🚨 $3B Seized: Do You Remember Silk Road?

In today’s edition: 💹 Solana outshines Ethereum, 🌐 IOSCO's DeFi guidelines, ⚖️ No delay for SBF hearing, 🚀 STX rally after Draper comments, and more!

December 21, 2023

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What’s Poppin’?

by Jeanhee Kim, Sage Young, Brandy Betz and Samyuktha Sriram

The U.S. Court of Appeals mandate comes more than three years after authorities seized the bitcoins and other crypto from Individual X, an alleged hacker.

Solana’s native token rallied 13% over the last 24 hours, while the blockchain overtook Ethereum in seven-day DEX trading volume.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions emphasized the importance of regulators understanding DeFi products before deciding on applicable policy.

Judge Lewis Kaplan denied a request from Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers to reschedule his sentencing hearing to May 2024.

Draper’s comments about Stacks occurred on the same day Messari highlighted Stacks among its top 10 decentralized finance trends.

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Swan founder and CEO Cory Klippsten is all-in on Bitcoin. Not only does he believe that Bitcoin is poised to reach $1 million by 2030, he also thinks most alt-coins add little to no value and will eventually all go to zero. Accordingly, his company is a massive bet on the future of Bitcoin, from educating people about the world’s first crypto and convincing them to eventually self-custody, to making private equity investments in the Bitcoin ecosystem, to eventually planning to launch the first US Bitcoin-only trust company to create a safer environment for investors.

Here he talks to Unchained about his crypto journey, the likely impact of spot Bitcoin ETFs on crypto adoption and prices, his extreme skepticism about Bitcoin Ordinals, when he first knew Sam Bankman-Fried was a fraud and why he thinks that crypto VCs have done a “massive disservice” to the world.

Read the transcript here:

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • 🚫 The British Virgin Islands court ordered the freezing of assets up to $1.1 billion belonging to Three Arrows Capital's founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, along with Davies' wife, in relation to the hedge fund's demise.

  • 🗳️ Most voters believe U.S. presidential candidates should have an informed perspective on crypto, a Grayscale poll reveals, highlighting concerns about financial stability and inflation.

  • 💳 Ledger plans changes to its transaction signing processes following a $600,000 exploit last week and commits to compensating affected users by February 2024.

  • 🌡️ Celsius is planning to exit bankruptcy as early as January, with recent ETH sales by the company raising concerns among creditors eager to recover their crypto before a potential bull market.

  • 🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law integrating the digital ruble into the nation's tax code, including definitions and tax rules for transactions with digital rubles, as part of Russia's ongoing development of its central bank digital currency.

  • 💼 A Russian oligarch reportedly evaded US sanctions by selling shares in UK crypto firm Copper Technologies, converting the proceeds into cryptocurrency to bypass financial restrictions.

  • 💉 Scammers targeted anti-vaxxers on social media, selling fake COVID-19 vaccine passes for up to $500 in bitcoin, accumulating over $280,000 in crypto from the scheme.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • 🔐 Trezor hardware wallets added support for Solana and SPL tokens, amid a price rally and renewed interest in Solana.

  • 🔗 Ripple was approved as a Virtual Asset Service Provider by the Central Bank of Ireland, expanding its crypto service capabilities in the European Economic Area.

  • 🌐 Phantom, primarily a Solana wallet, expanded its services to include support for Bitcoin, Ordinals, and BRC-20 tokens.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 💰 Web3 tax services firm Tres Finance secured $11 million in Series A funding, planning to expand its customer base and services for crypto firms.

What Do You Meme?

Recommended Reads

  1. 12 Charts That Tell the Story of Crypto in 2023The crypto industry’s leading research firms share 12 charts that illustrate the major trends of 2023.

  2. CoinDesk: 7 Predictions About the Crypto Lending Landscape in 2024 by Mauricio Di Bartolomeo

  3. Forbes: Did FTX Secretly Help Binance Send Tokens To Binance.US For Wash Trading?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 2.5%, trading at $43,926

  • ETH is down 1.8%, trading at $2,250

  • BTC dominance: 49.85%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.73T

*All data as of today, 06:48 am ET

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