Today's news tips:
1. The US SEC appealed the Ripple case ruling, saying it conflicts with Supreme Court precedent
2. Ripple can file a counterclaim against the US SEC within 14 days, and its chief legal officer said it is evaluating
3. Gurbir S. Grewal, a senior enforcement official at the U.S. SEC, leaves after 21 years
4. EigenLayer was criticized by community members because the staking rewards received by early investors were not subject to token lock-up restrictions
5. OpenAI raises just over $6.5 billion at a $150 billion valuation
6. In the past two days, short-term holders sold $3 billion worth of Bitcoin at a loss
7. FTX bankruptcy management team plans to sell 22.3 million locked WLD tokens at a discount
Regulatory News
Argentina's Vice President Asks El Salvador's President for Bitcoin
According to Bitcoin Archive, Salvadoran President Bukele said in an interview with the media that the Vice President of Argentina recently consulted him about Bitcoin-related issues.
US SEC appeals Ripple ruling, arguing it conflicts with Supreme Court precedent
According to The block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is appealing a previous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit against web3 payment company Ripple. “We believe that the district court’s ruling in the Ripple case conflicts with decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities law, and we look forward to filing a lawsuit in the Second Circuit.”
On August 7, the judge ordered Ripple to pay a $125 million civil penalty, far less than the $2 billion fine initially requested by the SEC. The ruling also partially approved and rejected the SEC’s preliminary motion for remediation regarding Ripple’s sale of the XRP token.
On July 13, 2023, the same judge ruled that while Ripple's programmatic sales of XRP did not violate securities laws, sales of XRP directly to institutional investors were considered securities. The U.S. SEC sued Ripple in 2020, claiming that Ripple's sale of XRP violated securities laws because the asset was an unregistered security and the company had earned more than $1.3 billion through unregistered securities sales.
Ripple can file a counterclaim against the US SEC within 14 days, and its chief legal officer said it is evaluating
Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said on the X platform that the SEC's appeal decision was disappointing, but not surprising. It will only prolong the agency's already completely embarrassing situation. The court has rejected the SEC's claim that Ripple acted recklessly and there were no allegations of fraud, and certainly no victims or losses. Instead of faithfully enforcing the law, the SEC, under the leadership of the chairman, continues to engage in a litigation war with the crypto industry. We are evaluating whether to appeal. In any case, the SEC's lawsuit was unreasonable and misleading from the beginning, and we are ready to prove it again in the appellate court. Coincidentally, the SEC's director of enforcement announced his resignation about an hour before this incident?
In response, FOX reporter Eleanor Terrett said that if Ripple files a counterclaim, it has 14 days to submit an application, starting tomorrow.
Earlier news, the U.S. SEC appealed the ruling on the Ripple case, saying it conflicted with Supreme Court precedent. Gurbir S. Grewal, a senior enforcement official at the U.S. SEC, resigned after 21 years in office.
Gurbir S. Grewal, the top enforcement official at the U.S. SEC, is leaving after 21 years
According to The block, Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Enforcement Division, will leave the office after 21 years. Deputy Director of the Division Sanjay Wadhwa will serve as interim acting director, and Chief Counsel Sam Waldon will serve as acting deputy director.
Gurbir S. Grewal, who served as the head of enforcement under Gensler for three years, will officially step down on October 11. As the top cop of the security regulator, Gurbir S. Grewal filed enforcement actions against several of the most prominent U.S. cryptocurrency companies, including Coinbase, Kraken and Ripple Labs, as well as countless international entities such as Binance. During Gurbir S. Grewal's tenure, the agency approved more than 100 enforcement actions against cryptocurrency companies.
Insider: Musk has been secretly funding a conservative political group in recent years
According to Jinshi, four people familiar with the matter revealed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has secretly funded a conservative political group in recent years, indicating that before the billionaire entrepreneur supported Trump's re-election campaign in July, he had secretly provided financial support for right-wing causes. Two people familiar with the matter said that Musk's donations to the "Building America's Future" organization began in 2022, totaling millions of dollars, which greatly boosted the morale of the organization. However, it is currently impossible to determine the exact amount and timeline of the donations, nor can any documents be found that link the organization's finances to Musk. Earlier on Wednesday local time, it was reported that Musk had also funded other pro-Republican groups.
