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Elliott Stein, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, shares his insights from a court hearing this week on the SEC’s rejection of Grayscale’s bid to convert GBTC into a spot bitcoin ETF. Stein says federal appellate court judges seemed skeptical of the SEC’s arguments for why bitcoin futures ETFs are OK while bitcoin spot ETFs aren’t. Who’s likely to win the case and what does it mean for the crypto industry as a whole?
Show highlights:
why Grayscale filed the lawsuit against the SEC
why Grayscale believes that a bitcoin futures ETF is essentially the same as a spot ETF
what the SEC disagrees on and why the judges pushed back against the SEC’s arguments
why, after the hearing, Elliott changed his mind about who will win the case
what would happen if Grayscale ends up winning the lawsuit and whether the SEC could go back on its previous approvals
whether other companies applying for a bitcoin spot ETF would benefit from Grayscale winning the case
whether this case could have an impact on the jurisdictional battle between the SEC and the CFTC
why Elliott is keeping an eye on other cases such as Ripple, Terraform Labs, and insider trading at Coinbase
What’s Poppin’?
NYAG Letitia James argued that ETH is a security because of its transition to Proof-of-Stake and the fact that its developers promoted it as an investment.
Maker’s Rune Christensen called for a new name, a new look and a different approach to user acquisition for DAI.
BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes introduced the idea of a stablecoin backed by Bitcoin and derivatives in light of “the recent banking tremors reverberating through the crypto space.”
DeFi lending protocol Aave will increase the cost of borrowing BUSD to incentivize users to switch to other stablecoins.
On Unchained Premium 💎
Here’s Thessy’s advice on where to begin to bring more women into the industry:
In Other News…✍️✍️✍️
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal opposing a New York bankruptcy judge's ruling that permitted Binance.US to proceed with its billion-dollar proposal to acquire the assets of Voyager Digital.
Investors of crypto-focused venture capital firms are advising their portfolio companies to withdraw funds from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) due to concerns about its balance sheet.
Swiss crypto bank Sygnum is receiving inquiries from global players, especially funds and hedge funds, to diversify their banking partners in the wake of Silvergate Bank's voluntary liquidation.
Someone bought a CryptoPunk worth over $100 million using Goerli testnet ETH tokens to fund the purchase.
Hut 8 Mining is facing operational issues, including disputes with its energy provider and electrical issues at its bitcoin mining sites in North Bay and Drumheller respectively, which are impacting the company's ability to complete its merger with U.S. Bitcoin Corp.
The Federal Reserve is assembling a “team of experts” to supervise the cryptocurrency sector and keep up with new developments to ensure innovation is preserved while regulatory guardrails are put in place, according to Michael Barr, the central bank's vice chairman for supervision.
The Hedera blockchain is experiencing network irregularities, impacting the users of various dApps, such as Hashport, which has temporarily paused services due to smart contract issues.
CryptoGPT, a layer 2 blockchain with zero knowledge (ZK) technology, will launch a token today.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
DEFYCA, a Luxembourg-based digital securities platform, plans to launch its tokenized private credit protocol on Avalanche blockchain's testnet this month and aims for a mainnet release in late July.
The $$$ Corner…
Zk proof-focused firm Proven closed a $15.8 million round led by Framework Ventures.
Violet launched its compliance-focused decentralized exchange, Mauve, with $15 million in funding from investors including Coinbase Ventures and Brevan Howard.
Famous actress Gwyneth Paltrow participated in web 3 art platform Wild’s $7 million seed round.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 6.88%, trading at $19,892
ETH is down 7.54%, trading at $1,402
BTC dominance: 39.88%
Crypto market cap: $963 billion
*All data as of today, 5 am ET
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