2024-02-01 20:10

What started as a joke is turning into real business for Solana. The BONK meme coin started as a jokey way to spread some wealth across Solana when FTX's late-2022 implosion left that crypto ecosystem down bad. One year later both are up big, making BONK into an unlikely something else: an investor in a venture fund. Bonk DAO – a 12-person council of Solana power brokers who manage $124 million worth of BONK token – plans to invest $500,000 of its treasury in an early-stage startup fund that will back projects building on Solana, according to a recently concluded governance vote. The fund is being organized by Colosseum, the recently launched startup accelerator that plans to organize hackathons that spawn new projects for the Solana ecosystem. Last week, the Solana Foundation passed this responsibility over to Colosseum, which is being run by its former head of growth Matty Taylor. "We were fairly surprised to be honest, because we had not heard of a DAO making this type of investment in a venture fund before," Taylor said. He declined to discuss Colosseum's ongoing fundraising due to securities laws. BONK DAO was born at BONK token's inception in 2022 when the meme coin's creators allocated over 15% of all BONK to the group for it to manage and spend on community projects, according to BONK's website. The Cayman-based entity remains the single-largest holder of BONK tokens, with over 12% of the meme coin's total supply. Since then, the group has voted to send BONK into hackathon sponsorships, liquidity pools and DeFi partners across Solana. The investment is its first foray into writing a venture check, according to its governance page. The vote to send money to Colosseum recently passed with eight in favor and none against the proposal to invest in "Ycombinator for SOL." "Helping to support builders in the ecosystem and diversify the DAO treasury across early stage builders and founders via equity," the proposal read. A separate, ongoing vote proposes turning the BONK into USDC through a monthslong trading partnership with the market-maker STS Digital. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/01/the-biggest-bonk-whale-just-invested-in-ycombinator-for-solana/

2024-02-01 19:55

Lummis is hopeful a stablecoin bill could move forward in the first half of 2024, before elections increase political pressures in Washington. Long-awaited legislation to set rules of the road for U.S. stablecoin issuers is the subject of "pretty delicate" negotiations, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told CoinDesk TV on Thursday. She added that talks are ongoing every day not only between Democrats and Republicans, but also between the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Lummis, the Senate's most reliable advocate for crypto policy and the co-author of one of the most wide-reaching legislative efforts to regulate digital assets, suggested that the stablecoin piece may have the best odds of success this year. And she said it's received "good technical assistance feedback" from the Federal Reserve. "I'm optimistic that we will see stablecoin legislation this year and possibly even in the first half of this calendar year," Lummis said. "The deeper you get into the calendar year where there's elections, the tougher it is to get members of Congress to concentrate on difficult legislative issues, because their eyes are on their re-election and keeping their party in the majority." This Congress has progressed further on crypto legislation than in the past, and Republican-led House committees have advanced bills on market structure and stablecoins to the House floor. The greater bottleneck has so far been the Senate Banking Committee, where Democratic leadership hasn't demonstrated much interest publicly in passing a crypto bill this year. Stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle Internet Financial’s USDC, which are tokens tied to the value of the U.S. dollar, are a vital part of the crypto markets, used as steady means of transacting in other more volatile assets. (Collectively, stablecoins have a market cap of about $136 billion.) Some legislative efforts have approached the finish line in the past few years, with Democratic and Republican lawmakers finding common ground on regulating the tokens. But one of the key sticking points has been the role of the Feds or the states in overseeing issuers. Lummis, a member of the banking committee, said the current stablecoin debate is "a pretty dynamic discussion, and we're not there yet." But she added "there really is light at the end of the tunnel." In recent months, House Republicans have been aiming toward floor votes on multiple crypto bills. They got close to votes late last year before the Republicans' battles over the speaker of the House job and the parties' budgetary debates got in the way, but Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has indicated it remains a priority for this session. This is McHenry's last year to reach his goal before he leaves Congress. Lummis said that recent developments in the crypto industry are helping to make a case for legislation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of spot bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETFs) was a major step toward making the public more comfortable with investing. "When you see an Invesco or a Fidelity or a BlackRock getting into the bitcoin ETF space, it really gives consumers confidence that this is a more mature asset class now," she said. "It's ready for prime time, so to speak, and the adoption is going well." https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/02/01/us-sen-lummis-says-delicate-talks-underway-over-us-crypto-legislation/