Uruguay has passed a cryptocurrency law recognizing cryptocurrencies as virtual assets in the country
According to Bitcoin.com, after more than two years of discussion, Uruguay has enacted a cryptocurrency law. The law, proposed two years ago, recognizes cryptocurrencies as virtual assets in the country and establishes the Central Bank of Uruguay as the regulator and supervisor of companies seeking to provide cryptocurrency services. The law puts Uruguay at the forefront of Latin American countries that have included cryptocurrencies in their regulatory frameworks.
The Central Bank of Uruguay will regulate virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and must issue operating licenses to such organizations. The issuance of these licenses will take into account "legality, opportunity and convenience." Similarly, the Financial Services Superintendent (SSF) must identify exchanges, wallets and even miners that fall into the VASP category.
The law amends the existing money laundering and terrorist financing control regulations to include virtual assets in the control and supervision of existing law enforcement agencies. In addition, the law also reforms the securities law and introduces the concept of decentralized securities, which are "electronically issued, stored, transferred and traded through distributed ledger technology."
Coinbase asks CFTC for documents on communications with cryptocurrency issuers, saying it is crucial to its defense against SEC
According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase has asked the federal court to force the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to hand over all its communications with several crypto token issuers to help it defend against the Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuit. According to the October 1 motion to compel, Coinbase wants the CFTC to provide communications with 12 cryptocurrency issuers, which the SEC alleges are unregistered securities sold by Coinbase. It also requested documents about the two regulators' "respective regulatory scope for digital assets, including market uncertainty on the topic." Coinbase claims that this information is "critical to Coinbase's ability to defend against the allegations in the SEC action" because it can review whether the 12 cryptocurrencies that are alleged to be securities meet the definition.
Project News
Lamborghini Partners with Animoca and Motorverse to Bring Cars to Web3 Gaming
According to Cointelegraph, Lamborghini has partnered with Web3 game company Animoca Brands to launch the first blockchain-based interoperable digital car, marking its official entry into the Web3 game field. The cooperation will be achieved through a platform called "Fast ForWorld", where players can buy, sell and drive Lamborghini cars in games in the Motorverse ecosystem, including Torque Drift 2 and REVV Racing.
Animoca said the platform will go live on November 7 and provide 3D wallet functionality, allowing users to store and use their digital cars. The collaboration is part of Lamborghini's exploration of new ways for brands to engage with Web3.
FTX bankruptcy management team prepares to sell $38 million worth of locked Worldcoin tokens at a discount
According to The Block, the FTX bankruptcy management team auctioned 22.3 million locked Worldcoin (WLD) tokens at a significant discount, currently worth approximately $37.7 million. The auction is part of FTX's ongoing efforts to recover funds for creditors. Interested buyers must submit bids before 8 p.m. EST on Wednesday, and the discounts could range from 40% to 75%.
These WLD tokens will be unlocked daily until 2028, and the auction marks FTX's continued processing of its assets after selling Solana and Metaplex tokens. FTX Legacy currently holds approximately $594 million in assets, most of which are illiquid FTT tokens.
EigenLayer was criticized by community members for not limiting token lock-up restrictions on staking rewards received by early investors
According to Coindesk, EigenLayer has been criticized after it was revealed that the staking rewards received by early investors were not subject to token lock-ups. Investors and community members complained about the lack of transparency in the EigenLayer token supply. EIGEN's total supply is fixed at 1.68 billion, with a circulation of 186 million, an FDV of $5.8 billion, and a market capitalization (excluding uncirculated tokens) of $650 million. Many of the questions raised by community members stem from the fact that some of these locked tokens belong to early investors who purchased in a financing round at a significant discount.
Investors who bought into EigenLayer’s $14.4 million seed round, $50 million Series A round, and the latest $100 million round in February can now stake their locked tokens for returns. A total of 130 million EIGEN tokens are currently staked. Many people believe these are part of the claimed tokens, but in fact, 70 million of them belong to this small group of early investors. EigenLayer investor TardFiWhale.eth wrote on X that the project recently updated its documents to state that “there are no restrictions on staking for Eigen Labs investors” and that rewards are not subject to lock-up restrictions. The X post claims that this information was not in the archived documents in mid-September.
