“In the immediate aftermath of the TRO, we saw somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion of assets flee the platform, crypto, and fiat,” Christopher Blodgett, a Binance.US executive, said during a December 2023 deposition that was recently published as part of a status update on the SEC-Binance lawsuit. Source
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a cease-and-desist against ShapeShift, a crypto exchange that previously operated out of Denver, Colorado, but has since shut down its U.S. exchange operations, alleging it operated before 2021 as an unregistered dealer for cryptocurrencies that were securities. Source
The SEC wants to know if the applications for ETFs that hold Ethereum’s ether (ETH) are supported by the same arguments that led to the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs. Source
Astar, a blockchain network prominent in the Japanese Web3 community, said that its Astar zkEVM will be the first network to fully integrate into Polygon’s new AggLayer, a solution that connects blockchains with zero-knowledge proofs to other networks in Polygon’s ecosystem, to provide unified liquidity. Source
The long list of primary elections Tuesday across 15 U.S. states will steer the fates of many seats in Congress and further solidifies the presidential showdown later this year, but Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said it’s also a “chance to send a message” to federal politicians who’ve declined to come up with crypto policies. Source
“Moreover, discovery has revealed that BHL can at least effect transfers of BAM’s crypto assets from customer deposit wallets to hot wallets when transfers get ‘stuck’ while using the PNK system. BAM’s Head of Clearing, Tao Zhang, testified that he routinely reaches out to a chat group involving BHL employees that he calls the ‘BHL wallet team’ when BAM’s clearing team has ‘technical issues’ with respect to asset movement,” the filing said. Source
In another example of crypto using the courts to fight back against unwarranted regulatory interference, blockchain advocates stopped a U.S. statistics agency from issuing an “emergency” request for mining energy metrics. Source
Right now, the kind of fully digital end-to-end systems that smart contracts enable are the province of the world’s biggest companies. With scale and deep pockets, big companies have built integrated systems without blockchains. However, because they are highly customized and built on private systems, they are too costly and complex for most smaller firms to manage. As blockchain access spreads through the business world, we will see more than just efficiency, we will see a more level playing field between small firms and large enterprises. Source
On Coinbase, the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange popular with retail traders, bitcoin got to a new high of $69,325. But Bloomberg says the fresh record is $69,191.94, Reuters says $69,202 and the CoinDesk Bitcoin Index (XBX) says $69,208.79. CoinGecko reports that bitcoin only reached $68,912.84 on Tuesday, which is not a new record, according to its tally. Source
The CoinDesk 20 tracks the world’s largest and most-liquid cryptocurrencies in an investible index available on multiple platforms. The broader CoinDesk Market Index comprises approximately 180 tokens and seven crypto sectors: currency, smart contract platforms, DeFi, culture & entertainment, computing, and digitization. Source