If it weren’t the weekend, it’d be tax day in the U.S. Of course, for those who fiddle with crypto, the numbers can get a little fuzzy—so Tuesday is most likely the day we all file for an extension. Also needing a little extra time right now: Parler users and Ethereum stakers, as you’ll read in the top stories below!
The SEC is officially coming for DeFi. On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a release stating that it is revisiting plans to classify decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platforms as exchanges that must follow securities laws. Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap have no intermediary and do not collect information from traders.
It’s the latest in SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s assault on the crypto world, which has recently included centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken. The U.S. Treasury Department also sanctioned the decentralized Tornado Cash mixer last year. The SEC reopened the comment period for the proposed DeFi-related amendment on Friday.
The agency’s biggest crypto defender isn’t onboard with the proposed changes, however. SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce said in a statement Friday that Gensler’s plan is overly broad, and that its “ambiguity undermines fundamental First Amendment protections.”
💰 Coin of the moment
All eyes were on Ethereum this week, as the core contributors behind the largest smart contract network executed the Shanghai network upgrade that let users finally withdraw staked ETH. The hard fork went off without a hitch, much like last fall’s merge, but some analysts expected sell pressure as stakers potentially sold off reclaimed funds.
Surprisingly, however, the price of ETH only kept climbing. Late Thursday, the price soared above $2,100 for the first time since May 2022, and it has held that level pretty steadily since. ETH’s nearly 13% weekly pop corresponds with Bitcoin’s continued climb, rising 9% on the week and remaining above the $30,000 mark for most of the last five days.
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Anthony Scaramucci of hedge fund SkyBridge Capital got burned by Sam Bankman-Fried: he co-hosted SALT conferences with FTX and sold a 30% stake in SkyBridge to FTX Ventures. And yet, “The Mooch” tells Dan Roberts and Stacy Elliott “I’m more bullish now than I have ever been” on crypto as an investment case. He discusses his frustration with SBF, how wrong he thinks politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler are about crypto and how to regulate it, what he sees happening next with adoption, and we even talk a little Trump.
Anthony Scaramucci of hedge fund SkyBridge Capital got burned by Sam Bankman-Fried: he co-hosted SALT conferences with FTX and sold a 30% stake in SkyBridge to FTX Ventures. And yet “The Mooch” tells Dan Roberts and Stacy Elliott “I’m more bullish now than I have ever been” on crypto as an investment case. He discusses his frustration with SBF, how wrong he thinks politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler are about crypto and how to regulate it, what he sees happening next with adoption, and talks about Trump.
