🧑‍⚖️ 🤯 Is It Enough?

In today’s edition: 🌟 BNY sets stage for crypto ETP custody, 🗳️ Post-election dip for prediction markets?, 🔥 Gensler grilled by GOP, 🔻 Grayscale's ETHE faces major outflows, and more!

September 25, 2024

Transform financial services through DeFi & Tokenization at Meridian 2024. Stellar Development Foundation’s annual conference will take place in London, UK, from October 15 to 17. Learn More.

Gevulot is the universal proving infrastructure for ZK. Try ZkCloud with free usage, plus extended grant opportunities for premier customers, until 'Q1 2025.

Cartesi did the hard work, like putting Linux on the blockchain, so that building dApps could be radically simple. Discover a boundless design space for your most ambitious web3 projects.

With the Fed cutting rates, what’s the next move for crypto? Two macro investors discuss Bitcoin’s sluggish summer, how the 2024 elections could impact crypto markets, and much more.

The Fed just made its first rate cut in years, slashing 50 basis points off interest rates—but what does this mean for the crypto markets? With Bitcoin lagging behind traditional finance, and the looming US elections, uncertainty is growing.

In this episode, Quinn Thompson of Lekker Capital and Travis Kling of Ikigai Asset Management break down the major factors influencing the markets: from Bitcoin’s sluggish summer and the unwinding of the Japan yen carry trade, to why the 2024 elections could be a pivotal moment for crypto. Are these the catalysts we’ve been waiting for, or should we brace for more turbulence ahead?

Also, they cover which assets could benefit the most under a Trump administration, and why they believe SOL could have a negative catalyst in the near future.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Earn bitcoin on Gemini here.

What’s Poppin’?

by Veronica Irwin, Jason Brett, and Juan Aranovich

In a surprising move, the judge gave the former Alameda CEO some prison time, though he acknowledged that her former boss and ex-boyfriend, Sam Bankman-Fried, was her “kryptonite.”

The banking giant will be able to custody crypto assets for exchange-traded products without being subject to onerous balance sheet requirements.

Election bets made up nearly 80% of trading volume in August on Polymarket.

The SEC chair faced hostile questioning from Republican members of Congress, while Rep. Maxine Waters used the occasion to propose bipartisan action on a stablecoin bill.

Almost $81 million exited Grayscale’s ETHE on Tuesday, as investors apparently took profits on ether’s recent rally.

The latest round brought the total amount raised by the foundation for the layer 1 blockchain to $155 million.

Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍

  • 👥 Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried find themselves sharing the same jail dormitory in Brooklyn, with Combs facing charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

  • 🤝 Sky, formerly known as MakerDAO, is reconsidering its plan to remove wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) as collateral after concerns surrounding Tron founder Justin Sun’s involvement in WBTC custody were addressed in discussions with BitGo’s CEO.

  • ⏳ The SEC delayed its decision on allowing options trading for BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF until November, after recently approving similar options for Bitcoin ETFs.

  • 🪙 TrustToken and TrueCoin settled with the SEC over allegations of misleading investors about the backing of TrueUSD, agreeing to pay fines after it was revealed that funds meant to back TUSD were invested in a speculative offshore fund.

  • ⚙️ Solana developers are considering a proposal to modify the "compute budget" system, aiming to make the blockchain's use of resources more efficient, though some in the community believe the proposed changes don't go far enough in addressing broader technical challenges.

  • 🕹️ Farcaster’s Warpcast client introduced a new "mini apps" feature, allowing developers to create interactive applications, such as NFT minting and games, directly within the decentralized social media platform.

  • 🧠 Bitcoin-based zero-knowledge rollup Citrea launched its BitVM-powered bridge, Clementine, on the Bitcoin testnet, aiming to turn Bitcoin into a foundational layer for global finance while allowing Ethereum-like smart contracts on the network.

  • 🇹🇷 Turkey shelved its proposed tax on stock and crypto profits, with the country’s Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz confirming that the plan has been dropped for now, following earlier concerns that the tax could harm the country's financial markets.

What Do You Meme?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is flat, trading at $63,685

  • ETH is down 0.8%, trading at $2,628

  • BTC dominance: 53.68%

  • Crypto market cap: $2.33T

*All data as of today, 06:22 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

Recommended Reads

We Are Hiring!

  1. A Bitcoin Reporter to cover all things Bitcoin. See the details and apply here. 

  2. A Regulatory Reporter to cover regulatory topics in the space. See the details and apply here.

  3. A Senior Editor to help assign and edit daily news stories, as well as work on features and other editorial projects as needed. See the details and apply here.

  4. An Audience Development Director to broaden the reach of the publication’s content, whether through the web, social media, newsletters, podcast platforms, or videos. See the details and apply here.

🔝 Are you hiring and want to promote the postings in the Unchained newsletter? Let us know!

Thank you for reading Unchained. This post is public so feel free to share it. 📩📤