🦄 A New Court Win for Crypto

In today's edition: 🎙️ New episode of The Chopping Block, 😱 Starknet's $550,000 oops, 🛑 Genesis' creditors, 🤔 BlockFi's asset conversion, and more!

August 31, 2023

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What’s Poppin’?

by Samyuktha Sriram

The U.S. District Judge who tossed the complaint is also overseeing the SEC’s case against crypto exchange Coinbase.

The blockchain re-enabled the upgrade to give users access to their accounts after facing a significant amount of backlash from the community.

Three groups of creditors opposed a restructuring agreement that would see them recover between 65% to 90% of their claims.

The bankrupt crypto lender has asked the court for permission to convert the remaining trade-only assets in user accounts into stablecoins that can be withdrawn.

On the Pod…

This week, the gang goes in depth with Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal to discuss Grayscale’s win in its court case against the SEC, Coinbase’s ongoing dust-up with the SEC, the onerous new crypto reporting regulations proposed by the U.S. Treasury, and the unsettling legal arguments behind the government crackdown on Tornado Cash.

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • 📝 The U.S. Department of Justice is asking for more details on Sam Bankman-Fried's advice-of-counsel defense for his upcoming trial, seeking transparency and relevance. Moreover, the DoJ refuted SBF's claims that his pretrial tech accommodations are insufficient, stating they go "above and beyond" what is typically offered to defendants.

  • 🌍 Worldcoin reported a single-day record of 9,500 Argentinians verifying their World ID, even amid an Argentine government investigation into data handling.

  • 📢 Binance announced it will "gradually" phase out support for its BUSD stablecoin by February next year, affecting spot and margin trading pairs.

  • 🔮 Bloomberg analysts now estimate a 75% chance of a spot Bitcoin ETF launching in 2023, influenced by Grayscale's recent legal win against the SEC.

  • 📊 Arkham Intelligence identified Robinhood as the owner of the 5th largest Ethereum wallet, holding $2.54 billion in ETH, which is held in custody for user balances. 

  • 📱 Robinhood's crypto wallet now supports Bitcoin and Dogecoin custody, send and receive functions, as well as Ethereum swaps, expanding its initial offerings.

  • 💶 Stefan Berger, architect of the EU's MiCA crypto law, will lead new legislation for a digital euro, despite skepticism from colleagues about the central bank digital currency.

  • 📈 Coinbase will initiate trading of PayPal's new stablecoin PYUSD today, contingent on liquidity conditions.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 💰 Web3 marketing startup DeForm raised $4.6 million in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, aiming to offer blockchain-based marketing tools for web3 users.

  • 🌩️ Stroom Network secured $3.5 million in seed funding for Bitcoin "liquid staking" on the Lightning Network.

What Do You Meme?

Recommended Reads

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up .1%, trading at $27,344

  • ETH is flat, trading at $1,714

  • BTC dominance: 46.96%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.14 trillion

*All data as of today, 7:56 am ET

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