TRON's Justin Sun just compared running a business to Texas Hold'em Poker and also added:

⚫ Idolizes Alibaba's Jack Ma and Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin
⚫ SBF set back the industry back 5-10 years due to his failure
⚫ Aspired to become a lawyer before crypto
⚫ Wants to limit his emotional fluctuations like AI
⚫ Believes entrepreneurs should be supported like scientists

A judge ordered the SEC to pay $1.8m in legal fees and dismissed its case against Debt Box, citing the SEC’s bad faith conduct.

In July 2023, the SEC filed a complaint against Debt Box, accusing it of “defrauding investors of at least $49 million.”

Major crypto exchanges like OKX, Gate.iо, KuCoin, Binance, and HTX are withdrawing their Hong Kong licence applications due to strict regulations, high compliance costs and inability to serve mainland Chinese investors under the local license.

There are now 18 VATP applicants left on the SFC’s official list including Crypto.cоm, Bullish and Bybit.

Only HashKey Exchange and OSL have been approved to serve retail investors in Hong Kong.

Why Did Bitcoin Drop from $70k+ to $67k+?

Today's market turbulence is largely due to Mt.Gox unexpectedly transferring billions in Bitcoin to new addresses.

▪️This morning, 42,830 BTC ($2.94bn) was moved to an unknown address
▪️Later, another 64,636 BTC ($4.2bn) was transferred
▪️By day's end, an additional 34,138 BTC ($2.3bn) was transferred

In total, over $9.44bn worth of Bitcoin was moved in a single day.

These transfers are part of the Mt.Gox Rehabilitation Plan, where trustee is moving coins to a different wallet in preparation of the distribution that will likely happen this year.

The former CEO of Mt.Gox assured that “there is no imminent sale of bitcoins happening.”

HTX surpassed Coinbase in trading volume by $230m.

Now ranking 3rd in trading volume, it is behind OKX by just $700m.

HTX surpassed Coinbase in trading volume by $230m.

Now ranking 3rd in trading volume, it is behind OKX by just $700m.

The Mt. Gox cold wallet transferred a total of 42.879k BTC to an unmarked addresses.

The exchange plans to distribute 142,000 BTC and 143,000 BCH to creditors by October 31, 2024.

The Mt. Gox cold wallet transferred a total of 42.879k BTC to an unmarked addresses.

The exchange plans to distribute 142,000 BTC and 143,000 BCH to creditors by October 31, 2024.

The Mt. Gox cold wallet transferred a total of 42.879k BTC to an unmarked addresses.

The exchange plans to distribute 142,000 BTC and 143,000 BCH to creditors by October 31, 2024.

💡💡💡
Binance, the largest shareholder of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange GOPAX, sold the asset claims of GOPAX victims for less than half their face value.

Initially, Binance had promised 100% compensation for the losses (70bn KRW) incurred by the suspension of GOPAX's GOFi service.

Instead, Binance acquired Gopax shares at a significantly discounted price and became their largest shareholder.

However, it has been revealed that Binance did not compensate the victims with its own funds but by selling the victims' asset claims at a low price. This move was essentially a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" strategy.

After Binance sold the victims' asset claims, the prices of crypto assets soared, increasing the amount of damages.

GOFI’s debt is estimated to amount to approximately 100bn KRW as of today, excluding existing repayments.

The Normie team accepted the exploiter’s offer to return 90% of the exploited ETH and allowed the hacker to keep 10% as a reward. The team also agreed to use the 600 ETH from the Normie dev wallet to fairly launch a new token that is used to reimburse NORMIE holders.

Base memecoin Normie got exploited and its price plummeted by more than 99% in one minute, with its market cap falling from $41.87m to as low as $34.86k. The attacker used a loophole in the contract's tax mechanism to conduct a flash loan attack.

Former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank, Shan Hanes, pleaded guilty to embezzling $47.1m for personal cryptocurrency purchases, leading to the bank’s collapse in 2023. He faces up to 30 years in prison.

Popular dog Kabosu, the face of Dogecoin and several other meme tokens, has died.

Kabosu’s viral meme picture inspired the creation of Dogecoin in 2013, and later birthed other dog-themed tokens such as Shiba Inu and Floki.

This news led to a 7% increase in the price of DOGE, with the subsequent price drop.

The price of Ethereum is largely remaining flat following the historic approval of Ethereum ETF.

Ethereum hit $3,856 within minutes of the confirmed approval then dipped down. It is up a little more than 1% on the day, but over the past seven days, it soared a massive 30%.

Ethereum reached an all-time high of $4,878 in November 2021.

A key aspect of the newly approved FIT21, which aims to set a clear regulatory framework including the roles of the CFTC and SEC, is the five-prong decentralization test determining if an asset is a digital commodity or not.

⚫️Prong 1: Power Rule
No single person can control or change the code, or prohibit others from using the system in the past 12 months.

⚫️Prong 2: Ownership and Voting
No issuer or affiliated person can own or direct 20% of the asset or its voting power, and the asset shouldn't include voting power in the past 12 months.

⚫️Prong 3: Code Changes
Code changes must be limited to maintenance, bugs, and vulnerabilities in the past 3 months, or must be adopted through consensus of a decentralized governance system.

⚫️Prong 4: No Marketing as an Investment
Asset must not have been marketed as an investment in the past 3 months.

⚫️Prong 5: Rules of Inflation
Token issuance must be end-user distributions through the blockchain system in the past 12 months.

Full FIT21 bill here.

Prospective Ethereum ETF issuers were given deadlines up until this morning for final 19b-4 forms.

But even if they are approved, trading of these products likely won’t start for weeks, as S-1s also need to be put into effect.

The S-1 registration statements for the ETFs need "a lot of work" and conversations with exchanges have not started.

Form 19b-4 is used by covered self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to record a rule change with the SEC.

Bitcoin has established itself as a serious competitor to gold. Bitcoin’s market capitalization is currently at 8.4%, quickly approaching 10% of gold as institutional interest soars. Bitcoin is currently valued at $1.4tr compared to gold’s $16tr market cap.

A key distinction between Bitcoin and gold is their supply dynamics:

⚫️Bitcoin’s supply is fixed, with 94% of its total 21m coins already mined, translating to a circulating supply of 19.7m.
⚫️In contrast, gold’s supply continues to grow steadily and is projected to reach 250,000 tonnes by 2030,.

The newly passed FIT21 clarifies the boundaries for regulatory roles of the CFTC and SEC among others.

⚫ CFTC — Regulates digital assets if the associated blockchain or digital ledger is both functional and decentralized.
⚫ SEC — Regulates assets and securities if the blockchain is functional but not decentralized.

U.S. House approves crypto FIT21 Bill with a very strong support from House Democrats.

The bill marks the industry's most significant legislative accomplishment in Congress, aiming to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets rather than relying on 90-year-old securities law written before the Internet existed.

President Biden opposed the bill with a policy statement, though he didn't say he'd veto the bill. SEC Chair Gary Gensler also strongly opposed the bill.