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This week was a relatively slow week when it came to crypto news and the Twittering class. Aside from the SEC moving Valkyrie’s Bitcoin spot ETF application to the review round and a couple of legislative proposals in Washington, there was little hype—reflected in the static price performance of market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Crypto Twitter matched that sedate energy this week. Apart from Elon Musk's late breaking branding change, there were no shocking revelations or furious public debates between industry figures. Just a few announcements, reflections and interesting bits of information.
On Monday, Peckshield shared some infographics in a thread breaking down the monumental cost of hacks in Web3 in the first half of 2023.
#PeckShieldAlert In H1 2023, there are 395+ major hacks (386 DeFi related) in Web3 space, leading to ~$479.4m loss.
Among these hacks, top 10 account for $378.3m (79%) of total stolen funds. pic.twitter.com/ZrQQi8neyP
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) July 17, 2023
That same day, anonymous crypto trader @AltcoinPsycho criticized the legal team overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy.
FTX Ch 11 lawyers intentionally chose the most expensive KYC method to bill more hours (and they’re having lawyers handle the non-legal admin work)
The most fraudulent failure of fiduciary duty I’ve ever seen by a legal team
— Psycho (@AltcoinPsycho) July 17, 2023
Twitter-only crypto news account @Tier10k shared allegations from the founder of dollar-pegged stablecoin TrueUSD’s progenitor Archblock that TRON chief Justin Sun acquired a lot of TUSD “without stakeholder approval” nearly three years ago.
Archblock Founder Claims Justin Sun Was Secret TUSD Acquirer in Lawsuit (Not exactly a shocker) pic.twitter.com/ybTPmSOmtk
— db (@tier10k) July 17, 2023
Chainlink announced its new Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol that day. The CCIP announcement helped the LINK token to rally 17% this week.
1/ The Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) has officially launched on Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, and Polygon mainnets.#LinkTheWorld pic.twitter.com/SdLVyaapg3
— Chainlink (@chainlink) July 17, 2023
An NFT critical of China’s leader Xi Jinping was delisted on OpenSea, according to anonymous NFT trader @Anonymoux2311.
It appears @opensea has succumbed to pressure from Chairman Xi and CCP - If anyone wants to sell @patrickamadon Clock Out via otc please dm pic.twitter.com/XPj64DP93r
— Anonymoux ⌐◨-◨ (@Anonymoux2311) July 17, 2023
A video made the rounds this week of SEC chair Gary Gensler smiling through the pain after being asked to comment on the verdict of Judge Analisa Torres in the Commission’s case against Ripple, which has been ongoing since December 2020.
Gensler alleged that XRP was a security, Torres said it’s "not neccessarily" a security, depending how it’s sold. For retail buyers, she said it’s not a security at all.
Gary Gensler sends STRONG message to $XRP hodlers 👇 pic.twitter.com/CbnbzdsE7p
— Altcoin Daily (@AltcoinDailyio) July 17, 2023
OpenSea and Rarible have both joined the Opepen train by the looks of it. Opepen is an NFT collection that redraws the famous Pepe meme from squares and circles (and combinations of the two).
Opensea and Rarible changing PFPs to opepen is the culture. It’s happening pic.twitter.com/EnsbIe93Do
— ThreadGuy 👑 (@notthreadguy) July 17, 2023
And as noted, Valkyrie’s refiled Bitcoin Spot ETF application made it to the review round, a week after BlackRock’s. Bloomberg journalist James Seyffart pointed out that like BlackRock, Valkyrie lists Nasdaq as its exchange. It should also be noted that Valkyrie also listed its surveillance sharing partner as Coinbase, after BlackRock. Who said copying doesn’t pay off?
Anddd we have anotha one! Most interesting here with this updated Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund prospectus -- they have changed their exchange to Nasdaq (same as BlackRock) anddd they gave us a ticker $BRRR. pic.twitter.com/3QxeFRfLPy
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) June 21, 2023
On Wednesday, Solana announced the launch of Solang, a protocol that enables developers who are savvy with Ethereum’s programming language, Solidity, to start building on Solana.
1/ 🎉Introducing Solang: Building on Solana with Solidity
Today, @solanalabs announces Solang, a compiler enabling developers to write smart contracts on Solana in Solidity, the primary programming language of Ethereum.https://t.co/X703sAMJBC
Learn more👇
— Solana (@solana) July 19, 2023
Jerry Brito, the executive director of pro-crypto policy lobbyists Coin Centre, explained why you should care about Congress’s expansion of Section 6050I of the tax code.
2/ This law take effect on Jan 1, 2024, and will require citizens who are recipients of crypto payments of $10,000 or more to report to the government not just the transaction, but the PII of the sender as well–all without a warrant.
— Jerry Brito (@jerrybrito) July 20, 2023
Finally on Friday, Gabriel Shapiro, the General Counsel at Web3 incubator Delphi Labs, explained in a thread why he’s disappointed by a new 212-page crypto policy bill that was introduced this week by Republican lawmakers.
Was a huge fan of this bill and they took a lot of feedback but unfortunately they made one change that completely alters the value prop of the bill, reintros massive ambiguity, re-empowers SEC enforcement and would wreak havoc on DeFi.... https://t.co/anYMXpAIoN pic.twitter.com/QXeAXd2Rz9
— _gabrielShapir0 (@lex_node) July 20, 2023