The EIGEN token initially rose to $4.39 after listing, before falling more than 20% to $3.57.
FTX bankruptcy management team plans to sell 22.3 million locked WLD tokens at a discount
According to The Block, the FTX bankruptcy management team plans to sell 22.3 million locked WLD tokens at a discount, currently worth approximately $37.7 million. The sale is part of FTX's ongoing efforts to recover funds for creditors. Two sources said the discount on WLD tokens could be 40% to 75% below the current spot market price of WLD. FTX Asset Management appears to have sold most of its tokens and currently holds approximately $594 million in remaining assets. However, a large portion of these assets (approximately $541 million) are in the form of FTX's FTT token, which has extremely poor liquidity and may not be sold.
Binance will perform a system upgrade at 14:00 on October 8, which will take about 15 minutes
According to the official announcement, Binance will start the planned system upgrade from 14:00 (Eastern Time) on October 8. The upgrade will take about 15 minutes. The main optimizations of this upgrade include overall system performance and stability improvements. During the upgrade, users can continue to place new spot, futures and options orders, or cancel existing orders, and can access all Binance products as usual. However, some services and functions may be affected differently during the upgrade, including services such as deposits and withdrawals.
Andre Cronje: A $1 billion FDV project uses its open source code and removes source and personal information
Sonic Labs CTO Andre Cronje said on the X platform that he just saw a project worth $1 billion TVL and $1 billion FDV, which took my open source code (based on GPL3) and attached a BUSL license. I can accept not being recognized, I can accept them removing my name from the code, I can accept them not mentioning me or the original project anywhere on their website or documents, and taking great pains to reshape certain concepts to avoid any association, but taking something from open source to make it restrictive and making a lot of money from it is chilling. The changes in this field are much greater than I thought.
Financing News
OpenAI raises just over $6.5 billion at $150 billion valuation
According to Jinshi.com, OpenAI's latest round of financing raised slightly more than $6.5 billion, completing the financing round with a valuation of $150 billion. Among them, Microsoft invested about $750 million in OpenAI's latest round of financing, and Cathie Wood's ARK Ark Fund will invest at least $250 million in OpenAI. OpenAI will allow employees to sell shares after completing the $6.6 billion financing round.
Important data
Bitcoin spot ETF had a net outflow of $91.7633 million yesterday, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 4.64%
Ethereum spot ETF had a net inflow of $14.4499 million yesterday, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 2.27%
Short-term holders sold $3 billion worth of Bitcoin at a loss in the past two days
According to Coindesk, as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East intensified, the price of Bitcoin fell 3.7% in the past two days, with short-term holders selling about $3 billion worth of Bitcoin to exchanges at a loss.
According to reports, between September 30 and October 1, Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, causing Bitcoin prices to fall and hit the worst start in October ever. Glassnode data shows that short-term holders (investors who hold Bitcoin for less than 155 days) sent about 64,000 Bitcoins (about $4 billion) to exchanges in the past two days, of which $3 billion was sold at a price below its average cost.
In contrast, long-term holders only sold 100 bitcoins at a loss during this period, showing stronger confidence in holding positions.
Fed officials: September rate cut of 0.5 percentage point is reasonable because interest rates are "out of sync" with falling inflation and unemployment approaching sustainable levels
According to Bloomberg reporter Walter, Federal Reserve official Barkin said that a 0.5 percentage point rate cut in September was reasonable because the interest rate level at the time was inconsistent with the downward trend in inflation and the unemployment rate being close to a sustainable level.
Arthur Hayes transferred PEPE and MOG to CEX 5 hours ago. If he sold all of them, he would lose about $40,000.
According to on-chain analyst Ember, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes bought $250,000 worth of PEPE (24.39 billion pieces) and $250,000 worth of MOG (167.51 billion pieces) after expressing his optimism about Memecoin on September 27. Five hours ago, these PEPE and MOG were transferred to CEX, and their value has dropped to $460,000. The sale resulted in a loss of $40,000.
A trader missed out on more than $25 million in profits by selling HIPPO too early
According to The Data Nerd, a trader bought 1.8 billion HIPPO with 258 SUI (about $433) 5 days ago. One day later, he sold all HIPPO and received 6299 SUI (about $11,000). If he had held on to it until now, the HIPPO he bought would be worth $25.84 million.
