Democrats, Republicans and the crypto war 💣
Can crypto bring Democrats and Republicans together in the US? Binance in trouble over blocked accounts. Steve Wozniak doesn't trust Tesla's autopilot system. Deloitte embraces Polkadot ecosystem.
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Blockchain technology has something for everyone. Literally.
It is more powerful than you think it is.
In fact, it can bring Democrats and Republicans together in the US.
Democrats focused on social equity and workers' rights, and Republicans advocating for free markets and individual liberties.
Blockchain can empower labour unions, protect workers' rights, and eliminate corruption. And at the same time, it's all about decentralisation, trustlessness, and economic freedom. It can preserve US competitiveness, foster inclusivity, and ensure national security.
A balance.
But both parties are yet to realise this.
US is seriously cracking down on crypto.
It’s a war, and they have an anti-crypto army too.
Crypto is getting all fired up and ready to rumble in the political arena as the election season heats up.
Proof number 1
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy's tweet.
He says the bank collapse was fallout from a "war on crypto." He agrees with Ellen Brown.
Proof number 2
In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a state bill to ban CBDCs, and the press conference was titled "Government of Laws, Not Woke Politics."
"They don't like crypto because they can't control crypto," he said recently.
Proof number 3
Binance is also ramping up its lobbying game by hiring three new heavyweights from Ice Miller legal counsel firm, including John Pence, who just so happens to be the nephew of former US Vice President Mike Pence! Binance is ensuring its voice is heard loud and clear in Washington.
The miners struggle
The Biden Administration is cracking down on digital asset mining by proposing a 30% US federal tax on all electricity usage. The White House's Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) tax aims to tackle the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining.
Also, the Biden officials also took a jab at crypto's usefulness, arguing that it doesn't generate enough economic activity.
The Bitcoin community is not at all happy:
SEC and the regulation by enforcement
And needless to say, SEC is on a crypto enforcement spree. Charging crypto exchanges, calling everything and everyone "a security." Its been boring.
The US SEC has issued at least 13 enforcement actions related to cryptocurrencies so far in 2023 - almost half of 2022 (30). And it is only May.
The SEC collected over $2.6 billion in fines and penalties against digital asset participants in 2022.
The proportion of enforcement actions charging individuals (rather than firms) has increased under the Gensler administration, from nearly 20% in the 2013-2020 period to 35% in 2021 and 50% in 2022.
And Bloomberg thinks all of this is the "best thing that ever happened" to crypto.
TTD Blockquote 🔊
Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder
"..trying to kill you every chance it can."
Wozniak don't trust Tesla's autopilot system.
Wozniak admits he fell under the spell of Elon Musk's AI marketing spiel twice only to be disappointed.
“Not even close to reality and boy if you want a study of AI gone wrong and taking a lot of claims and trying to kill you every chance it can, get a Tesla.”
He also expressed concerns about the lack of regulation around autonomous driving technology, saying that it is "not quite ready" for widespread use.
TTD WTF 🫢
Binance has been caught up in some trouble again. Apparently, they mistakenly blocked thousands of Iranian accounts due to US sanctions, and some of these customers had to withdraw their funds without any explanation from the company.
While Binance was trying to comply with regulations, they might have gone a little too far and ended up blocking some customers who were not actually breaking any laws.
And it seems like dealing with the Iranian customers wasn't always a transparent process either. Binance's former customer service representatives said that they were sometimes instructed not to explain to Iranian clients the reason for their account blockage.
Binance is trying to resolve this issue now, but with over 100 million active users, it's no easy task.
TTD Dump 😔
PEPE jumped more than 2,100% in price since it debuted last month.
Now its dump time?
Pepe's market capitalisation surged to an unprecedented $582 million on Tuesday and plummeted to $397 million on Wednesday.
Now, what happens in between?
Whales.
According to Xin Yi, a research analyst at Nansen, there are some big ol' whales out there taking profits and causing a ruckus. These large holders got in early and are now dumping their coins, causing the price to plummet. And with limited liquidity, it doesn't take much to make a big splash. In fact, one whale sold $2.2 million of Pepe and only received $650,000 worth of ETH because of massive slippage.
But that's not all - in the past seven days, Uniswap's PEPE-WETH liquidity pools have been seeing a ton of action, with over 82,750 and 72,950 transactions in v2 and v3 respectively. These pools have even racked up almost $900,000 in fees! The only liquidity pools that have had more fees are the USDC-WETH and WETH-WETH ones.
TTD Adoption 🎺
Polkadot has announced that Deloitte, the world's largest accounting firm, will use Polkadot's parachain KILT Protocol to enhance its identity protocol.
Deloitte will leverage KILT’s reusable digital identity credentials to support its Know Your Customer / Know Your Business processes (KYC/KYB).
TTD Surfer 🏄
Sneakers for the King. NBA legend LeBron James was seen wearing RTFKT x Nike sneakers that can only be obtained via an Ethereum NFT.
South Korean game publisher Neowiz launches 10 Million accelerator to fund the next generation of Web3 games on ETH scaling network Polygon.
Bitget pledges $10 Million for Blockchain4Youth project to provide courses and host university lectures on the topic of Web3.
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