Of course, in crypto, there couldn’t be a slow news week before all the conferences and attendant announcements. Binance was hacked for 7,000 BTC ($40 million) and yet what really got the community riled up was a proposal to get the hacked coins back. Hear more about it on Unconfirmed.
Regulators and a House Rep. also made sure conference panelists would have plenty to discuss. And speaking of governance, experiments on-chain are getting interesting. We also have an analysis of where this technology is in its development.
If you’re in NY for Blockchain Week, hope to see you at Ethereal, Magical Crypto, Consensus or Token Summit. And if not, join me, Meltem and Jalak at our crypto weekend retreat in September!
This Week’s Crypto News…
FinCen Releases Guidance Related to Crypto Businesses
If you’ve got too many Blockchain Week meetings and need to read the tl;dr version of FinCen’s guidance, check out Blockchain president Marco Santori’s tweetstorm, and Katherine Wu of Messari’s annotated version. Or, just skim through for the section that applies to you, as there’s practically something for everyone: P2P sellers, dexes, ICOs, dapps, privacy coins, prediction markets …
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce Criticizes the SEC’s Lack of Crypto Clarity
Cme. Peirce gives a clear critique of the SEC’s regulation the space so far, including pointing out some of the absurdities of the no-action letter against Turnkey Jet. She concludes, “The U.S. securities markets have historically been the envy of the world; I do not want heel-dragging by the SEC in crypto to mar that well-deserved reputation.”
Fidelity to Trade Bitcoin in a Few Weeks
Starting only with the most liquid of crypto assets.
Chris Burniske’s Thoughts on Expectation vs. Reality
The Placeholder VC partner published his Fluidity Summit talk on Twitter, mapping where we are in the development of crypto onto the Carlota Perez framework of technological revolutions. Interesting to see where he thinks we are now and where we could go.
A Call to Ban Cryptocurrencies
House Rep. Brad Sherman from the San Fernando Valley made a call to ban cryptocurrencies “in part because an awful lot of our international power comes from the fact that the dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions.”
Aragon Whales Swing Vote at Last Minute
In weighing whether or not to keep Aragon focused on Ethereum, not Polkadot, the community vote seemed roughly evenly split. But right before the voting period was to end, a whale swung it decisively against. What was that thing about how blockchains can help with voting?
XRP Barely Registering in Intended Markets
Spencer Appelbaum of Multicoin Capital takes a look st XRP usage: “So what we have here is a cryptocurrency w/ extremely limited usage (35M XRP of max volume thus far in 7 months), doubts about its status as an unregistered security, incoming competition from legacy players, & $169.42M of Q/Q selling pressure from the company that created it.”
Astro-Cryptology?
Zuck vs. Winklevii: Blockchain Edition, meets astrology. (Plus, this is a fun book excerpt.)
