U.S. Government Targets Tornado Cash Again 🌀

In today's edition: ⛓️ Tornado Cash cofounder arrested, 🤓 FTX seeks Galaxy's advice, 🤔 SBF to blame it on the lawyers, and more!

August 24, 2023

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What’s Poppin’?

by Juan Aranovich

Roman Storm, a Tornado Cash cofounder, was arrested, and another cofounder was sanctioned by the U.S. OFAC for alleged laundering of virtual assets for North Korea.

On the Pod…

Show highlights:

  • the disillusionment that comes with the growth of DAOs and the need for a new approach

  • how Maker plans to implement alignment engineering through tools, gamification, and incentives

  • what each phase of Maker’s “Endgame Plan” seeks to accomplish

  • why Rune believes that Phase 2 of the Endgame Plan will change the industry

  • how SubDAOs will work to align incentives, improve the organization, and avoid ponzi schemes

  • how Maker plans to use artificial intelligence

  • what the motivation was for launching the Spark lending protocol

  • why the DAI Savings Rate (DSR) is not offered to American investors and Rune’s take on DeFi regulation

  • whether Maker should be doing more to mitigate the influence of “whales,” given that Rune owns about 10% of the MKR supply

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • 💼 Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is seeking to sell, stake, and hedge its $3 billion crypto holdings, looking to Mike Novogratz's Galaxy empire to advise and assist in maximizing value from the sales.

  • 👨‍⚖️ Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried plan to partially blame previous legal counsel in his October trial, arguing that he was given advice that led him to believe he was "acting in good faith" on matters including auto-delete policies and loans.

  • 🚫 Bitstamp, a crypto exchange, will end its ether staking services for U.S. users starting Sept. 25 amid a challenging regulatory environment where the SEC has targeted staking services and deemed them as investment contracts that fall under securities laws.

  • 👮 John DeSalvo, a former NJ corrections officer, was arrested for targeting first responders in a $620,000 crypto scheme, promoting Blazar Token as a "crypto pension."

  • 📈 DAI stablecoin's market capitalization surged by nearly $1 billion to surpass $5 billion, following the introduction of higher reward rates.

  • ⚽ Israeli police alleged that Moshe Hogeg, ex-owner of an Israeli Premier League soccer team, and his associates defrauded investors in a $290 million crypto scam, recommending charges including fraud, theft, money laundering, forgery, and tax offenses.

  • 💵 USDC is launching on six new blockchains including Polygon PoS, Base, Polkadot, NEAR, Optimism, and Cosmos via the Noble network, following Coinbase's stake acquisition in Circle.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • 💳 Solana Pay, Solana's payment tool, integrated with Shopify, allowing merchants to accept crypto payments, and offering buyers and sellers direct interaction with USD stablecoins compatible with Solana.

  • 🌐 DBS Bank, Singapore's largest bank, unveiled a metaverse concept called "DBS BetterWorld," a gamified adventure in The Sandbox, aiming to demonstrate how virtual experiences can be used positively, including reducing food waste.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 💼 Crypto market maker B2C2 acquired French rival Woorton to expand its European presence, gaining access to a license in France and aligning with incoming Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) regulations.

What Do You Meme?

Learn 🤓

Discover what crypto derivatives are, how they work, and the pros and cons associated with these advanced financial instruments.

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 2.2%, trading at $26,497

  • ETH is up 1.9%, trading at $1,672

  • BTC dominance: 46.53%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.11 trillion

*All data as of today, 7:20 am ET

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