Enforcement was the dominant theme this week. The SEC issued a Wells notice to exchange Coinbase, warning it of potential securities violations, plus it charged Tron founder Justin Sun with selling unregistered securities, market manipulation, and more. Celebs like Jake Paul and Lindsay Lohan, who had promoted Tron’s tokens, were charged as well. And then Terra founder Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro. Here’s a look back at crypto’s action-packed week.
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The Republican drumbeat opposing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) grew louder this week as U.S. Senator Ted Cruz proposed national legislation to block such a thing on Tuesday. A CBDC is a centralized, government-controlled tokenāa digital version of a state’s fiat currency.
Cruz’s move came shortly after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis introduced similar legislation within his own state, while U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer introduced his own legislation called the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State ActĀ in February. Will the GOP push sway crypto voters who are wary of CBDCs?
š° Coin of the Moment
Ethereum layer-2 scaling network Arbitrum launched its ARB governance token this week via anĀ airdrop that more than 500,000 wallets have already claimed. The claim website briefly went down on Thursday due to immense demand from eligible users.
Like many airdrops, the price quickly peaked and then fell sharply, but ARB has held relatively steady since at a current price of about $1.25 per token. It has comfortably settled into CoinGecko’s top 40 tokens, by market cap, with over $1.5B in 24-hour trading volume.
Gnosis first launched in 2015 as a decentralized prediction market built on Ethereum. Now itās a DAO, a multi-sig wallet, a staking chain, and a vibrant community with its own GNO governance token. Co-founder and COO Friederike Ernst talked to Dan Roberts and Stacy Elliott about the careful evolution of Gnosis, decentralization impostors, account abstraction, DeFi UX failures, why Ethereum is the āManhattan of crypto,ā and much more.
Justin Aversano, best known for his high-selling “Twin Flames” NFT photo series, joined Decryptās Andrew Hayward ahead of the upcoming L.A. exhibition for his new Ethereum NFT project “Smoke and Mirrors.” He shared the wild inspiration behind the tarot-themed collection, and whyādespite his growing profileāhe opted not to exhibit at a major brand-name gallery.
