FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Ethereum just completed The Merge. But in Washington, cryptocurrency could increasingly be headed for a political fork.  

Traditional players in conservative politics are embracing cryptocurrency as a political issue — spending cash, commissioning polls, penning op-eds and lobbying for legislation. Now, with lawmakers and regulators looking more closely than ever at new rules for the burgeoning crypto industry, GOP-aligned groups are staking out positions in the debate. 

The newfound enthusiasm for crypto from longtime players in conservative politics, who favor a laissez faire approach to digital asset regulation, comes as the industry faces skepticism from environmental groups, progressive politicians and others on the political left. But Democratic lawmakers with a more positive view of digital assets, as well as some industry insiders, want to keep digital asset policy a bipartisan issue, in order to prevent the same entrenchment that bogs down other policy debates.

“It’s natural for Republicans, particularly the free-market conservatives to support bitcoin, and cryptocurrency fits right in our wheelhouse,” said David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group that advocates for cutting taxes and reducing federal spending.

The Club launched a crypto-focused super political action committee that can spend and raise unlimited funds on behalf of candidates this campaign cycle. Unlike other crypto-linked PACs that have cropped up recently, the group’s fund, Crypto Freedom PAC, is among the first launched by an establishment political group rather than a cryptocurrency mogul or crypto-native industry association.  

The Club for Growth is a major force in Republican politics. The GOP-aligned organization is the third-highest conservative spender in the midterm elections, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance. Crypto Freedom PAC, which the Club plans to rebrand to Bitcoin Freedom PAC, has spent $4.4 million on midterm races since it launched in June, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The PAC is backing Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., who is running for Senate against Democrat Cheri Beasley, and Arizona Senate hopeful Blake Masters, the GOP challenger to the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Mark Kelly. The group also supports congressional candidate Bo Hines in North Carolina, a 27-year-old Republican who studied crypto at Wake Forest School of Law. Crypto Freedom PAC spent more than a quarter of a million dollars in a New York congressional primary to support Michelle Bond, the CEO of the Association for Digital Asset Markets, a crypto industry group. Bond ultimately lost.

Like other conservatives who are active on digital assets, McIntosh said last year’s inclusion of a tax change related to crypto in the bipartisan infrastructure law drew him into the issue. Lawmakers included a provision in the bill that expanded the definition of a broker for cryptocurrency network participants.  

“The pivot to say we’ve got to take a position and get organized was when they put the provision in the infrastructure bill that authorized the IRS to treat cryptocurrency differently than you would other investments. And we realized, okay, government is not going to leave this market alone. We need to prepare to be an advocate for freedom,” McIntosh said.  

The same was true for Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group that often weighs in on cryptocurrency issues. The group opposes all new taxes and was founded by Grover Norquist, a conservative activist focused on cutting federal and state taxes.. The crypto industry is in line with Norquist’s libertarian idea for a “Leave Us Alone Coalition,” federal affairs manager Bryan Bashur said.   

“Every time there’s a new business that pops up, the government wants to find a way to regulate it or tax it. And I think that the crypto industry fits perfectly into this libertarian-conservative movement of ‘leave us alone’ — you know, to get the government out of the way,” Bashur said.  

Also getting in on the action, conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks for America will host a cryptocurrency conference with industry representatives at its Washington headquarters this week.

Even as the right stakes out its turf on digital assets, crypto-friendly Democrats say the issue doesn’t split neatly on party lines, and are wary of policy around the technology becoming the newest partisan issue.

“I’d like to keep this issue pre-partisan. I don’t think it’s not an issue that falls neatly into our existing partisan divides,” said Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., the vice-chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., sees the sector as “an opportunity for bipartisan leadership,” he told The Block.  Swalwell and Auchincloss are both members of the bipartisan Congressional Blockchain Caucus.

They’re hardly alone. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and her Republican counterpart, Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., worked together on legislation to grant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission more influence over bitcoin and ether markets. Reps. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., collaborated on legislation to create a comprehensive policy framework for stablecoins, though negotiations have stalled, with McHenry blaming the Biden administration while praising Waters for her engagement. A broader overhaul of crypto regulations, authored by Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., grabbed headlines earlier this year.

New policy areas can cut past old partisan lines. But Auchincloss warned that if bipartisan progress doesn’t occur soon, the window for crypto remaining a cross-party issue might close.

“Then it’ll bend towards a partisan issue,” said the Massachusetts Democrat. “So I do think it’s important to pass bipartisan crypto legislation to prevent this from becoming overly and unnecessarily partisan.”

McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, agrees with that sentiment — despite his group’s push to support GOP candidates. McIntosh said he has reached out to Democratic groups that are pro-crypto. 

“The ideal is that it would stay bipartisan,” McIntosh said.  

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Ether soared 14% and bitcoin climbed back above $20,000 for the first time since early October as crypto markets rose amid fading expectations of further aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

Bitcoin was trading at $20,666 — up over 7% in the past 24 hours — today, according to data via Coinbase, having regained the $20,000 mark on Tuesday.

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

Ether’s gains were even more pronounced as Ethereum’s native coin gained 14.9% to trade at $1,537, according to data via Coinbase. Ether hadn’t traded above $1,500 since The Merge. 

ETHUSD chart by TradingView

Tuesday’s price moves resulted in a flood of trade liquidations, with $686 million in short liquidations on Tuesday — $519 million of which occurred on FTX, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. 

While bitcoin has held the line during some material Nasdaq sell-offs recently, it’s encouraging to see it rally on a risk-positive day, Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial told The Block.

“That said, from a technical perspective, the move requires more context. It’s entirely possible there are some ‘holdout’ sellers. In other words, speculators that entered the market in 2021 or later have been dying for a slightly higher exit from the recent range of around $19,500,” He added. “We’ll find out in the days to come and traders are particularly focused on the top end of the multi-month range at $25,000.”

Other speculators have attributed the rise in prices to easing Fed rate hike expectations and a weakening U.S. dollar. The Fed is expected to rise rates by 75 basis points next week, bringing the target rate to 3.75-4% from 3-3.25%.

Meanwhile, the Dollar Index — a measure of the value of the U.S. dollar relative to a basket of foreign currencies — is trading around 110, its lowest level since Oct. 5. Bitcoin’s price in dollars will naturally rise as the U.S. currency weakens. 

The global crypto market cap was back above $1 trillion at the time of writing, according to The Block’s data dashboard — it has struggled to maintain this position consistently over the past three months. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

In an effort to protect consumers, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has proposed new rules for retail crypto investors, including that they should not trade with borrow funds. 

The proposals are part of a consultation paper issued by MAS as it looks to further tighten the country’s crypto regulatory regime. The rules come after a number of high-profile crypto firms collapsed this year, including Three Arrows Capital and Celsius. Several others are going through legal restructuring processes in Singapore, including Vauld, Zipmex and Hodlnaut.

The regulator reminded people that trading with credit or leverage can lead to losses greater than the investment amount. It’s seeking to restrict crypto service providers from offering debt-financed and leveraged crypto trading, including trading via credit cards.

“MAS will adopt a risk-focused approach to regulating the digital asset ecosystem,” the consultation paper reads. “To facilitate innovation in digital assets, regulations need to be clear and proportionate to the risks posed. These regulations should be periodically reviewed to ensure that they remain relevant, given the pace of innovation.”

Other proposed rules by the regulator include restricting crypto service providers from offering incentives to retail customers, including free trading credits or tokens. That could include airdrops — free distribution of tokens by a firm to select users.

MAS is also looking to ban crypto service providers from using their retail customers’ tokens for lending out.

“MAS proposes that DPTSPs [digital payment token service providers] should not mortgage, charge, pledge or hypothecate the retail customer’s DPTs [digital payment tokens],” reads the consultation paper. “For non-retail customers, DPT service providers should provide a clear risk disclosure document and obtain the customer’s explicit consent.”

It is not immediately clear whether the proposed measure will impact crypto yield-providing and staking services, as yields and staking rewards are often provided by lending out customers’ crypto assets.

“We do not believe that the regulations will extensively impact independent, non-custodial and global staking solutions providers such as RockX,” Zhuling Chen, founder and CEO of RockX, a Singapore-based non-custodial staking service provider, told The Block.

MAS also issued a second consultation paper today on regulating stablecoins, focusing on “single-currency pegged stablecoins (SCS).”

It proposes to only allow the issuance of stablecoins pegged to the Singapore dollar or Group of Ten currencies. Issuers must also hold all the reserve assets used to back the SCS in circulation in segregated accounts, separate from their own assets.

“The reserve assets must be held with licensed banks, merchant banks, finance companies or capital market services licensees (CMSLs) providing custodial services in Singapore. Where the SCS issuer is a bank in Singapore, the reserve assets can be held under its own custody,” reads the second consultation paper.

