Crypto assets made their way onto the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s list of priorities for 2023. So far, though, we haven’t tasted the “regulatory certainty” many have been calling for. Instead, the regulator threw the book at Kraken for allegedly failing to register its staking program. Coinbase appears next on the chopping block, but its lawyers are ready to fight. This week’s Crypto Biz newsletter delves into Coinbase’s defense of its staking program and its not-too-pleasant quarterly financials. We also look at the latest company to fall victim to Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. Coinbase beats Q4 earnings estimates amid …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not the appropriate regulator for stablecoins, says Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire. In an interview with Bloomberg on Feb. 24, the Circle chief executive aired his views on the SEC and its recent moves to clamp down on the crypto industry, including stablecoin issuer Paxos. Allaire appears to have taken issue with the SEC's focus on stablecoins, arguing that dollar-pegged “payment stablecoins” should be under the oversight of a banking regulator, rather than the SEC. “I don’t think the SEC is the regulator for stablecoins,” said Allaire, adding: “There is …

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to increase its workforce by 15-25% in 2023 amid a sea of layoffs across the industry, reported the Wall Street Journal. At a time when a significant chunk of industry-wide firms is laying off staff to mitigate their financial woes, Circle has gone against the tide to hire more people. 41% of all layoffs in 2023 came from the cryptocurrency industry. Major cryptocurrency firms that made significant employee cuts include Polygon, Chainalysis, Bittrex, Huobi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini, Genesis, and Wyre. A major factor behind crypto companies reducing manpower was attributed to the prolonged crypto …

Only days after reports of United States regulatory scrutiny of Paxos and Binance USD (BUSD), cryptocurrency exchange Binance has minted nearly $50 million worth of TrueUSD (TUSD). The transaction took place on Feb. 16, according to data from Etherscan, and also comes two days after Binance CEO Chanpeng 'CZ' Zhao said in a Feb. 14 Twitter Spaces that Binance would look to “diversify” its stablecoin holdings away from BUSD. We're live! Tune-in to our Twitter Space AMA with @cz_binance below https://t.co/bXIztCKdry — Binance (@binance) February 14, 2023 Despite minting nearly $50 million in TUSD from the TrustToken platform’s smart contract …

Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied over 12% on Feb. 15, marking the highest daily close in more than six months. Curiously, the movement happened while gold reached a 40-day low at $1,826, indicating some potential shift in investors' risk assessment for cryptocurrencies. A stronger than expected U.S. inflation report on Feb. 14 presented 5.6% growth year-over-year, followed by data showing resilient consumer demand caused traders to rethink Bitcoin's scarcity value. U.S. retail sales increased by 3% in January versus the previous month — the highest gain in almost two years. On-chain data indicates that the recent gains can be traced back …

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to sue Paxos for issuing and listing stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD) to the benefit of its top-rival stablecoin Tether (USDT), whose market capitalization has risen to multi-month highs. BUSD market cap drops by $2 billion The SEC asserts that BUSD, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, is a security, noting that Paxos has violated investor protection laws by white-labeling it. Related: Paxos ‘categorically disagrees’ with the SEC that BUSD is a security Since Feb. 13 when the news broke, the BUSD market cap has lost roughly $2 billion, down to around $14 billion as …

The Bitcoin (BTC) price rose to a new six-month high of $24,800 on February 16, registering a double-digit surge of 15%. The prolific single-day Bitcoin price surge took many by surprise, given February has been historically bearish for the top cryptocurrency. BTC price rose by $1,820 in a single day, making it the biggest green day for the top cryptocurrency in six months. Many people attributed the BTC price surge to a number of factors, including a rise in dollar value and declining inflation. On-chain data indicates the current price momentum can be traced back to a mysterious fund that …

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has released an accountant-verified report of its treasury reserve holdings backing more than $44.5 billion worth of tokens currently in circulation. Circle’s December 2022 reserve report, which was reviewed by GrantThornton accountancy group, breaks down the current make-up of the stablecoin issuer’s reserve vault. According to Circle, 44,553,543,212 USDC is currently backed by $44,693,963,701 U.S. dollars held in custody accounts. It is worth noting that a significant portion of the latter amount is invested in a variety of U.S. Treasury bonds. As per Circle’s VP of accounting Timothy Singh, the fair value of assets in …

Azuki, a popular nonfungible token (NFT) project, had its Twitter account compromised on Jan. 27 leading to hackers stealing over $750,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC) by posting a malicious “wallet drainer link” posed as a virtual land mint. Hackers stole $751,321.80 USDC from a single wallet within half an hour of the malicious links being tweeted, according to Etherscan data provided to Cointelegraph by crypto wallet security firm Wallet Guard. The data also revealed that hackers stole a further $6,752.62 worth of USDC from various wallets holding 11 NFTs and over 3.9 Ether (ETH). Wallet Guard stated that the …

The notorious failure of the Terra USD (UST) affected the crypto market in general, but it’s the algorithmic stablecoins alike that took the harshest punch. Since its peak in April 2022, the market share of algorithmic stablecoins shrank almost tenfold. According to a fresh report from CryptoCompare, the current market share of algorithmic stablecoins stands at 1.71%, while its all-time high record in April reached 12.4% of the whole crypto market. Prior to its crash, Terra USD accounted for 79.8% of all the algorithmic stablecoin’s market share. The stablecoin market in general also doesn’t feel too well with January becoming …

A spokesperson for USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has denied reports that it blames the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its failed $9 billion plan to go public in December. The stablecoin issuer representative was responding to a Jan. 25 Financial Times article which characterized Circle as having “blamed” the securities regulator for its “derailed” listing as a result of dragging its feet on the approval of a merger agreement. However, a Circle spokesperson clarified to Cointelegraph that was not the case and that it doesn’t hold any blame over the SEC for the termination of its …

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming an increasingly popular solution to serving defendants in blockchain-based crimes that would otherwise be unreachable, according to crypto lawyers. The last year has seen an increase in litigation delivered over NFTs in cases where those accused of blockchain crime wereuncontactable through traditional methods of communication. In November 2022, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted a United States law firm The Crypto Lawyers its request for its client to serve a defendant via NFT. While the defendant's identity was unknown, the plaintiff accused the defendant of stealing cryptocurrency to the …