2024-05-17 14:44

The so-called FIT21 legislation to establish a U.S. regulatory regime for digital assets is set for a floor vote next week, and the sector is telling House leaders the effort is "crucial." A wide swath of the crypto industry signed a letter to the top lawmakers in the U.S. House of Represenatives, explaining why they should get behind the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act. As House lawmakers are poised for a floor vote next week on the bill, the letter says passage would help the U.S. keep up with global competitors. The U.S. House of Representatives is on the verge of a vote that will represent the closest the cryptocurrency industry has ever been toward finally winning regulation in the U.S., and the sector's associations and top businesses are encouraging House leaders to support the effort. Through the Crypto Council for Innovation, a coalition of digital assets organizations and companies, including Coinbase, Kraken, Andreessen Horowitz, the Digital Currency Group and about 50 others, wrote a letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), advocating for passage of the bill. The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) has been authorized for floor time next week, where observers are hoping to see a mid-week vote. The bill would set the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a leading regulator of digital assets, and it sets out clear divisions for what the CFTC will handle and what would fall under the reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It would establish consumer protections – including rules around custody of customers' assets and their treatment in bankruptcy – and set up further guardrails against risky behavior. "By passing this legislation, we can accelerate the growth of blockchain technology and digital assets, fostering financial inclusion and protecting national security," according to the letter. "It is crucial for the U.S. to maintain its leadership in financial innovation." The crypto industry is on a high in Washington at the moment, having watched both the House and Senate easily pass a resolution overturning a crypto accounting policy from the SEC, though President Joe Biden vowed to veto the effort. That move to erase the SEC's Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 (SAB 121) represented a fight that went decidedly in the industry's favor, drawing many supporters from the Democratic Party that's been more reticent than Republicans in backing crypto. For that accounting tussle, more than one in five Senate Democrats voted on the industry's side, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and it was about one in 10 Democrats in the House. But the comprehensive legislation now approaching a House vote is of a much higher magnitude, and key Senate Democrats have so far seemed unprepared to match the House's effort. To date, the Senate has only shown a potential willingness to fit a different crypto bill – one regulating stablecoin issuers – into a package deal with other financial legislation. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee where the bill was launched, said the level of Democratic support for FIT21 in the House could be a major factor in whether the Senate is moved to action. When the measure cleared his committee, it did so with a handful of Democrats on board, despite opposition from their senior member, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) On its way toward the floor, the FIT21 effort drew a range of amendments called for by the House Rules Committee to meet a May 16 deadline. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/17/crypto-industry-rallies-behind-house-bill-as-it-heads-toward-final-vote/

2024-05-17 12:48

The Nigerian court also ruled that the Binance exchange can be served the FIRS tax evasion charges through its executive Tigran Gambaryan. Tigran Gambaryan’s bail was refused by a Nigerian court on Friday. Nigeria has taken Binance and its executives to court and is pursuing tax evasion and money laundering charges. Detained Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan’s bail application was denied by a Nigerian court on the grounds that there is a likelihood that he will manage to jump bail, the spokesperson for the executive’s family said on Friday. Binance and the executives’ money laundering, tax evasion and the exchanges detained Head of Compliance Tigran Gambaryans bail hearings all occurred on Friday in Nigeria. The court ruled that Binance can be served with the Federal Inland Revenue Service tax evasion charge through Gambaryan. Tigran’s lawyers objected to the application on the grounds that they needed to review the amended charge to advise Gambaryan on taking his plea. The court agreed to adjourn the matter to May 22 for arraignment, where charges are formally laid against the defendant. Gambaryan, who turned 40 on Friday, has been detained in Nigeria since February when he arrived with the British-Kenyan regional manager for Africa, Nadeem Anjarwalla. Anjarwalla has since escaped. “I truly cannot believe that my innocent husband is now - on his 40th birthday - having to face a trial for charges that he has nothing to do with,” said Yuki Gambaryan, the wife of Tigran Gambaryan. “The whole world is watching what he is being put through, and I just pray that common sense and justice will prevail and that Tigran will be allowed to come home to us.” A month after the exchange’s executives were detained in the country, they, along with the exchange, were charged with money laundering and tax evasion. Gambaryan was later moved to Kuje prison, which also houses the likes of members of the Boko Haram terrorist group. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) money laundering trial commenced on Friday with a Nigerian prosecutor who called on Abdulkadir Abbas from the Nigerian SEC as the first prosecution witness. After the prosecution finished examining their first witness, Tigran’s lawyers asked for a stand down—which means to put a matter on hold for a short while—to obtain certified records of certain documents in the proof of evidence to be used in their cross-examination of the witness. The court adjourned the trial until May 23 at noon. “We are deeply disappointed that Tigran Gambaryan, who has no decision-making power in the company, continues to be detained. Tigran has been dedicated to public service and fighting crime for most of his life. These charges against him are completely meritless. He should be freed while discussions continue between Binance and Nigerian government officials," a Binance Spokesperson said. Binance’s CEO Richard Teng recently released a blog post calling on the Nigerian government to release Gambaryan. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/17/binance-exec-tigran-gambaryan-denied-bail-by-nigerian-court/

