gm Bankless Nation, This week, Trump's Crypto Reserve took over the conversation, but the market wasn't seeming to buy its status as a long-term price catalyst.
On Thursday, Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve using tokens already held by the government via seizures. The market dumped BTC prices, in part disappointed that the government would not be buying additional bitcoin, but also just selling the news of the signed order.
It was a perplexing week for the crypto reserve after Trump dropped some “truths” on his social media platform first mentioning XRP, SOL, and ADA as targets for the crypto reserve. After some confusion and backlash, he later added, “And, obviously, BTC and ETH.” The inclusion of so-called “America coins” in the reserve was to the chagrin of many in the crypto space, even including Solana's founder.
Following the announcement, Trump welcomed a number of the nation's top crypto execs and investors to a regulatory summit at the White House.
“Welcome to the first-ever White House Digital Asset Summit. Last year, I promised to make America the Bitcoin superpower of the world, AND WE'RE TAKING HISTORIC ACTION TO DELIVER ON THAT PROMISE.” –President Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/nqUrHQ1xLl
The SEC continues to back down from enforcement actions against crypto companies. This week, the SEC dropped its case against one of the biggest centralized exchanges, Kraken. Kraken was sued by the SEC back in November of 2023 alleging that they were acting as an unregistered securities exchange. The SEC also dropped cases against Cumberland and Yuga Labs. Cumberland was sued by the SEC only last year alleging that they were operating as an unregistered securities dealer. Yuga Labs has been going at it with the SEC a bit longer, over three years. The SEC opened a probe into Yuga Labs to try and determine if specific NFTs were securities. The total number of cases dropped by the SEC over the past month is now up to 11.
🚨 BREAKING: Kraken has announced that the SEC has agreed to drop its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange. pic.twitter.com/9UoCldHEDc
On Tuesday, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced his interest in acquiring TikTok and putting it onchain. While Ohanian won’t be making the bid himself, he has joined Project Liberty as a strategic advisor to support what he calls “The People’s Bid.”
Ohanian envisions bringing TikTok onchain through Frequency, a blockchain designed for decentralized social applications built on top of Polkadot’s infrastructure. This would give users full ownership of their data, an issue that has plagued platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Exciting news for the digital world…
I'm officially now one of the people trying to buy TikTok US — and bring it on-chain.
TikTok has been a game-changer for creators, and it's future should be built by them↓ pic.twitter.com/SPq1Ppv1kK
Aave’s governance forum recently published an update to AAVE’s tokenomics, with the biggest highlight being changes to revenue distribution and token buybacks. First, Aave will begin buying back $1M worth of AAVE per week for six months. The tokens will be sent to the ecosystem reserve, where governance can later decide how to allocate them.
After half a decade of hard work, with the ACI, we're proud to present the updated Aavenomics proposal to the Aave DAO.
We consider it the most important proposal in our history, feel free to have a read and provide feedback.
— Marc “Billy” Zeller 👻 🦇🔊 (@lemiscate) March 4, 2025
5️⃣ New Tether CFO Pushes for Full Audit
After its previous CFO stepped down, Tether has opted to appoint Simon McWilliams as its new CFO. McWilliams has made completing a full audit of Tether a top priority. So far, Tether has only published quarterly attestations, broad financial overviews rather than full audits. Calls for greater transparency have been growing in the crypto space, as Tether has promised a full audit since 2015 but has yet to deliver. While McWilliams appears confident in his ability to see it through, this may just be another way for Tether to buy itself more time.
📊 CHART: Every time Tether was going to get an audit
Tether has frequently promised to get an audit and has reiterated that promise again as it brings in a new CFO.
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Joining the Weekly Rollup this week is Haseeb Qureshi, dissecting Trump's controversial Crypto Strategic Reserve announcements.
They unpack Sam Bankman-Fried's candid prison interview with Tucker Carlson, revealing a stark divide between human empathy and detached pragmatism. Plus, Trump's erratic tariff policies are rattling macro markets; is it strategic or simply chaotic?
Finally, they delve into Ethereum's leadership shuffle, Base's new speed upgrade challenging Solana, and AI's profound reshaping of crypto startups and blockchain usability.
Check out this week's rollup for the latest insights on what Trump's admin could be thinking for the future of crypto!
Not financial or tax advice. Bankless content is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
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