The whole of crypto was rattled with the SEC’s one-two punch against the world’s two largest crypto currency exchanges. Meanwhile, the launch of Apple’s new augmented reality headset staunchly avoided any invocation of the metaverse.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, it appears, is no longer interested in firing warning shots across the bow of crypto. This week’s double-barreled hit on Binance and Coinbase make it clear that SEC chair Gary Gensler is on the warpath.
Comparing today’s digital assets landscape to the financial Wild West of the 1920s, he said crypto is a haven for “hucksters, fraudsters, scam artists, [and] Ponzi schemes.”
While there are key differences between the two actions, the market as a whole got the main message: “We don’t need more digital currency.”
What’s the end game? Driving crypto overseas and going all-in on a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency? Even if public sentiment runs counter to that prospect, the CBDC conspiracy theorists don’t seem quite as crazy today.
🪙 Coin of the moment
It seems no coin is safe with this week’s SEC filings, with the regulator flagging a slew of cryptocurrencies as unregistered (read: illegal) securities: Binance’s BNB token, the exchange’s stablecoin, BUSD, plus Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Filecoin (FIL), Cosmos Hub (ATOM), The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA), Axie Infinity (AXS), COTI (COTI), and even former Gary Gensler darling Algorand.
Not named so far? Any proof-of-work coin. It seems Bitcoin and its computationally (and environmentally) heavy peers remain in the clear. These include Monero (XMR), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Dogecoin (DOGE).
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At this year’s NFC Lisbon, multimedia artist and photographer YuLiang “YuYu” Liu broke down how themes from traditional painting and BDSM informed his latest NFT exhibition called “GAG.” He also shared exclusively with Decrypt a yet-to-be-launched drop for fans of his work.
The Sandbox COO Sebastien Borget told Decrypt at this year’s NFC Lisbon that despite the high price point, Apple’s new VR headset is nonetheless “groundbreaking.” And though the tech giant never used the term “metaverse” in its reveal, Borget is sure that the technology will be key in growing participation in various digital worlds.
