomic bomb saying “when something can do all kinds of things, I get a little bit worried… because I know we won’t be able to un-invent it and, you know, we did invent, for very, very good reason, the atom bomb in World War II.” (Nypost)
◾ AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton says AI could pose a "more urgent" threat to humanity than climate change. (Reuters)