By James Davis
Over the last seven days, major crypto assets have seen their prices collapse massively. The sudden sell-off is attributed to news that Evergrande, a China-based property company, had filed for bankruptcy protection. The development caused investors to dump risky investments like crypto and stocks.
Some X (formerly Twitter) users alleged that USDT’s issuer Tether was exposed to Evergrande. However, the company did not issue a statement regarding the matter, so the allegations are likely untrue.
In spite of the misinformation that has spread on X in the last few days, there are other true stories shared on the recently rebranded social media platform.
Last Tuesday, NFT trader Jeffrey Huang, popularly known as Machi Big Brother, wrote on his X account that he had decided to drop his defamation lawsuit against ZachXBT, a prominent blockchain sleuth. He revealed that ZachXBT had made important amendments to his article, in which he accused him of embezzling over 20,000 ETH. According to Huang, the two have mutually agreed to move on from the matter.
Later that day, ZachXBT released his statement addressing the issue. He thanked Huang for withdrawing the lawsuit and also confirmed that he had made adjustments to his article.
Meanwhile, blockchain funding protocol Gitcoin disclosed its partnership with leading fuel distribution company Shell. However, not many crypto players were impressed. Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano commented on the Gitcoin post, saying the partnership was against Ethereum’s principles, ethos, and values.
Following the uproar, Gitcoin CEO Kyle Weiss wrote a long thread admitting that the Shell deal was a wrong move for his company.
On Wednesday, well-known intelligence protocol Arkham revealed details of Donald Trump’s crypto holdings. The former president, who has expressed skepticism about crypto several times, holds cryptocurrencies worth $2.8 million, with Ethereum accounting for half of the figure. According to Arkham, Trump got most of the crypto assets through collecting royalty fees from his various NFT projects.
Shibarium Developers Make a $1.7M Mistake
That day, the developers of Ethereum layer-2 network Shibarium made an expensive mistake. Degen News, an X account that shares crypto-related news, posted a screenshot of Shibarium lead developer Shytoshi Kusama saying his team was unable to recover the ETH tokens sent to a bridge. Degen News reported that the unrecoverable ETH was worth $1.7 million.
On Thursday, crypto asset management company Grayscale shared a new job listing for its exchange-traded fund (ETF) department. The firm is looking to hire a senior associate to support the ETF team in achieving its objectives.
Just a few hours after Grayscale’s job announcement, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart wrote on his X account that the court had delayed its decision on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission vs. Grayscale case for converting the latter’s Bitcoin fund into an exchange-traded fund. Seyffart said the court might deliver its ruling before the end of this week.
On Friday, entrepreneur and OpenSea investor Mark Cuban called out the NFT marketplace for not collecting and paying royalties on NFT sales. Cuban said the move was hurting creators and that it should be reconsidered.
OpenSea Says It Won’t List New BSC NFTs
That day, OpenSea disclosed that it would no longer support new NFTs built on the Binance Smart Chain. The leading marketplace said the cost of supporting BSC NFTs outweighed the impact. As of this writing, users can still view the existing BSC NFTs on the platform.
Finally, based on documents shared by FOX reporter Eleanor Terett on X, it appears that the United States Security and Exchange Commission has filed an appeal against the court ruling that declared XRP non-security. The regulator brought charges against XRP’s issuer Ripple in 2020, accusing the company of offering unlicensed security to retail customers. However, last month, Judge Analisa Torres said the sale of XRP tokens did not violate any securities regulations.
Over the last few months, the Securities and Exchange Commission has slapped several crypto exchanges with lawsuits, alleging that they support the sale of unregistered securities. Some of the accused trading platforms include Binance and Coinbase.