Day: December 4, 2023

From Ethereum Idealist to Business Realist

In 2018, just a few months after Hayden Adams was introduced to crypto (by Karl Floersch, who also appears on the Most Influential 2023 list), Adams flew to South Korea to attend the Deconomy conference. He had been laid off from his first job out of college, a Siemens mechanical engineer, in mid-2017, and spent the intervening time learning to code, beginning essentially with beginner’s-unfriendly smart contracts. Source

Steering the Crypto Exchange in a New Era of Compliance

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In March this year, U.S regulators sought to ban Binance, alleging it had been operating in the country illegally. By November, the exchange pleaded guilty to U.S criminal charges of breaking sanctions and money-transmitting laws, agreeing to pay a $4.3 billion fine. Zhao himself pleaded guilty, agreeing to pay $50m and step down as CEO. Teng’s elevation left the crypto world in shock. Source

Patrick McHenry Is Dragging Crypto Bills Through Congress

Now, the tenacious congressman, back from his speaker stint, has reignited his charge for House votes on the bills that would regulate U.S. stablecoin issuers and build comprehensive oversight of the crypto markets. The bowtied chairman of the House Financial Services Committee has made that his mission after having already raised the two bills to unprecedented levels, getting his committee to pass them with bipartisan votes – despite opposition from the panel’s senior Democrat. Source

Ripple and XRP Were Given Hope by this Judge

“If the ruling is adopted by the court of appeals, it potentially provides a pathway for projects to raise funds,” Gulovsen said. Judge Torres’ ruling may also prove to be an outlier. Another judge in the same court, Judge Jed Rakoff, explicitly rejected Judge Torres’ analysis in a summary judgment ruling of his own in the SEC’s case against Terraform Labs – though, of course, the circumstances of that ruling are unique to that case, as the circumstances of the Ripple ruling are unique to this case. Source

Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana (SOL) Bounce Back

Still, Yakovenko and the coterie of committed ecosystem developers continue to build the world over. This year Solana saw the launch of the blockchain-forward Saga phone, announced by Yakovenko, a former operating systems developer at Qualcomm, and got a taste of Firedancer, the upcoming secondary chain client built by trading powerhouse Jump Crypto. Low cost payments in particular is one area where Solana shows promise. Source

Pascal Gauthier’s Ledger Wallet Service Gave Crypto What It Needs – And Earned Jeers

In 2014, Gauthier founded Kaiko, which was originally named Challenger Deep (inspired by the deep sea submarine that explored the Mariana Trench). He’s also had advisory roles at crypto startups OpenX and Index Ventures, among others, and established a joint venture between Ledger, Japanese bank Nomura and asset manager Coinshares called “Komainu,” which is exploring blockchain use cases. Source

Caroline Ellison Buried Sam Bankman-Fried

Her co-CEO, the better risk manager, she said, had checked out mentally, long before he officially left in August 2021. His name was also Sam. He bought a boat and named it “Soak My Deck.” It remains a mystery where Sam Trabucco is today, or why he wasn’t at the trial. As effective altruists, Bankman-Fried and his entourage all believed in “earning to give,” and practiced it like a religion. But the group’s code of ethics had no answer to whether it is wrong to steal. It depends, their prophets…

Binance Launches Anchored Coins EUR (AEUR), Celebrates Listing with Promo Offer

Issued natively on the Ethereum and BNB Chain, AEUR intends to add support for more blockchains in the near future. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has announced the launch of Anchored Coins EUR (AEUR) stablecoin. According to the announcement, users may begin trading the new stablecoin on its platform today by 10:00 (UTC). For a start, however, only four trading pairs will be supported. They are AEUR/USDT, BTC/AEUR, ETH/AEUR, and EUR/AEUR. As Binance commonly does its listings, withdrawal of AEUR will be delayed for at least…