👨⚖️SEC Launches Insider Trading Inquiry at CEXs - TWJ #166
The bad news just keep on coming.
In today’s issue:
The crypto market is down with its total market cap sitting at ~$900 billion. DeFiChain (DFI) is the worst performer in the top 100 in the past 7-d. The ECB is conducting an emergency governing council meeting to “discuss current market conditions”
In other news, SEC launches inquiry into insider trading at CEXs, 3AC faces rumored insolvency, and OpenSea migrates to Seaport protocol.
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- Curated by Marco Manoppo (@manoppomarco)
📰Market News
⎆SEC Launches Inquiry Into Insider Trading at CEXs
The SEC has launched an investigation into crypto centralized exchanges on possible insider trading. The source stated that the SEC had sent a letter
This is not surprising given that the line is quite vague, and it’s pretty much common knowledge that this happens on exchanges outside of the US. Most likely, this is just a starting move by the SEC, especially since a former OpenSea employee was indicted due to insider trading. Expect a lot more stringent regulatory requirements for centralized entities.
⎆3AC Faces Rumored Insolvency
3 Arrows Capital, one of the largest and most prominent funds in the crypto space was reportedly insolvent due to liquidations and a series of bad bets. The fund invested a lot of capital into L1 ecosystem funds that got affected by the market downturn, including the Terra-UST implosion. 3AC was also reportedly trapped in illiquid derivatives trade, specifically GBTC and stETH.
⎆OpenSea Migrates to Seaport Protocol
Leading NFT marketplace OpenSea announced its plan to revamp its backend infrastructure, migrating from the current Wyvern protocol to a new, self-developed, Seaport protocol. The firm estimated that this will save end-users about 35% of gas costs, or roughly $460M.
In the next couple of years, we might see more and more successful decentralized applications moving into their own protocol or sidechains. We are starting to see it with Axie, BAYP (not finalized yet), and a few others. Successful dApps most likely will need a blockchain suited to their use-cases.
👨🏻💻Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
3AC Rumored Insolvency
stETH Depeg is Getting Worse
Tron DAO Reserve Adds Another 500 Million USDC
Celsius Mulls Possible Restructuring Amid Financial Woes: WSJ
ICE Farming Emission Update
🏛Governance - Active Proposals
Compound - Reserve Factor Decreases for 10 Assets
ENS - [EP13] [Executable] Fund the Protocol Guild pilot with 200,000 $ENS
Gitcoin - Gitcoin FDD workstream S14 funding request ratification
TribeDAO - Veto for FIP-111a: Request Tokemak withdrawal
🦮NFT & Metaverse
OpenSea Announces Migration to Seaport Protocol
NFT Ticketing may Catch on Faster in France after UEFA Debacle
OpenSea Announces New Security Features to Protect Users from NFT Scams
Merit Circle, YGG ‘Terminate Relationship’
Top Sales (Last 24-h); Source: https://dappradar.com/nft
📈Deal Flow & Capital Raise
Pile - $2.93M Pre-seed Round
2MR Labs - Undisclosed $ Seed Round
Coinstash - $1.4M Seed Round
Zeeve - $2.65M Seed Round
Wildcard - $46M Series A
Flip - $55M Extended Series B
⚖️Regulatory Update
SEC Launches Inquiry Into Insider Trading at Crypto Exchanges
Gensler Suggests Lummis-Gillibrand Bill May ‘Undermine’ Market Protections
EU Finance Commissioner Calls for Speedy Passage of Crypto Law
BlockFi Fined more than $900K by Iowa
Congress Preps Hearing on 'Future of Digital Assets Regulation'
Russian Parliament Passed 1st Reading of Bill to Ban Digital Assets as Payment
Brazilian Proposal Would Make Crypto Payments Legal
📚Noteworthy Reads
Degentrading’s Thread on Why We should Worry on Celsius and 3AC Cases
Spencernoon’s Thread on Great Token Design
0xRusowsky’s Read on How to Mentally Survive a Bear Market
Feel free to reach out to manoppomarco@gmail.com — feedbacks and constructive criticisms are much appreciated.