The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day Mar. 29, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. Supported by |
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Today's must-reads Top Shelf |
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DEFINING DEFI: A new proposal by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is aiming to redefine what it means to be a securities dealer. The expanded definition of dealer would include people and businesses that use automated and algorithmic trading technology to execute trades and provide liquidity in the market. - The proposal is geared towards electronic traders of U.S. Treasury bonds, but a footnote buried in the 200-page text may have implications for digital assets that have been deemed to be securities. (Gary Gensler, head of the SEC, takes the view that almost all cryptocurrencies are securities.)
- Automated market makers (AMM) and liquidity providers with more than $50 million in total assets would fall under the SEC's regulatory umbrella, if the proposal passes unchanged.
POLITICAL BACKERS: Lawmakers in the European Union are scheduled to vote on a bill Thursday that would further enforce strict regulatory oversight of crypto by aligning Europe's financial regulations with the policies outlined in the Financial Action Task Force's so-called travel rule. - Crypto industry players, including Coinbase (COIN), have sounded the alarm that new regulations would invade crypto users' privacy and treat new technologies less fairly than cash or traditional bank transfers.
- The travel rule would extend anti-money laundering identity checks to payments made in digital currencies, even if they are under the existing threshold of 1,000 euros ($1,098). Despite the possibility that the rules may be unenforceable, parliamentarians are also seeking to extend the checks to monitor privately managed unhosted wallets that store crypto.
- Meanwhile, in the U.S., a bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced the ECASH Act, a bill that would grant the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to create a digital token-based, privacy-preserving form of cash (that wouldn't live on a blockchain).
TRENDING UP: There appears to be some bullish sentiment in the market, and after a few weeks of trading sideways prices are up, money is flowing in and bitcoin (BTC) is at its highest price this year. - The jump marks a reversal of the previous two-week outflow trend in crypto funds, according to CoinShares. European funds led momentum in new investment, which reported $147 million in euro-based inflows, followed by $45 million in inflows to American funds.
- In the last two weeks, the total cryptocurrency market has rallied 25%. Among the string of factors driving that surge are continued purchases by Terra's Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), as it looks to build a bitcoin reserve for its UST stablecoin, and the post-Federal Reserve risk reset in stocks.
- Terra's LUNA token set a new all-time high.
SOL, ADA, DOT: Investment firm WisdomTree has launched another tranche of crypto exchange-traded products (ETP) in the European market. - The new ETPs cover Solana's SOL, Cardano's ADA and Polkadot's DOT and are listed on the Swiss stock exchange (SIX) and Borse Xetra on Tuesday.
- Competition has driven crypto ETP expenses down, pressuring issuers like WisdomTree to innovate.
ALLEGED EVASION: India's tax authority has identified 11 crypto exchanges accused of tax evasion as it looks to ramp up oversight of the crypto industry. - The regulator has seized Rs. 95.86 crore, or $12.6 million, from the crypto exchanges. The news follows a $5.3 million asset seizure from six exchanges in January.
- Beginning April 1, Indian companies will have to pay capital gains tax of 30% on crypto transactions, while Indians buying or selling crypto will be required to pay a 1% tax deducted at the source, beginning July 1.
–Fran Velasquez |
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Overhead on CoinDesk TV... Sound Bites |
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What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals |
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With inflation going through the roof, Sudan's central bank cautions citizens against using crypto (Cointelegraph) Messi signs $20 million deal to promote crypto fan token firm Socios (Reuters) MakerDAO May Hook Up With Traditional Bank (The Defiant) A professional art appraiser explains why valuing an NFT is 'totally different' than judging a painting (The Block)
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Putting the news into perspective The Takeaway |
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Chris Larsen's Plan to Greenify Bitcoin: Risky, Impractical and Maybe Nonsensical Call it proof of chutzpah. Chris Larsen, one of the co-founders of beleaguered crypto-payments company Ripple, has devoted a reported $5 million of his personal fortune on a public campaign seemingly aimed at making Bitcoin greener. In partnership with Greenpeace and other organizations, Larsen is funding a series of ads over the next month calling on bitcoiners to "Change the Code, not the Climate." The goal, according to Bloomberg, is to pressure the Bitcoin community to make a transition away from power-intensive proof-of-work mining to a proof-of-stake system that uses much less energy. At first glance, Larsen's suggestion is appealing. The environmental impact of proof-of-work mining is perhaps Bitcoin's most substantive drawback and a continuing headwind for the overall public perception of crypto. For example, the rhetoric of environmental damage has helped generate major and sometimes misplaced hostility to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the art world. But the reaction to Larsen's effort among industry leaders and observers has been disbelief and suspicion. That's in part because, however warm and fuzzy Larsen's goal seems to be, the campaign's recommendations are extremely risky, thoroughly impractical and perhaps even nonsensical. More importantly, Larsen's motives for the proposal are extremely suspect: After all, as a co-founder of Ripple, he has arguably spent the last decade in competition with Bitcoin. Read the full article here. –David Morris |
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Cracking the Notification Conundrum in Web 3 Apps* Ping! You've got mail. This is one of the oldest memes of the internet age. The little icon in the corner of our screens, the talking paper clip, the familiar buzz of the phone in our pockets. We take real-time alerts and notifications for granted. They are hard-wired into our everyday lives. And when an app does not provide notifications and alerts, it feels outdated. But in the most modern iteration of the internet – Web 3 and blockchains – these notifications are conspicuous by their absence. The reason for this is largely technical. *This is sponsored content from Tatum. |
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Bitcoin Trades at Highest Level This Year