Mashinky Arrests, Coinbase Messages, Google Play NFTs, ETF Bullishness, and 20 Crypto Jokes

This Week in Crypto: Strong Litecoin Performance Ahead of Its “Halving” Fueled Optimism for a Bitcoin Rally, Bitcoin Miners Started to Prepare for Their Token Rewards Cut, and Polygon Proposed Token Review MATIC to POL as part of Polygon’s 2.0 roadmap. Then Alex Mashinsky of Celsius was accused of fraud by the US Department of Justice and sued by three regulatory agencies for the company’s collapse, the judge said that Ripple’s XRP sales were not an investment contract, FTX lawyers were seeking the recovery of $323.5 million from the leadership. of FTX Europe, a former FTX executive and his former congressional candidate girlfriend were under investigation for possible violations of campaign finance law, Paradigm challenged the authority of the US SEC to regulate secondary crypto markets, and the Dubai’s virtual asset regulator has imposed enforcement measures against BitOasis.

Coinbase’s self-custody wallet will soon function as an encrypted simultaneous messaging service, and Google Play has announced policy changes to allow the integration of digital assets like NFTs into its platform. Speaking of which, Andy Murray teamed up with Wimbledon and Refik Anadol to launch an NFT on Ethereum, and the creator of Stepn planned to give away $431,400 worth of cryptocurrency in an NFT contest for a new video game. Meanwhile, Temasek abandoned plans to invest in cryptocurrency exchanges due to regulatory uncertainties, and Hive Blockchain shifted its focus to AI and rebranded as Hive Digital Technologies.

Europe’s First Spot BTC ETF To Debut In 2023, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein Was Bullish About The Future Of Spot Bitcoin ETFs, CF Benchmarks Sui Chung Also Said He Was “Very Bullish” About Approval US SEC approval of a spot BTC ETF, and Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton discussed the conditions for approval of a bitcoin ETF. South Korea will require companies to disclose cryptocurrency holdings from 2024, the FCA and four other law enforcement agencies “disrupted” 26 other ATMs in the UK, and the US government will auction off the assets. seized from an alleged cryptographic-themed financial pyramid operator.

In Russia, parliament has passed vital ‘digital ruble’ legislation, the central bank could begin ‘real world’ tests of the digital ruble next month, and the tax body said citizens ‘can pay’ taxes on your crypto earnings despite the tokens not having legal personality. Chinese central bank unveiled offline SIM card-based digital ‘hard’ wallet solution, Blocktrade CEO Christian Niedermüller said the EU ‘understands the benefits of having a crypto market,’ CTO of Brighty, Nikolay Denisenko, Discussing Major Challenges Crypto Firms Face In Moving To Neobanking, EU Financial Regulators Urged Stablecoin Issuers To Adopt Guidelines By MiCA, Reserve Bank Of India Deputy Governor warned that stablecoins pose an existential threat to policy sovereignty, with the BIS pointing to “inherent structural flaws” in crypto as the reason it will never be converted to money, but saying 15 retail CBDCs would be launched by 2030.

Although Chainalysis found a significant decline in crypto scams in 2023, this week Coinbase users reported a series of phishing attacks using the exchange’s domain name, DeFi platform Arcadia Finance was the victim of a $455,000 hack on the Ethereum and Optimism vaults, Rodeo Finance-based Arbitrum Network- Rodeo Finance lost 472 ETH in DeFi exploit, Gutter Cat Gang Twitter account compromised in phishing attack where NFTs were stolen by worth $750,000, the DOJ charged a 25-year-old with stealing $450,000 worth of NFTs and crypto from OpenSea, and ZachXBT the alleged YouTuber known as Blue/Jack used NFT Monkey drain technology to steal $1.5 million. Meanwhile, rapper Seo Chul-Goo (aka Xitsuh) said that he “lost” up to $77,000 in bad cryptocurrency investments.

Joke time!

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GM, CT!

You look well!