2024-02-01 17:10

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is starting a survey to track the electricity consumption of crypto miners in the U.S. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is starting a provisional survey of electricity consumption data from cryptocurrency mining companies, drawing criticism from the community. Starting next week, the survey will require "identified" commercial miners to respond with details related to their energy use. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) authorized the survey on Jan. 26 as an emergency collection of data request, the EIA said in a press release on Thursday. “We intend to continue to analyze and write about the energy implications of cryptocurrency mining activities in the United States,” EIA Administrator Joe DeCarolis said in the statement. “We will specifically focus on how the energy demand for cryptocurrency mining is evolving, identify geographic areas of high growth, and quantify the sources of electricity used to meet cryptocurrency mining demand.” The move garnered concern and criticism from the mining community, with some participants calling on the miners to shun the survey. Marty Bent, a bitcoin advocate and director of mining firm Catherdra Bitcoin, said in a blog post that the EIA seems to be starting to "create a hyper-detailed registry of mining operations" in the U.S. "When I read the press release and the filing my initial thought was, Interesting. Maybe this will turn out to be a net positive for the industry," Bent wrote. However, after digging deeper, he called the survey "one of the more Orwellian things I've seen come out of this Administration," as it requires very granular data, such as specific information about mining fleets and hash rate data. Crypto mining energy use has been a point of contention between the industry and regulators and lawmakers ever since the process jumped from just needing a laptop to requiring industrial-scale installations, with both sides voicing strong opinions. Last year, a group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington, D.C., led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy, urging the government to compel crypto miners to disclose their energy consumption data. The new EIA survey efforts seem to have hit a nerve with the mining community because it appears to be mandatory by Federal law for commercial miners to respond to the survey. "They have pre-formatted delinquency notices for those companies that do not respond, which include threats of criminal and civil penalties for non-compliance including a $10,633 fine PER DAY for failure to report," said Alex Brammer, Director at Bitcoin Today Coalition, in a social media post on X. "This is egregious and needs to be met with immediate legal action." https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/02/01/us-drilling-down-on-crypto-miners-energy-use-draws-ire-from-community/

2024-02-01 17:05

The largest crypto exchange in the world stopped offering its services to U.K. customers in October after it failed to comply with a rule change made by regulators last year. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is facing challenges as it attempts to re-enter the U.K. market after it suspended services in the country in October, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority last year changed its crypto promotion rules, which require crypto firms to be registered with the FCA to be able to approve marketing campaigns, or to be approved by an authorized third party. Binance had attempted to partner with Rebuildingsociety.com in order to comply with the new rule, but the FCA blocked the partnership. In an effort to find a new partner, at least three firms who have been contacted by Binance to approve its marketing services have declined the offer after the FCA expressed concerns about the firms potentially working with Binance, according to the people that spoke with Bloomberg. A spokesperson for the exchange told Bloomberg that it is inaccurate to say that Binance has been rejected by approvers in the U.K. and that it is confident that it will have a "positive update soon." CORRECTION (Feb. 1, 17:23 UTC): Removes stray "21" from final paragraph. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/02/01/binance-is-facing-regulatory-headwinds-as-it-tries-to-re-enter-uk-market-bloomberg/

2024-02-01 14:35

The Ethereum-focused developer firm attributes the layoffs to working more effectively, rather than financial reasons. Polygon Labs, the developer firm behind the layer-2 rollup network Polygon, has cut 60 roles, accounting for roughly 19% of its staff, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. According to the release, the downsizing comes “for the sake of enhanced performance, rather than for financial reasons.” The company also shared that the team behind Polygon ID will be spinning out of the firm in the coming months. For those that were not impacted by the layoffs, Polygon said that they will receive at least a 15% increase in their total compensation, and that they would also be eliminating geo-pay models. The fresh round of reductions come less than a year after a downsizing in February 2023, when Polygon previously laid off 20% of its staff amid a restructuring. “The reality is that achieving our mission often demands challenging decisions, and while difficult, the founders and I agree that we must move forward in a thoughtful way that gives us the greatest chance to execute successfully,” Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, wrote in a post on X. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/02/01/polygon-labs-cuts-19-of-staff-60-roles-for-enhanced-performance/

2024-02-01 09:14

The plaintiffs, who are also suing Iran and Syria, say the crypto exchange facilitated the financing of Hamas and other terrorist groups between 2017 and 2023. Families of hostages and victims of Hamas in Israel are suing cryptocurrency exchange Binance for its alleged role in processing transactions associated with the terrorist group and others operating in the region. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, was brought "on behalf of United States citizens who were murdered, maimed, taken hostage, or otherwise injured in unspeakable acts of terror perpetrated by Hamas and other terrorist groups in the State of Israel on October 7, 2023." In October, the Wall Street Journal reported that Palestinian Islamic Jihad received $93 million in crypto between August 2021 and June 2023, while Hamas received about $41 million. Those figures are probably “overstated,” Chainalysis said in a blog post. The plaintiffs, who are also suing Iran and Syria, accuse the crypto exchange of facilitating the financing of Hamas, which is listed as a terror group by the U.S., U.K. and other jurisdictions, and other terrorist organizations between 2017 and 2023, "providing a clandestine financing tool that Binance deliberately hid from U.S. regulators." More than 100 Binance accounts with suspected links to Hamas were frozen at the request of Israeli law enforcement in the 10 days following the attacks that led to more than 1,000 deaths and more than 250 people taken hostage. Binance did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment. Read More: Bipartisan Anti-Crypto Terror Financing Bill Heads to U.S. Senate https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/02/01/binance-sued-by-families-of-hamas-victims-hostages/