The US Govt. Is Not HODLING? 🫣

In today's edition: 🎙️ New pod on real world assets, 💸 FTX's $323 million recovery, 🙅‍♀️ layoffs in Circle, and more!

July 13, 2023

What’s Poppin’?

by Samyuktha Sriram

The government moved 9,825 BTC seized from the Silk Road hacker in three separate transactions on Wednesday.

Lawyers for the bankrupt crypto firm alleged that Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX insiders used misappropriated funds to acquire the Swiss-based firm which came to be known as FTX Europe.

The stablecoin issuer said it had made a marginal reduction in headcount to focus on core business activities and execution.

The blockchain will “panic” and stop producing new blocks when there are reconciliation errors, said BNB Chain developers.

On the Pod…

This week, the crew is joined by Goldfinch co-founder Blake West to talk about the momentum around asset tokenization. Whether it’s private credit (what Goldfinch specializes in) or U.S. Treasurys (what Robert’s new venture Superstate will tackle), real-world assets (RWAs) are en vogue among the crypto set. What’s driving this fresh interest in an old concept that has failed to take off?

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • 🌐 Polygon founders proposed a token switch from MATIC to POL, envisioning POL as a universal token across all Polygon-based networks, leading to a slight increase in MATIC's value.

  • 👨‍⚖️ SEC Chair Gary Gensler pushed back on the crypto industry's calls for his recusal from certain crypto-related decisions, affirming his adherence to ethical responsibilities and legal compliance.

  • 📜 Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand are set to present an updated version of their comprehensive crypto regulation bill, factoring in significant industry developments.

  • 🕵️ The Blockchain Association requested an SEC internal investigation into the approval of Prometheum's special purpose broker-dealer license, citing concerns about the circumstances surrounding the licensure. NY Congressman Richie Torres has similar plans, and has already drafted two requests.

  • 🔀 Coinbase added a new messaging feature to its crypto wallet, letting Ethereum addresses communicate through a communications protocol called XMTP.

  • 📚 Blockchain-based file sharing protocol LBRY officially shut down, sending the price of its native token down 20%.

  • ⚖️ The founder of crypto exchange Digitex, Adam Todd, has been directed by a US court to pay nearly $16 million for operating an illegal platform and manipulating its native token, DGTX.

  • 🔐 Crypto-related crime has seen a significant 65% decrease from the same period last year, with daily inflows into illicit services notably declining, according to a report from Chainalysis.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • 📲 Google Play will now permit the inclusion of games and apps that enable users to buy, sell, and earn digital assets such as NFTs, broadening opportunities for developers.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 🎶 Sound, a Web3 music platform, secured $20 million in funding with support from Snoop Dogg and a16z, aiming to enable artists to mint songs as NFTs and sell them directly to fans.

  • 🎮 Binance Labs invested $15 million into Xterio, a Web3 gaming platform, to facilitate expansion in game and technology development, including artificial intelligence integrations and token launch.

Bringing institutional-grade financial products on-chain, starting with the tokenization of US Treasuries and money market funds.

What Do You Meme?

Learn 🤓

ORC-20 is a new token standard on Bitcoin that improves on the recently introduced BRC-20 token standard.

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up .2%, trading at $30,615

  • ETH is up .1%, trading at $1,883

  • BTC dominance: 48.15%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.24 trillion

*All data as of today, 7:00 am ET

Recommended Reads

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