👀 JUST IN: The SEC has agreed to review Blackrock's spot Bitcoin ETF application
Bitcoin has moved on with the recent application of a Bitcoin spot ETF by Blackrock, the world's largest institutional asset manager. Many companies have similarly filed with the SEC after Blackrock's application. However, the SEC did not examine these applications due to some shortcomings and requested that they be revised. Blackrock and other companies reviewed their applications, filled in the missing places, and reapplied. 🔗 Read more

📰 This Week In Crypto (CW 28)

1. Judge rules XRP is not a security in SEC’s case against Ripple

2. Brazil’s CBDC pilot contains code that can freeze or reduce funds, dev claims

3. Grayscale Complaints To SEC Court For Not Approving Bitcoin Spot ETF!

4. Celsius Network fined $4.7B by FTC, and CEO arrested under criminal fraud charges

5. Binance headcount reduction hits 1,000 employees

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CW27 (last week)

💵 BlackRock's CEO Believes Cryptocurrency Will 'Transcend' the U.S. Dollar
BlackRock's CEO, Larry Fink, predicts that cryptocurrency will surpass traditional currencies and expects it to transcend any one currency in valuation. BlackRock has filed an application for a U.S. spot bitcoin ETF and is working with regulators to ensure safety and protection. The recent court ruling on Ripples XRP sales has boosted the crypto market, signaling a potential end to regulatory uncertainty. 🔗 Read more

🪙 Ripple says U.S. banks will want to use XRP cryptocurrency after partial victory in SEC fight
Blockchain startup Ripple is confident U.S. banks and other financial institutions in the country will start showing interest in adopting XRP in cross-border payments after a landmark ruling determined the token was not, in itself, necessarily a security. The San Francisco-based firm expects to start talks with American financial firms about using its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product, which uses XRP for money transfers, in the third quarter, Stu Alderoty, Ripple’s general counsel, told CNBC in an interview last week. 🔗 Read more

🔎 Global rules leave crypto firms with no place to hide, says G20 watchdog
Globally agreed rules leave crypto firms with no option but to introduce basic safeguards to prevent the blow-ups seen at FTX exchange and other crypto casualties, the G20's Financial Stability Board said on Monday. The FSB published on Monday final recommendations requested by the G20 on supervising firms that trade cryptoassets such as bitcoin. The watchdog also revised its existing recommendations for stablecoins in light of the demise of TerraUSD/Luna coins. Both borrow universal guard rails from mainstream finance before the sector grows big enough to pose a threat to financial stability by focusing on robust governance to avoid conflicts of interest, and proper risk management and disclosures to ensure that customer money is segregated from company cash. 🔗 Read more

🇺🇸 RFK Jr. Announces Bold Plan to Back Dollar With Bitcoin, End Bitcoin Taxes
“My plan would be to start very, very small, perhaps 1% of issued T-bills would be backed by hard currency, by gold, silver platinum or bitcoin,” Kennedy said, describing his vision for returning to a hard currency standard in the U.S. He added that, depending on the outcome of that initial step, he would increase that allocation annually. This potential policy reimagines the financial system, pointing to a future where bitcoin's absolute scarcity and sound monetary principles reinforce the U.S. dollar’s eroding position as the world reserve currency. 🔗 Read more

💥 Kuwait has officially confirmed the commitment to “absolute prohibition” of virtually all crypto operations in the country
The state of Kuwait is the latest jurisdiction to ban virtually all operations involving cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. On July 18, Kuwait’s main financial regulator, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), issued a circular on the supervision and issuance of virtual assets in the country. In the circular, the CMA confirmed the commitment to “absolute prohibition” on major use cases and operations involving cryptocurrencies, including payments, investments, and mining. 🔗 Read more

🥷North Korean hackers breached a US tech company to steal crypto

A North Korean government-backed hacking group penetrated an American IT management company and used it as a springboard to target cryptocurrency companies, the firm and cybersecurity experts said on Thursday. The hackers broke into Louisville, Colorado-based JumpCloud in late June and used their access to the company’s systems to target "fewer than 5" of its clients, it said in a blog post. 🔗 Read more

🏦 Ripple applies for crypto license in the United Kingdom
Payments network and technology company Ripple has recently applied for registration as a crypto asset firm with the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a spokesperson for the firm told Cointelegraph. The company also seeks a payments license in Ireland as part of its massive regional investment. The registration was submitted after Ripple’s partial win against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the classification of its XRP token as a security. The decision, viewed as a win by Ripple and the broader crypto community, considered the XRP token a security when sold to institutional investors but not retail investors. The case is still open to appeal by the SEC. 🔗 Read more

📰 This Week In Crypto (CW 29)

1. Chair Gensler says SEC reaction to Ripple decision is mixed, still under consideration

2. Ethereum Still Leads in Holdings Despite Bitcoin's Favorable Growth Outlook

3. Altcoins ‘bled’ as Bitcoin gained dominance in Q2: CoinGecko

4. Multiple spot crypto ETF applications go to Federal Register in step toward SEC approval

5. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vows to back US dollar with Bitcoin if elected president

