Weekly Web3 Workout — 7th Aug 22
Crypto Highlights
$BTC $24,131 +4.16%
$ETH $1,805 +8.77%
$YOP $0.085 +4.10%
$USDT Market Cap $66.49Bn
$USDC Market Cap $54.21Bn
Intro
Welcome back to the Weekly Web3 Workout. Lots of things going on in the crypto reg space this week, Solana being a hot mess and some good news stories popping up as people fight back against the FUD. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Regulation
It depends which day it is as to whether I’m happy with the SEC or not 😊 The SEC have been cracking down on bad actors in the crypto space and this is sorely needed! Too many Ponzi schemes have been operated in this industry, most notably the Missing Crypto Queen with One Coin (see Jamie Bartlett’s podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nkd84/episodes/downloads and book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Missing-Cryptoqueen-Jamie-Bartlett/dp/1529108209 for more on this) so seeing the SEC cracking down on this behaviour is a welcome sight! We need to weed out the bad actors in this space to ensure us good guys are not tarred with the same brush. Forsage is just another example of worldwide fraud schemes that need stamping out https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-134.
With all the regulatory movements in the Crypto Exchange space at the moment, it is no surprise that we are hearing that Coinbase is not the only exchange on the SEC radar being investigated. I would be more concerned if the SEC was specifically targeting Coinbase https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2022/08/04/every-us-crypto-exchange-and-binance-is-being-investigated-by-the-sec-says-senator-lummis-staffer/
The CFTC is putting together a centralised US task force to regulate crypto. Now I am not holding my breath but if this comes to fruition this could be really positive for the industry! We need central alignment! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-03/push-to-give-cftc-more-sway-over-us-crypto-trading-gains-steam
In a push from Senate that seems very reactionary, Elizabeth Warren from the US Senate has circulated a paper that attempts to backtrack on the regulation that was put in place to give US banks more power over their crypto decision making. Hopefully more thought will be given to this before we start undoing the little progress we have made https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-04/crypto-guidance-that-banks-rely-on-targeted-by-elizabeth-warren
Just when you thought that the Senate were being naïve to the crypto regulatory process, they go and do something like this! If the CFTC are granted exclusive oversight and regulatory power over the crypto industry in the US, we could see some significant strides forward in this space. This has the potential to be a landmark event in crypto regulation! https://decrypt.co/106661/senate-bill-would-give-cftc-exclusive-oversight-of-bitcoin-and-ethereum
On the other side of the pond, it seems that the ongoing political battle for the next prime minister is not stifling innovation in the UK. The government is continuing to review the crypto regulations in the UK and is inviting industry experts to provide their guidance. This is a continuation of their work when I attended their Crypto Sprint back in June https://cryptouk.io/appg/#appg-crypto-inquiry-2022
Regulation aside, if you want to know why the governments of the world are putting the effort into fitting crypto into their traditional world and not just outright banning it, there is one simple reason…TAX 😊 https://www.forbes.com/sites/shehanchandrasekera/2022/08/01/the-irs-is-working-on-a-new-tax-form-to-capture-your-crypto-activity/?sh=52808bb56c23
Blockchain Innovation
I’m always happy to see great innovation in blockchain. It is not all about the crypto currencies, NFTs, and trading. Seeing real world value add from blockchain tech is always satisfying. Here we can see Ripple using DLT for enhancing payment systems. Back in 2013 when I was a software developer looking at improving trading technology at JPMorgan, I’d been looking at Ripple. Unfortunately at that point in time they were a million miles away from replacing SWIFT, but they keep getting closer. With Bitcoin and Ripple being my introduction to crypto nearly a decade ago, I do have a soft spot for them and really hope they succeed https://ripple.com/insights/piecing-together-latin-americas-fractured-treasury-flows/
And talking of innovation in blockchain, if you want to read more positive news in this space then I strongly recommend you read this article. In this piece by Mauricio Magaldi from @11FS, you will read how DeFi Insurance, Real World Assets, and Alternative Industries and being reimagined with blockchain technology. This guy is super knowledgeable in this space, a great writer, and a thoroughly great chap to boot!
Solana
Solana are having lot of fun and games at the moment. There was a hack on the Solana wallets, the Slope wallets. Basically, Slope were storing the users Private Keys in plaintext in their logs. So, there wasn’t even anything clever about this hack, just stupid and sloppy design work! There is also a lot of noise about there being only one person behind a lot of the Protocol’s TVL https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/04/master-of-anons-how-a-crypto-developer-faked-a-defi-ecosystem/ and some early news about their new Web3 phone. But both of these are topics I will cover in the future.
And Finally
A bit of shameless promotion, YOP Finance where I am COO, are doing a deal where you can get Gas Refunds if you deposit crypto into their Vaults under certain conditions. These conditions are not difficult to achieve (which is why we did it), but please make sure you check out the conditions first (DYOR Always!!!) and give us a shot. YOP Finance plans to be the number 1 product in the DeFi industry within the next 2 years, so I recommend watching this space https://twitter.com/YOPfi/status/1555560057667985409
OK, that’s it. Thanks for reading the Weekly Web3 Workout and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and learnings with you next week. Please send me know your thoughts and feedback, and please share this with all the web3 and crypto curioso out there.
Have a great week!
