Top Stories of The Week
SEC’s crypto pivot has ‘not been priced in,’ Bitwise exec says
Crypto investors may be underestimating the extent of the US securities regulator’s new stance on crypto, meaning that crypto prices would still have room to grow, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan.
US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins published a speech he gave on July 31 at the America First Policy Institute about how blockchain will be integrated into the financial markets.
Hougan on Tuesday said the speech caught him “off guard” and left him wondering whether Atkins’ vision had been priced into the market.
“The most bullish document I’ve read on crypto wasn’t written by some yahoo on Twitter. It was written by the chairman of the SEC,” Hougan said. “I can’t imagine reading the speech and not wanting to allocate a significant portion of your capital to crypto, or, if you work in finance, a significant portion of your career.”
Vitalik backs Ethereum treasury firms, but warns of overleverage
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin threw his support behind Ether treasury companies, but warned that the trend could spiral into an “overleveraged game” if not handled responsibly.
In an interview with the Bankless podcast released on Thursday, Buterin said the growing number of public companies buying and holding Ether was valuable because it exposes the token to a broader range of investors.
“There’s definitely valuable services that are being provided there,” Buterin said. He added that companies buying into ETH treasury firms instead of holding the token directly gives people “more options,” especially those with “different financial circumstances.”
So-called crypto treasury companies have become a hot trend on Wall Street, garnering billions of dollars to buy up and hold swaths of cryptocurrencies, with the most popular plays being Bitcoin and Ether.
Trump to sign executive order punishing financial institutions for ‘debanking’: Report
US President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order on Thursday instructing federal bank regulators to identify and fine financial institutions that engaged in “debanking.”
According to Bloomberg on Thursday, citing a senior White House official, regulators will be required to review complaint data, while financial institutions under the purview of the Small Business Administration will be asked to make efforts to reinstate clients who were unlawfully denied banking services.
Debanking has been a key concern among some political groups, who argue that businesses such as gun manufacturers and fossil fuel companies have been denied banking services for ideological reasons.
It was also a common complaint among crypto companies. During the administration of former President Joe Biden, allegations emerged of a new initiative called “Operation ChokePoint 2.0,” which some believed was an attempt to drive the crypto businesses offshore during the 2022 bear market.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao seeks dismissal of $1.8B FTX lawsuit
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao asked the court to dismiss a lawsuit by FTX that seeks to recover almost $1.8 billion from a deal between Binance and FTX, which the defunct exchange claims was fraudulently transferred.
Zhao told a Delaware bankruptcy court that the suit looks to “nonsensically blame” him for the actions of Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder, who was jailed for 25 years after a high-profile fraud trial.
Zhao, a resident of the United Arab Emirates, argued that the suit’s claims “are so far removed” from the US that “the statutes at issue, which lack extraterritorial application, do not even apply.”
FTX sued Zhao, Binance and other then-executives in November, claiming that FTX fraudulently transferred around $1.8 billion in crypto to Binance in 2021 to buy back shares that the exchange had purchased.
US government announces ChatGPT integration across agencies
US President Donald Trump’s administration has signed a deal with OpenAI to provide the enterprise-level version of the ChatGPT platform to all federal agencies in an effort to “modernize” operations.
Under the deal, all US government agencies will have access to the AI platform for $1 per agency to facilitate integration of AI into workflow operations, according to a Wednesday announcement from the US General Services Administration (GSA).
The GSA, which is the US government’s procurement office, said the private-public partnership “directly supports” the White House’s AI Action Plan, a three-pillar strategy to establish US leadership in AI development recently disclosed by the administration.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $116,618, Ether (ETH) at $4,156 and XRP at $3.31. The total market cap is at $3.93 trillion, according to…
cointelegraph.com