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CW28 (last week)

🐕 Elon Musk Puts Dogecoin Symbol On Twitter Profile!
Elon Musk, who changed Twitter's logo and made “X”, has been on the agenda with this issue for a few days. It is now considered certain that both the name and logo of Twitter will be changed to X. Because Musk put X.com and X images on his Twitter profile. While all this was going on, Elon Musk did not neglect to refer to Dogecoin. He put the X and the Dogecoin symbol Ð in his Twitter location. 🔗 Read more

🏦 Bank of Italy Taps Polygon for Institutional DeFi Pilot
The Bank of Italy has announced a new initiative to help financial institutions explore the potential of decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenized assets. The project, called Institutional DeFi for Security Token, will enable secure and compliant transactions using security tokens, leveraging the Ethereum scaling network Polygon (MATIC) and cryptocurrency custody platform Fireblocks. 🔗 Read more

🪙 Palau government has agreed with Ripple for the US dollar-backed Palau Stablecoin
Having won an important victory against the SEC in the SEC-XRP lawsuit, Ripple continues to forge new partnerships. At this point, Ripple signed a stablecoin agreement with Palau, an island country in the Pacific. As The Block reports, the Palau government has partnered with Ripple to pilot a US dollar-backed stablecoin. The new stablecoin will be released on XRP Ledger. In the statement, it was stated that the first Palau Stablecoins (PSC) in the pilot project will be made available to government employees. 🔗 Read more

🌍 French privacy watchdog skeptical about Worldcoin biometric data collection
France's privacy watchdog said on Friday (July 28) that the legality of biometric data collection of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's Worldcoin Project "seems questionable". Worldcoin, launched on Monday, requires users to provide iris scans for a digital ID and even free cryptocurrency in some countries. Worldcoin's website says it has signed up 2.1 million people over trial in last two years. Worldcoin has set-up sites in various locations across the world. At these locations people can get their faces scanned by a shiny spherical "orb". 🔗 Read more

🪙 Why Kenyans are scanning their eyeballs for Sh7,000 Worldcoin cryptocurrency tokens
The internet has this week been awash with news of a new cryptocurrency that awards free tokens for scanning eyeballs to verify one’s humanity, and Kenyans are going crazy about it. Worldcoin, which launched on Monday, July 24, awards users with free tokens, referred to as WLD, once they verify their humanity by scanning their eyeballs using machines located in specified places across some 35 countries around the globe, Kenya being one of them. They can then transfer these tokens to official crypto exchanges, like Binance, and use them to buy other cryptocurrencies, which can then be cashed out through liquidity agents on those platforms or sold to other users, and there comes the free money. 🔗 Read more

🪙 Why substituting cryptocurrency for gold exposure may be a costly mistake
Viewing cryptocurrency as “digital gold” may be a mistake. State Street Global Advisors’ George Milling-Stanley, whose firm runs the world’s largest gold exchange-traded fund, believes cryptocurrency is no substitute for the real thing due its vulnerability to big losses. “Volatility does not back up any claims for crypto to be a long-term strategic asset as a competitor to gold,” the firm’s chief gold strategist told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” earlier this week. 🔗 Read more

📰 This Week In Crypto (CW30)

1. OpenAI's Sam Altman launches Worldcoin

2. Celsius reaches Settlement to Exit bankruptcy

3. Campaign Finance Charge against SBF dropped

4. Binance Withdraws German Crypto License Application

5. Bitcoin Block 800,000 mined

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CW29 (last week)

🛑 SEC asked Coinbase to halt trading in everything except bitcoin
The US Securities and Exchange Commission asked Coinbase to halt trading in all cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin prior to suing the exchange, in a sign of the agency’s intent to assert regulatory authority over a broader slice of the market. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong told the Financial Times that the SEC made the recommendation before launching legal action against the Nasdaq-listed company last month for failing to register as a broker. The SEC’s case identified 13 mostly lightly traded cryptocurrencies on Coinbase’s platform as securities, asserting that by offering them to customers the exchange fell under the regulator’s remit. 🔗 Read more

🚀 Ethereum is about to get crushed by liquid staking tokens
Before we know it, liquid staking tokens (LSTs) are going to replace Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, Ether. The LST market is already worth approximately $17 billion, and it has grown continuously since Ethereum’s Merge. While LSTs are just beginning to hit their stride, their advantages over traditional ETH will soon become clear to liquidity providers (LPs), toppling ETH from its throne and ushering in a new era of LST domination. Since the Merge, ETH can now be staked to produce a roughly 4% annual yield, depending on factors of network activity, total ETH staked, number of validators and the value captured by maximum extractable value. This development is significant because of the nature of ETH as a generally stable asset. Many cryptocurrencies are more volatile, so owners have to consider both yield and whether the price of that asset will appreciate or depreciate. Alternatively, ETH now offers yields from both staking and gradual price stability and appreciation. 🔗 Read more