July 7, 2022

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

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Welcome to the Node. I'm Marc Hochstein, executive editor of CoinDesk, filling in while Daniel Kuhn is away.

Back in the day, there used to be a trend among financial companies in the U.S. that weren't banks of using the word "banc," with a c, in their names. For example, the securities arm of Bank of America called itself Banc of America Securities. The companies didn't do this to be cute; regulators are very touchy about businesses that misleadingly imply customer funds are FDIC-insured. As the bankrupt crypto brokerage Voyager Digital just learned….

Also in today's edition: Celsius Network pays off Maker loan, freeing up $440 million of collateral. Solana Labs and Multicoin are accused of violating securities law by a SOL investor. And Johnson's exit as British Prime Minister leaves U.K. crypto ambitions on hold.

– Marc Hochstein

Today's must-reads

Top Shelf

Out of Hock: The troubled crypto lender Celsius Network reclaimed $440 million of collateral (in the form of wrapped bitcoin, or WBTC) after it fully paid off a loan on Maker. The move means a big liquidity boost for the beleaguered crypto lender's finances.

CEL, the native token of the Celsius platform, spiked 10% within minutes after the news, but it is still down 81% since the start of the year.
Celsius slowly started to reduce its debt to the Maker protocol earlier this month, paying back $224 million altogether over the last seven days.

Lawsuit: A class-action suit accuses key players in the Solana ecosystem of illegally profiting from SOL, the blockchain's native token that is unregistered security. The suit names as defendants Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, crypto VC giant Multicoin Capital, Multicoin's Kyle Samani and trading desk FalconX.

The suit described SOL as a highly centralized cryptocurrency that has enriched insiders to the detriment of retail traders.

Bye Bye Boris: The departure of Boris Johnson as U.K. prime minister leaves the country's crypto ambitions on hold. For now, the resignation will likely disrupt the government's legislative agenda, including on issues like stablecoins, and it raises the question of whether the next administration will be as pro-Web3 as Johnson's administration was.

On Wednesday, Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe promised a bill on stablecoins by August. The industry has previously hailed the regulatory clarity expected from the proposed legislation, but its future is in doubt.

Insurance? The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is reportedly taking a look at claims by crypto broker Voyager that its customer accounts were protected by that U.S. agency in the event of a company collapse.

Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this week, revealing that it had somewhere between $1 billion and $10 billion in both assets and liabilities.

- Xinyi Luo

Overheard on CoinDesk TV...

Sound Bites

"We don't see our users [spending] their bitcoin. The only things that our users will consider spending bitcoin, that we see transactions [on], are things of high value like travel or technology."

––Sebastian Serrano, CEO of Ripio in Argentina, on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover."

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What others are writing

Off-Chain Signals

Crypto Collapse Threatens to Leave Black, Hispanic Investors Further Behind (Bloomberg)
Considering a crypto investment? Why current owners are 'committed' despite recent volatility (USA Today)
Reddit is releasing blockchain-based avatars — just don't call them NFTs (The Block)
Developers Behind Shiba Inu Tease Launch of New Stablecoin, Reward Token (Decrypt)
MakerDAO Members Vote on Issuing $30M Loan To Societe Generale (The Defiant)

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Decentralization: An Unstoppable Movement or Wishful Thinking?*

Everywhere you look on the web, aggregators and intermediaries have carved out lucrative niches, charging for access, eyeballs and approvals. Whether it is the wholesale serving of ads, or the monopolies developing around online flight booking systems, Web2 is all about the intermediaries. It's what economists call rent-seeking.

The recent turmoil in both traditional markets and crypto suggests that this intermediated, centralized world has had its day.

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