By James Davis
Over the past week, Bitcoin crossed $30,000 for the first time in ten months. Further, the most awaited event on the Ethereum blockchain, the Shapella upgrade, went live on Wednesday, letting stakers withdraw the funds they committed to the network. The update caused ETH to hit $2,100, a price it hadn’t reached since last May.
However, the crypto Twitter community did not discuss these successes as many would expect. Instead, lengthy broadsides, along with several announcements, took center stage.
On Monday, the developer of the popular Web3 game The Sandbox, Animoca Brands, announced that its Japanese entity had found a new CEO. In a statement shared on the company’s official Twitter account, Animoca Brands described the new CEO, Daisuke Iwase as a Web3 guru with a proven record as a corporate leader and an entrepreneur.
On that day, Vishal Gupta, Coinbase’s Head of Exchange, announced plans to leave his role after working at the company for over two years.
Blockchain Observer Reveals Dark Details About DWF Labs CEO
The following day, a blockchain observer (@Nay_Gmy) took to Twitter to disclose he did some digging regarding Andrei Grachev, the CEO of the crypto market maker DWF. According to Nay Gmy, Grachev has been accused of operating multiple crypto scams for the last four years, including raising funds through Initial Coin Offerings, with those projects never launching. In addition, the CEO was allegedly associated with OneCoin, a scam project that left investors counting losses to the tune of $4.5 billion.
On Wednesday, Bitcoin Maxi (@Pete_Rizzo) revealed that the co-founders of the crypto exchange Gemini, the Winklevoss twins, were marking the tenth anniversary of holding 100,000 BTC they bought for under $100.
Later that day, the Tron founder Justin Sun, currently facing securities fraud charges brought against by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, rubbished rumors shared by a pseudonymous Twitter user (@Crypto_Bitlord) that he had been arrested in Hong Kong. Sun replied to the tweet with the number “4,” a Twitter code established by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to mean “Ignore FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt).
Further, an Ethereum NFT to honor the late martial actor and artist Bruce Lee was launched by the Bruce Lee Estate that day.
On Thursday, the CEO of The Blockchain Association, Kristin Smith, disclosed that she was detained in Costa Rica at the Liberia Airport. Her detention came a few hours after the pro-crypto lobbying group filed a brief in a US court in Austin challenging the sanctions imposed on coin mixer Tornado Cash by the Treasury Department.
Mastercard Announces New Program Targeting Artists
On that day, payment processor MasterCard revealed it had rolled out its Artist Accelerator Program along with free Polygon NFTs that give owners various perks. The program will provide participating artists the guidance and tools required to launch their own non-fungible tokens.
On Friday, Logan Kilpatrick, the OpenAI developer, assured the public that the firm had not started training GPT-5 and won’t happen any time soon. His tweet came after Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Tech guru Steve Wozniak urged the artificial intelligence-focused company to stop further development of its product.
Finally, SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce called out the agency Chairman Gary Gensler for his planned move to expand the definition of ‘exchange’ in an effort to bring decentralized crypto exchanges under the regulator’s jurisdiction. Pierce is against the move, claiming it would hinder innovation and force many Decentralized Finance companies out of the United States.