Tuesday June 13, 2023
◾ Representative Warren Davidson (R-OH) introduced legislation to fire “tyrannical” SEC Chair Gary Gensler and “fix [the SEC’s] ongoing abuse of power.” (House.gov)
◾ Lawyers representing Binance’s US platforms told the court that approving the SEC’s motion to freeze the US entity’s funds “would effectively end BAM’s business.” (Courtlistener)
◾ The United Nations is proposing a ‘Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms’ to combat “mis- and disinformation.” (Un.org)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ The Bank of Thailand is piloting a retail focused CBDC with three local banks through the end of the summer. (Thethaiger)
◾ The Bank of China’s investment bank BOCI issued CNH 220 million in digitally structured notes making it the first Chinese financial institution to issue a tokenized security in Hong Kong. (Ubs)
◾ The UN Secretary General warned the risks posed by AI threaten democracy and human rights and is in support of a proposal to create a global watchdog to monitor the technology. (Aljazeera)
Public Company Releases
◾ Robinhood (HOOD) reported a 43% month-over-month and 68% year-over-year decline in crypto notional trading volumes in May. (Globemewswire)
◾ Bit Digital (BTBT) generated $1.5 million in adjusted EBITDA from $8.3 million in revenue during the first quarter. (PRnewswire)
◾ Applied Digital (APLD) announced the successful integration of its operating systems at its Jamestown, North Dakota facility. (Globenewswire)
◾ Bitfarms (BITF) increased its hash rate by 6% in May to each 5.3 EH/s. (Globenewswire)
Restructuring, Losses and Legal News
◾ Galaxy Digital (GLXY) announced the BitGo lawsuit raised following Galaxy’s termination of it’s proposed acquisition of the crypto custodian was dismissed. (Twitter)
◾ Binance hired a former co-director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division to help prepare its defense against the SEC. (Bloomberg)
◾ Cardano developer Input Output Global announced layoffs and a restructuring into a venture studio. (Coindesk)
AI Announcements
◾ OpenAI and Google’s Deep Mind agreed to open up their AI models to the U.K. government for research and safety purposes. (Politico)
◾ Google and OpenAI are limiting access to their chatbots in Hong Kong to thwart online political dissent. (WSJ)
◾ Meta (META) is open sourcing a new transformer model offering text to music to generate new songs. (The-decoder)
◾ Salesforce (CRM) is launching an enterprise AI cloud solution to increase productiving across all Salesforce applications. (Venturebeat)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Taiwan Mobile is in early talks with Taiwanese crypto exchanges about forming a strategic partnership to allow the telecommunications company to enter the fintech market. (Bloomberg)
◾ South Korean-based crypto firm Haru suspended all deposits and withdrawals due to “a certain issue with one of [it’s] service partners.” (Haruinvest)
◾ 21Shares is launching an exchange traded product to provide exposure to the Lido DAO. (21shares)
◾ Elliptic’s blockchain analysis suggests that funds stolen during the $35 million Atomic Wallet hack are now trading on OFAC sanctioned exchange Garantex. (Twitter)
Market Data
◾ Bitcoin’s difficulty is forecasted to increase 3.1% early tomorrow morning, an upward move similar to the last two adjustments. (BTC.com)
◾ Since the SEC charges were filed last week, Binance.US’ market depth has fallen 78%. (Twitter)
Exchange, Custody and Product Updates
◾ Binance plans to swap 750 million tether-tron token pairs for tether-ether to help ensure the stablecoin’s liquidity. (Twitter)
◾ Social trading platform eToro announced plans to halt new purchases for US customers in algorand, decentraland, dash, and polygon; US customers will still be able to hold and sell existing positions in the tokens. (Twitter)
◾ Binance announced the delisting of numerous BNB, BUSD, and ETH trading pairs. (Binance)
Thoughts on the Ecosystem
◾ John Reed Stark, the Founder and Chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, expects the Department of Justice to file a criminal indictment against Binance; he added the DoJ may have already filed an indictment under seal. (Twitter)
◾ Google DeepMind CEO and Co-Founder Demis Hassabis says governments should prioritize increased investment in AI research to mitigate risks. (Bloomberg)