The SEC declares war against crypto companies,
the UK plans to ban NFTs and Airdrops,
and JP Morgan releases its price prediction
for the Halving event.
These stories and more, this week in crypto.
Hi, I’m Nate Martin from 99Bitcoins.com,
and here’s what’s happened this week in crypto.
Solana, Cardano’s ADA and Polygon’s MATIC
were among the numerous tokens suffering a sudden 20% drop,
days after the SEC alleged they should be classified as securities.
In total, 13 crypto assets were identified as securities
in an SEC lawsuit filed against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase.
The Robinhood trading platform quickly delisted Cardano,
Polygon and Solana following the SEC filing.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange,
has been accused of engaging in a "web of deception",
as it was hit with another lawsuit by the SEC.
The regulator said the exchange and its founder, Changpeng Zhao,
ignored the rules meant to protect investors
to keep operating in the US,
and accused them of mishandling customer funds.
Binance said it would defend the platform "vigorously."
Meanwhile, Binance.US suspended US dollar deposits
and has asked its customers to withdraw dollar deposits by Tuesday,
ahead of a dollar withdrawal suspension
as part of its transition to become a crypto only exchange.
Globally, Binance is expected to continue services as usual.
Binance.US said its decisions are part of efforts to protect customers
and the platform amid "extremely aggressive and intimidating tactics"
by the SEC.
The SEC has charged Coinbase with operating as an unregistered
securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency,
just a day after the filing against Binance.
The SEC also charged Coinbase
for failing to register the offer and sale of its crypto asset,
staking-as-a-service program.
CEO Brian Armstrong said there is no path to ‘come in and register’
even though they’ve tried repeatedly.
Crypto.com has suspended its US institutional exchange service,
citing limited demand for institutional-grade services
under current market conditions.
A statement from Crypto.com
noted that the platform’s institutional users
were given advance notice of the decision.
Crypto.com’s retail mobile application and platform
remain fully operational in the United States.
Giving away free non-fungible tokens (NFT)
or cryptocurrencies through airdrops to promote investing in digital assets
would be prohibited in the UK,
after the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) new rules
come into effect in October.
Under these rules,
crypto will be categorized as a “restricted mass market investment,”
and will require advertisements for crypto to have clear risk warnings
or otherwise be banned.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin
laid out a new roadmap for the network's future.
He encouraged the Ethereum developers and community
to push forward on the key areas of layer 2 scaling,
wallet security and privacy in a coordinated manner.
In a blog post titled “the Three Transitions,”
Buterin wrote about the challenges of the technical transitions
needing to be addressed simultaneously.
According to a new JP Morgan study,
retail demand for bitcoin will remain strong
over the coming year,
driven by Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens
as we head towards the next halving event.
Bitcoin halving - when mining rewards are cut by 50% -
would mechanically double bitcoin production cost
to around $40,000,
which the report claims would create a positive psychological effect.
That’s what’s happened this week in crypto,
see you next week.
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