Crypto markets barely budged this week, perhaps spooked by another rate increase from the U.S. Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, politicians on both sides of the aisle harped on what they see as the dangers of government-backed CBDCs: Democratic presidential candidate RFK Jr. again raised the specter of a CBDC being used to spy on Americans, while Florida governor Ron DeSantis (a presumed Republican presidential candidate) once more hammered home his view that such digital dollars would amount to “woke politics.”
Given the maxed-out partisanship that has gripped Washington, D.C., it’s no surprise that cryptocurrency is yet another hot topic that has divided Democrats and Republicans. But this week, prominent figures on both sides target a subset of the crypto crowd to garner support.
The “big bads” are CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies. An American CBDC, also called a digital dollar, is something that scares Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who both say such a government-issued and backed cryptocurrency will enable pervasive surveillance.
Kennedy had to course correct after initially confusing the FedNow federal payment network with a CBDC, and is now claiming there is a sustained “war on crypto” (as in the decentralized variety) underway. DeSantis, meanwhile, said that a CBDC is just another step toward “woke politics.“
Amid all of that, Democratic President Joe Biden’s White House is continuing to press the case for a cryptocurrency mining excise tax on the cost of energy consumed by mining operations.Â
đŞÂ Coin of the moment
Ethereum saw a brief and modest Friday rally, rising 5% to clear $2,000 for the first time in weeks before falling again. And TRON saw a 15% lift over the week. But Sui was the talk of the town.
The Sui blockchain is a Move-based, layer-1 blockchain platform developed by former Meta (formerly Facebook) engineers. Built for speed, it’s already been embraced by Web3 game developers. Its long-anticipated mainnet launch arrived on Wednesday.
Launch-day elation pushed its market cap to the brink of $1 billion, but the inevitable fall back to earth found it up less than 2% since the launch, with a market cap closer to $700 million.
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When Web3 bug bounty platform Immunefi launched two years ago, CEO and founder Mitchell Amador says the bug bounties weren’t great and adoption was slow. But the tides started to turn.
“There’s a ton of risk when you engage in this wantonly criminal behavior and steal $200 million from someone else,” Immunify CEO and founder Mitchell Amadorhe said. “There’s no way someone’s not going to come looking.”
