This week’s biggest crypto headlines
SEC goes after Binance and Coinbase
The SEC has filed lawsuits against both Binance and Coinbase for violating securities laws as well as operating unlicensed clearing houses and securities exchanges. As part of the lawsuit the SEC now labels at least 68 cryptocurrencies as securities – affecting over $100 billion worth of tokens on the market.
The Hinman Documents Reveal a Deceitful SEC
The Hinman emails include exchanges between Hinman and members of the SEC staff in preparation for a June 2018 speech on crypto regulation. In these exchanges and the subsequent speech it was identified that Bitcoin and Ethereum should not be considered securities. The docs raise concerns about the conduct of regulators and the interpretation of existing laws. The release of the Hinman documents has opened up a Pandora’s box of potential consequences for Ripple and the wider crypto industry which the SEC wishes to bring under its regulatory ambit.
Tether Deviates From Dollar Peg as Market Mismatches
The Tether stablecoin slightly deviated from its dollar peg on June 15 due to an imbalance in Curve’s 3pool. Curve’s 3pool is a stablecoin pool for decentralized finance – holding a massive amount of liquidity in the three top stablecoins: USDT, USD Coin and Dai. USDT’s weighting in the pool jumped to 73.79% indicating that traders were exchanging their USDT holdings for USDC and Dai.
This move was largely facilitated by a single Whale trader and at the time of writing the 3pool is back in balance. There are rumours, however, that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission might take action against dollar stablecoins that feed liquidity into crypto markets. Tether holders are particularly concerned considering 76% of all stablecoins on exchanges are made up of USDT.
Do Kwon Sentenced to 4 Months Jail in Montenegro Document Forgery Case
Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon has been sentenced to four months in jail by a Montenegro court after being found guilty of document forgery.
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF Renews Optimism, Sparks a Wave of New Filings
Follow the leader: Two notable investment firms; Wisdom Tree and Invesco have filed applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs with the SEC. They follow in the footsteps of investment behemoth BlackRock – which filed days earlier for its own Bitcoin ETF. One of the key differences with BlackRock’s recent filing (and now those of Wisdom and Invesco) are that the firm(s) intend to enter into a “surveillance sharing agreement” with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) futures markets. The CME “comprehensively surveils futures market conditions and price movements on a real time and ongoing basis in order to detect and prevent price distortions, including price distortions caused by manipulative efforts.” This was of great concern to the SEC in previously rejected filings. Bitcoin has reacted positively to this institutional interest catapulting +8% in 24hrs. The price surge liquidated some $36.6 million of short positions.
