🏛️SEC CFTC Hedge Fund Crypto Reporting Rule - TWJ #206
A joint filing by both agencies want to study crypto risk.
Hi folks,
On August 8, 2022, the US Treasury sanctions the “Virtual Currency Mixer Tornado Cash”, which it claims to have been utilized to launder $7 billion+ worth of crypto assets since its inception in 2019. Unsurprisingly, the second-order effect of this decision to add a piece of autonomous open-source code, instead of a person or an entity, to the OFAC list for the first time is far-reaching. While previously crypto wallet addresses have been added to the list, it was always geared towards wallet(s) that belong to a specific individual or entity instead of a service or a smart contract.
This action changes the game.
Here are the quick takeaways:
A truly decentralized stablecoin is more important than ever.
For crypto to be fully censorship-resistant, the entire blockchain and crypto market infrastructure needs to be decentralized.
HOT TAKE: if the technology is not good enough for crypto to be fully censorship-resistant, then perhaps all of this is only going to enhance the efficiency of global capital markets, and that’s okay.
The crypto space will diverge based on ideologies to (i) privacy-decentralized maximalist and (ii) web 3.0 via tokens.
In a scenario of ideological divergence, the outcome usually lies in the middle.
In today’s issue:
The crypto market is flat with its total market cap above ~$1.1 trillion. Celsius Network (CEL) has been the best performer in the top 100 in the past 7-d. CPI printed slightly lower; equities and crypto assets rebounded.
In other news, SEC CFTC considers crypto reporting rule for hedge funds, Ethereum Goerli testnet merge is live, and Elliptic says RenBridge was used to transfer $540M of illicit funds.
We’re continually improving our content, please reach out if you have ideas or want us to recap another market segment.
- Curated by Marco Manoppo (@manoppomarco)
📰Market News
⎆SEC CFTC Considers Crypto Reporting Rule for Hedge Funds
Under a new joint proposal considered by the SEC and CFTC, hedge funds would be required to report crypto assets exposure through a confidential filing. The purpose is to learn more about the risk that crypto poses to the US economy.
⎆Ethereum Goerli Testnet Merge Is Live
The last Testnet before the upcoming Ethereum merge, the Goerli Testnet, was successfully merged and has become a Proof-of-Stake chain.
At around 9:50 PM ET on Thursday, developers simulated the merge on Goerli and switched from PoW to PoS consensus. To do so, they had to “merge” Goerli’s code with its PoS-based fork called Prater. The task involved node operators from both chains updating their client software in tandem.
⎆Elliptic: RenBridge Was Used to Transfer $540M of Illicit Funds
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic stated that RenBridge, a cross-chain bridge was used to transfer $540M in crime-related crypto assets.
"We believe that the use of RenBridge was part of the laundering process," Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist at Elliptic, told CoinDesk in an emailed statement, adding that the obfuscation and layering achieved by passing the assets through RenBridge aided in concealing the illicit origin of the funds.
👨🏻💻Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
Arbitrum Nova is now Live and Open to the Public
USDT Supports ETH Proof-of-Stake Transition
Polygon Bridge for Gnosis Safe Has Arrived
Goerli Testnet Merge Succeed
SpiritSwap v2 is Live
Ripple Is Considering Buying Bankrupt Crypto Lender Celsius’ Assets
Binance Is Not Ruling Out Support for Ethereum Proof-of-Work Fork
Phantom Says Its Systems Were Not Compromised in $4M Hack
Aave Companies Requests $16.6 Million Compensation for Work on Aave v3
🏛Governance - Active Proposals
Radicle - Radicle // Gitcoin Public Goods Alliance
Reflexer Ungovernance - Update gas price oracle value (debt floor adjuster).
🦮NFT & Metaverse
Consensys Launches TURN Token and will be Auctioned on August 15
Anata Breeding is Live
Table Tennis Goes Crypto With Plans for NFT, Web3 Crossovers
Zepeto Gets a Web3 Makeover
Top Sales (Last 24-h); Source: https://dappradar.com/nft
📈Deal Flow & Capital Raise
Injective - $40M Unknown Round
Ansible Labs - $7M Seed Round
Fortress Blockchain Technologies - $22.5M Seed Round
Ultimate - $12.5M Series A
AfricaDAO - $20M Investment from BitDAO
LongHash Ventures - $100M Fund II
⚖️Regulatory Update
Canada's 2nd Largest Pension Fund Embroiled in Celsius Collapse
Bitfinex May Be Facing Criminal Investigation in US
Coinbase Exchange Faces SEC Probe Over Crypto Yield, Staking Products
CFTC Proposes New Crypto Reporting Rule for Large Hedge Funds
📚Noteworthy Reads
RektHQ’s Read on The Eye OF The Storm
ChainLinkGod.eth’s Thread on Decentralized Crypto-Collateralized Stablecoins
Ronan Broadhead’s Read on MetaFi: Unlocking NFT Liquidity
Feel free to reach out to manoppomarco@gmail.com — feedbacks and constructive criticisms are much appreciated.