2024-05-17 12:20

The company promoted the NFTs telling customers that buying the DGFamily NFTs would grant them access to various digital rewards, the complaint alleges. A customer sued Dolce & Gabbana USA for delaying the delivery of the products, causing him to lose value on the DGFamily NFTs. Bloomberg reported that the customer also alleged that the digital outfits with the NFTs couldn’t be used for another 11 days after they were released because D&G didn’t get approval on time. Dolce & Gabbana USA has been sued for messing up the delivery of its non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Bloomberg reported. The customer spent $6,000 to purchase the asset. The report said Luke Brown lost $5,800 on the NFTs he bought and filed the case in the Southern District of New York on behalf of others who bought digital assets from the NFT project. The complaint alleged that the company promoted the NFTs, telling customers that buying the DGFamily NFTs would grant them access to various digital rewards, physical products and exclusive events. However, the delivery of the NFTs was late. The customer alleged that the NFTs came with outfits to wear in the metaverse, but the digital outfits that showed up 20 days behind schedule “could be used only in a metaverse platform with barely any users,” the report said. The digital outfits couldn’t be used for another 11 days after they were released because, the complaint alleges, Dolce & Gabbana had not got approval from the NFT marketplace UNXD ahead of time. Dolce & Gabbana and UNXD, also named as a defendant in the case, did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment. Read More: Brands Will Save Crypto? Be Careful What You Wish For https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/05/17/dolce-gabbana-sued-for-messing-up-delivery-of-its-nfts-bloomberg/

2024-05-17 12:05

The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for May 17, 2024. Latest Prices Top Stories Bitcoin (BTC) rose to past $66,000 early Friday, reversing Thursday's pullback below $65,000. At the time of writing, it was priced around $66,440, 0.4% higher than 24 hours ago, while the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), which offers a measurement of the wider digital asset market, was up about 1.4%. Inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs turned positive again this week, recording additions for four consecutive days. This week has also seen numerous big-name institutional players disclose sizable BTC ETF holdings. Morgan Stanley, for example, revealed a $269.9 million investment in Grayscale's GBTC yesterday. Ether may have underperformed other major digital assets this year, but Coinbase says it had potential to surprise to the upside. Ether does not have significant sources of supply side overhangs, the exchange said in a research report this week. "To the contrary, both staking and layer 2 growth have proven to be meaningful and growing sinks of ETH Liquidity," wrote analyst David Han. "ETH's position as the center of DeFi is also unlikely to be displaced in our view due to the widespread adoption of the EVM and its layer 2 innovations." Coinbase also noted that the potential of spot U.S. ETH ETFs being approved cannot be overstated. The Fantom blockchain's FTM is one of the best-performing non-meme tokens of the past week as the market looks favorably on the roll-out of its Sonic upgrade and increases in the total value locked on the protocol. FTM has gained 13% in the past seven days to about 81 cents, according to CoinDesk Indices data, while the CD20 is just 1.5% higher. In the past few weeks, the Fantom Foundation has been pushing Sonic, its latest upgrade, which is expected to boost transaction speeds to 2,000 transactions per second with a 1.1-second finality. That compares with just over 2.5 TPS during the past month, on-chain data shows. Chart of the Day The chart shows bitcoin's "hodler net position change," which gauges the net buying/selling activity of addresses that have held coins for six months or more. The metric has flipped positive for the first time since December, a sign holders have become net buyers. Source: Glassnode - Omkar Godbole Trending Posts Biden Order to Halt China-Tied Bitcoin Mine Beside Nuke Base Came as U.S. Firm Just Bought It Coinbase Shares Sink 9% on Report CME to Consider Listing Spot Bitcoin U.S. Senate Votes to Kill SEC's Crypto Accounting Policy, Testing Biden's Veto Threat https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/05/17/first-mover-americas-bitcoin-regains-66k-following-bullish-etf-data/

