News and insights

SEC pushes back against Coinbase's claim of no regulatory jurisdiction, stating the crypto exchange knowingly violated securities laws. Meanwhile, Gemini, owned by the Winklevoss twins, files a lawsuit against Digital Currency Group and CEO Barry Silbert alleging fraud and deception following the collapse of a lending venture. The Bank for International Settlements survey reveals that 93% of central banks are working on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) which are seen as potential geopolitical policy tools and a challenge to the dollar's dominance. The race for a Bitcoin ETF intensifies, with BlackRock refiling its application featuring Coinbase as the market surveillance partner, as the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust's discount to net asset value narrows, potentially indicating the transformation into a proper ETF.

BlackRock filed for a Bitcoin ETF with the SEC, inspiring similar applications from firms like WisdomTree, Invesco, and Fidelity, and boosting Bitcoin's value. Traditional finance institutions such as Fidelity and Nasdaq are showing increased interest in crypto, with moves towards exchange and custody services. The defunct crypto exchange FTX, under new CEO John Ray III, is planning a potential revival after recovering significant assets. Meanwhile, the IMF is developing a global CBDC platform for cross-border transactions and DAI, a major stablecoin, is diversifying its backing from USDC to include real-world assets.

SWIFT has partnered with Chainlink to experiment with leveraging its infrastructure for transferring tokenized value across blockchain networks. The trials will address interoperability, regulatory challenges, and operational drawbacks for financial institutions in a blockchain environment. Chainlink will provide connectivity between private and public blockchains. SWIFT's findings will be published later this year.

China is striving for advancement in Internet 3.0 technologies, with Beijing's white paper outlining plans to invest in the development of the metaverse and Web3 tech such as non-fungible tokens, but not cryptocurrencies due to the country's previous ban. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is launching its new crypto trading regulations, allowing retail investors to participate from June 1, 2023, with exchanges like Huobi Hong Kong beginning to offer spot trading to retail and institutional clients. Furthermore, the Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police Force is launching a metaverse platform, 'CyberDefender', to educate the public about potential threats and crime prevention in the metaverse.

A new Bitcoin “token standard” called BRC-20 is the hottest thing right now in the crypto space. It was introduced in March 2023 by a pseudonymous person called Domo. Bitcoin Request for Comment 20 (BRC-20) is an experiment that brings fungible tokens to the Bitcoin blockchain using the Ordinals protocol. Ordinals rely on ordinal theory, enabling the identification and tracking of individual satoshis within Bitcoin's existing supply, while also allowing them to be inscribed (associated) with data. Through this technique, satoshis (sats) are given ordinal numbers starting with zero. Anyone can add a script file to a sat to create and transfer a BRC-20 token on the Bitcoin blockchain. BRC-20 tokens are created using three functions: deploy, mint, and transfer.

It is official now: The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), legislation that will guide the crypto sector in all 27 European Union member states. 517 parliament members voted for it, while 38 voted against it. This approval makes Europe the first continent with comprehensive rules for cryptocurrencies. Also, it means that all EU member states will have unified crypto regulations. So, if a crypto business is approved in one EU member country, it could easily expand operations to another member state. The EU’s milestone was lauded by Binance as well as Kraken and Coinbase.

On April 12, 2023, Ethereum successfully executed the planned Shanghai update also known as Shapella. The upgrade allows validators to unstake their staked ETH and withdraw their rewards, as well as staked ether if chosen. Now that another level of uncertainty has waned for the biggest smart contract blockchain, this new feature could attract more investors to stake their ether.

The world’s leading crypto exchange by volume, Binance, alongside its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, and ex-Chief Compliance Officer, Samuel Lim, are being sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

One of the top stablecoins by market cap, USD Coin (USDC), de-pegged briefly from the US dollar on March 11 following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Circle, the stablecoin’s issuer, held $3.3 billion in USDC reserves with the bank, which caused panic as investors rushed to withdraw their funds, assuming USDC could implode because of insufficient backing. However, the amount represented less than 8% of the stablecoin’s reserves.

Ethereum stakers have been eagerly awaiting the Shanghai upgrade, which will enable them to withdraw their staked ether. Stakers’ funds have been locked since Ethereum introduced the proof-of-stake Beacon Chain in December 2020. The upgrade was originally slated to take place sometime in March but was pushed by about two weeks to April during a recent execution layer meeting.

Following the infamous events of 2022, US regulators are turning up the heat on crypto services and products in 2023. One of the services they have targeted recently is custodial crypto staking, a process whereby customers have a financial service provider lock up their coins with a blockchain protocol over a certain period of time in exchange for rewards. This comes as no surprise since the SEC’s chairman, Gary Gensler, previously said that crypto staking looks very similar to lending. US crypto exchanges that offer this service are, therefore, in the SEC’s line of fire.

Bankruptcies have become commonplace in crypto, and it almost feels like the industry and community have gotten used to it. The latest company to yield to this legal process is crypto lending firm Genesis Global Holdco, LLC. The company announced it had filed for bankruptcy through a statement dated January 19, 2023. In the statement, Genesis Global revealed that it had “filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code” together with two of its lending subsidiaries, Genesis Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. and Genesis Global Capital, LLC.