By James Davis
A lot of stories have made rounds on crypto Twitter over the past seven days. One of them involves the United States Securities and Exchange Commission putting Valkyrie’s application for Bitcoin Spot Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) on review. This move has made crypto investors remain optimistic about a Bitcoin Spot ETF approval.
Meanwhile, crypto Twitter could soon be rebranded to crypto X after Twitter’s owner Elon Musk announced a branding change on Friday. But not everyone supports the idea. A section of the platform’s users that includes prominent crypto players wants the current brand name retained.
Last Monday, blockchain security company PeckShield shared its report revealing that over the last six months, there had been 386 decentralized finance attacks that led to the loss of over $479 million. The firm said 70% of these attacks were executed through flashloans.
That day, @Tier10k, a popular crypto news account, shared Archblock’s founder’s allegation that Tron CEO Justin Sun bought huge amounts of TUSD stablecoin in 2020 without getting approval from “stakeholders.”
Chainlink Launches New Protocol
On Tuesday, Chainlink rolled out its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol. In a long thread, the company explained that its protocol would initially support four blockchains: Optimism, Polygon, Ethereum, and Avalanche. It also integrated with decentralized finance leaders Aave and Synthetix. The launch caused Chainlink’s native token LINK to surge 21% last week.
Later that day, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea delisted an art piece that appeared to be criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping. NFT enthusiast @Anonymoux2311 broke the news.
The NFT fan said the digital art was deleted because OpenSea believed it had violated its Terms of Service. However, it is worth highlighting that the holder did not lose their asset despite being delisted. It can still be transferred to other marketplaces or wallets that support it.
On Wednesday, a video featuring the US Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler made rounds on Twitter. In the footage, Gensler was heard saying he still believes that XRP is a security. His commission lost against Ripple earlier this month after Judge Analisa Torres delivered her ruling in favor of the blockchain company in a case that began in late 2020.
What Has Helped Valkyrie and BlackRock ETF Applications Reach Review Round?
And as mentioned earlier, Gensler’s agency announced this week that it would soon start reviewing Valkyrie’s Bitcoin Spot ETF application along with that of another asset manager BlackRock. James Seyffart, a Bloomberg journalist, took to Twitter to share similarities between the two applications. He revealed that both Valkyrie and BlackRock had picked Nasdaq as their exchange and Coinbase as their surveillance sharing partner.
On Thursday, blockchain company Solana launched Solang, a platform that helps developers familiar with the Solidity programming language to build on the Solana network.
That day, the CEO of Coin Centre, Jerry Brito, tweeted to inform crypto users in the US that a district court had dismissed the organization’s case protesting against Congress’ expansion of the tax code. This means that from January 1, 2024, all Americans receiving crypto payments of $10,000 or more must report such transactions to the government.
Crypto Lawyer Unimpressed by Republicans’ Crypto Policy Bill
The following day, Delphi Labs’ General Counsel Gabriel Shapiro wrote a long thread explaining why he was disappointed by Republican lawmakers’ crypto policy bill introduced last week. Shapiro claimed that the lawmakers had engaged with several crypto players before tabling the bill, but only one recommendation was included. He said most of the regulations will continue to fuel SEC enforcement actions.
Meanwhile, Rarible and OpenSea got NFT fans excited last week after the two marketplaces changed their Twitter profile pictures to an Opepen logo. Opepen, an NFT collection inspired by the famous memecoin PEPE, has grown in popularity recently. It has 16,000 pieces, and the cheapest currently trades for 0.663 ETH. Whether the Rarible and OpenSea move to promote the NFT project will push its floor price higher remains to be seen.