2024-05-17 10:43

Ether's sell-off has stalled at an upward-sloping trendline, characterizing the rally from October lows. Ether's sell-off has stalled at an upward-sloping trendline, characterizing the rally from October lows. The immediate resistance is seen in the range of $3,180-$,3225. Ether's (ETH) sell-off has stalled, with bears hitting a brick wall characterized by an upward-sloping trendline drawn off October and January lows, according to charting platform TradingView. The bears' inability to penetrate that bull-market trendline since Monday suggests they might have to back up a bit and allow a price bounce before making another attempt at extending recent declines. The native token of the Ethereum blockchain has dropped more than 15% to $3,000 from highs near $4,100 two months ago, according to CoinDesk data. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a measure of the broader crypto market, lost 17% in the same period. Supporting the case for an ether price bounce is the daily MACD histogram, which has flipped positive, signaling renewed bullish momentum. The MACD is widely used to gauge trend strength and changes. Intraday momentum is steadily improving, with the widely tracked 50-hour simple moving average (SMA) again trending north, providing reassurance. The immediate resistance is seen at the 50-day SMA near $3,180, followed by a descending trendline representing the recent correction, currently at $3,225. If the price drops below the bullish trendline, that would mean the broader uptrend has ended, opening the door for a more pronounced sell-off. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/05/17/ether-bears-hit-a-brick-wall-as-price-collides-with-bull-market-trendline/

2024-05-17 10:04

The cryptocurrency does not have major supply-side overhangs such as token unlocks or miner sell pressure, the report said. Coinbase said ether has the potential to surprise to the upside in the coming months. The cryptocurrency unlikely to be displaced as the center of decentralized finance, the report said. The market may be underestimating the timing and odds of a potential approval of a U.S. spot ether exchange-traded fund. Ether (ETH) has underperformed the broader crypto market this year, but its long-term positioning remains strong and it has the potential to surprise to the upside, Coinbase (COIN) said in a research report on Wednesday. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value has risen 29% year-to-date, less than two-thirds the surge its larger rival bitcoin (BTC) which has gained 50%. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a measure of the broader crypto market, has advanced 28%. "Ether may have the potential to surprise to the upside in the coming months," the report said, noting that the cryptocurrency does not have "major sources of supply side overhangs" such as token unlocks or pressure created by miners' sales. "To the contrary, both staking and layer 2 growth have proven to be meaningful and growing sinks of ETH Liquidity," wrote analyst David Han. "ETH's position as the center of decentralized finance (DeFi) is also unlikely to be displaced in our view due to the widespread adoption of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and its layer 2 innovations." The EVM is the Ethereum blockchain's native processing system that allows developers to create smart contracts and lets nodes interact with them. Layer 2s are separate blockchains built on top of layer 1s, or the base layer, that reduce bottlenecks with scaling and data. Moreover, the importance of potential spot U.S. ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) cannot be understated. "We think the market may be underestimating the timing and odds of a potential approval, which leaves room for surprises to the upside," Coinbase said "Even if the first deadline of May 23, 2024 encounters a rejection, we think there is a high likelihood that litigation could reverse that decision," the note said. "In the interim, we believe the structural demand drivers for ETH as well as the technological innovations within its ecosystem will enable it to continue straddling across multiple narratives." https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/05/17/ether-could-surprise-to-the-upside-in-the-coming-months-coinbase-says/