Tuesday April 18, 2023
◾ SEC Chairman Gary Gensler plans to tell members of the House Financial Services Committee that “most crypto tokens are securities” adding that “crypto intermediaries—whether they call themselves centralized or decentralized” are “transacting in securities and have to register with the SEC.” (House.gov)
◾ Elon Musk plans to start his own AI chatrbot called “TruthGPT that will be developed to “understand the nature of the universe" and therefore be “unlikely to annihilate humans.” (Foxnews)
◾ Texas lawmakers are discussion a plan to impose a 10% limit on the amount of crypto miners that could be enrolled in ERCOT’s emergency response services program. (Houstonchronicle)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ The Bank of Israel is preparing an action plan for the issuance of a CBDC despite the fact that the central bank has not made a formal decision on the digital shekel. (Boi.org)
◾ Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliff said that the UK is looking to insure that stablecoin issuers have limits imposed with the coins redeemable in fiat money.(Bankofengland)
◾ The UAE’s securities regulator formally opened the application process for virtual asset service providers to receive a license. (Gov.ae)
◾ The Himalayan-based kingdom of Bhutan has been revealed as a crypto investor with investments in bankrupt crypto lenders BlockFi and Celsius. (Forbes)
◾ New York State’s Department of Financial Services adopted a final regulation establishing how companies holding a DFS-issued Bitlicense will be assessed for costs of their supervision and examination. (Ny.gov)
Public Company Releases
◾ The Grayscale Solana Trust has begun trading on OTC Markets under the symbol: GSOL. (Globenewswire)
Restructuring, Losses and Legal News
◾ Crypto lender Babel Finance received a three-month extension of its creditor protection moratorium. (Bloomberg)
◾ Following the recent announcement that Paxful was suspending operations, the peer-to-peer exchange announced that existing accounts are available for withdraw with only 3.3% of customer funds still frozen. (Twitter)
◾ Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon failed to obtain an order blocking the SEC from accessing his company’s records from the Singapore Monetary Authority. (Bloomberg)
◾ FTX’s celebrity promoters are looking to have the lawsuit seeking damages against them dismissed. (Reiters)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ DCG’s crypto exchange Luno is closing its Singapore operations and withdrawing its license application. (Luno)
◾ ByBit announced the crypto exchange is moving its headquarters to Dubai. (Bybit)
◾ The CME plans to expand bitcoin and ether options offerings to include daily expiries. (Cision)
◾ Japanese banks Yamaguchi, Momiji and Kitakyushu have begun using Ripple’s MoneyTap payment system. (Cointelegraph)
AI Announcements
◾ Open AI confirmed that it has not yet begun training the foundation model for GPT-5. (Theregister)
Metaverse Briefings & Activations
◾ Nike (NKE) launched a virtual collection of 1982’s Air Force One shoe release. (Twitter)
◾ LandVault and Super League announced a partnership to help brands bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3. (Globenewswire)
Thoughts on the Ecosystem
◾ Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong warned that crypto firms will develop “offshore” if clarity is not provided for crypto rules. (Reuters)