Hodler’s Digest, Aug 27 – Sept 2 – Cointelegraph Magazine

Top Stories This Week

Grayscale wins SEC lawsuit for Bitcoin ETF review

Crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments recently scored a big win in its battle against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

In an ongoing effort to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), the U.S. appeals court judge accepted Grayscale’s argument that the SEC’s rejection of its recent ETF application was unfair.

The SEC had alleged that the GBTC didn’t have enough safe practices and fraud protection in place.

Judge Neomi Rao gave the green light to Grayscale’s request for a second review. 

Previously, Rao said that the SEC did not “offer any explanation” as to why Grayscale was in the wrong. 

However, the victory doesn’t automatically mean Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF is a done deal. There’s still more to come…

BitBoy Crypto brand will no longer include YouTuber Ben Armstrong

The parent company of Hit Network, the folks behind the “BitBoy Crypto” brand, just gave the boot to their public face, Ben Armstrong.

The company alleged issues of substance abuse and financial damage as reasons behind the decision. 

In a YouTube and social media announcement, Hit Network revealed that despite efforts their efforts to support Armstrong during his struggle with addiction, they have decided to part ways.

This follows Armstrong facing a series of lawsuits in recent times.

He was in a class-action lawsuit where investors accused him and other influencers of promoting FTX without disclosing how much they were getting paid by the exchange. 

Furthermore, during the lawsuit, there were claims that Armstrong threatened the plaintiff’s lawyers and even blew off a federal judge’s orders to show up in court. The case was put on hold in June.

SEC delays decision on 6 spot Bitcoin ETF applications

The SEC has chosen to postpone delivering a decision on six applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. The commission has opted to extend its review period by an additional, pushing the decision further into October on the calendar.

Shortly after the news broke, the SEC also put BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, in the same delayed decision boat.

Bitwise withdraws Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap ETF application

In a surprising twist following the U.S. SEC’s announcement of delays, Bitwise has submitted a request to retract its application for its Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF.

This application was originally submitted to the SEC on August 3. It seems that Bitwise is taking a step back to reconsider its approach despite the brief positive market sentiment that followed Grayscale’s recent SEC win.

Robinhood bought back Sam Bankman-Fried’s stake from US gov’t for $606M

Crypto and stock trading platform Robinhood scooped up more than 55 million shares of their own company that were previously owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX.

The purchase, which cost Robinhood roughly $606 million, was finalized this week after filing the paperwork with the U.S. SEC. These shares originally belonged to Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, who is a co-founder of FTX through a company called Emergent Fidelity Technologies. 

However, back in January, the U.S. Department of Justice seized these shares.

The purchase has been in the works for a while. Robinhood’s board of directors gave it the green light in its Q4 2022 report, and an SEC filing from August confirmed that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the purchase without any legal complications. 

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $25,610, Ether (ETH) at $1,618 and XRP (XRP) at $0.49. The total market cap is $1.03 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Toncoin (TON) at 33.90%, Iota (MIOTA) at 13.13% and Maker (MKR) at 12.33%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are KuCoin Token (KCS) at 15.53%, Hedera (HBAR) at 15.02% and Astar (ASTR) at 12.82%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotes

“There are many cases where transparency is a feature, but people do not want most transactions in the economy to be public.”

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase

“Now that the…