The proposed regulations may hinder the development of Singapore as a global hub for web3 innovation, according to Chen. He said Singapore “may lose its attractiveness as a destination for global web3 companies to build the latest crypto products and services. It will also make it more difficult to hire the best crypto and tech talent, using the country as a base to serve retail markets overseas.”

MAS has been cracking down on the crypto sector for several months. Earlier this year, the regulator banned crypto firms from promoting their services in public spaces, including through online and physical advertisements or providing ATMs in public areas, which could encourage consumers to trade crypto on impulse.

The consultation papers are open for feedback until Dec. 21, after which final guidelines will be set. Crypto firms then have six to nine months to adhere to the rules.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

UK lawmakers voted to include recently added amendments that expand the regulatory oversight of crypto assets in a major finance bill.

The revised bill will help clarify that powers relating to financial promotion and regulated activities can be relied on to regulate crypto assets and activities relating to crypto assets, Andrew Griffith, financial services minister, said on Oct. 21, when the amendments were first added. The bill also defines what a crypto asset is, Griffith said.

The vote on the Financial Services and Markets Bill passed in the UK’s lower house of parliament on October 25 and now faces further rounds of scrutiny from lawmakers. If passed into law, the additional amendments will give the UK a more comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto. Specifically, it will provide the Financial Conduct Authority and HM Treasury with more oversight powers.

Currently, the UK’s crypto regulatory powers are largely in the hands of the FCA, which decides on the registrations of crypto firms according to strict anti-money laundering requirements. 

The Financial Services and Markets bill’s framework already focuses on stablecoins, and the broader framework will tie the UK closer to the EU’s comprehensive Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Gaming DAO Merit Circle has voted to burn 200 million of its native MC tokens, worth $147 million, in order to speed up its token burning process.

Merit Circle has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with a third of them dedicated to the community incentive wallet. So far, the only thing that’s happened to these tokens is that they’ve been burned on a regular basis, with 130 million of the 330 million tokens destroyed. While the community could have waited to watch the remaining 200 million tokens burn slowly over the following years, it has decided to accelerate the process.

“We believe it is in the DAO’s best interest to ‘get it over with’ and burn these 200 million MC tokens immediately rather than waiting for 75% to eventually be burned through MIP-7,” said the proposal.

The vote ended with almost unanimous support for the motion. Data from SnapShot shows that participants with a total of 12 million MC tokens supported the move. This amounted to over 99% of the total votes cast during the two-day process.

These tokens have no utility, according to the governance proposal that necessitated today’s concluded vote. But it claimed there could be benefits to getting rid of them swiftly.

“Burning these (currently purposeless) tokens will significantly reduce the total supply of Merit Circle and will bring the fully diluted valuation more in line with the circulating market capitalization,” the proposal stated. “Likewise it will remove any doubt from outsiders about upcoming token unlocks and whether these tokens will be hitting the market.”

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Traders going long and short on bitcoin, ether, and other cryptocurrencies were hit by over $786 million in liquidations on Thursday.

The liquidations came as crypto prices shot up in line with broader financial markets. Bitcoin hurtled past $20,000 for the first time since Oct. 6. Crypto stocks were also buoyed, as Coinbase shares climbed over 12%.

Crypto traders suffered $686 million in short liquidations on Tuesday, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. Markets hadn’t seen short liquidations totaling over $200 million since Sept. 9, when $287 million in shorts were liquidated. 

Bitcoin accounted for $328 million of the $686 million in short liquidations yesterday — roughly 47% — according to The Block’s data.

Traders going long on crypto also took a hit, with $99 million in long liquidations happening on Tuesday — bringing the total combined liquidations, both long and short, to around $786 million. 

A drop in the DXY dollar index could be another reason for bitcoin’s positive price movements, according to Noelle Acheson, former head of market insights at Genesis and author of “Crypto is Macro Now.” Bitcoin’s negative correlation to movements in the U.S. dollar seemingly proved beneficial to crypto markets. 

DXY chart by TradingView

Acheson also noted expectations that continued aggressive rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve have been tempered recently — reflected by the CME’s FedWatch tool. 

Source: CME Group

Markets are now more confident the Fed will increase rates by 50 basis points at its December meeting, rather than persisting with 75 basis points. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Episode 103 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at Converge in San Francisco with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Asymmetric Founder and CEO/CIO Joe McCann.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

In a market known for mantras such as “irresponsibly long,” Joe McCann has been taking a more prudent approach to crypto venture capital investing. 

The former head of systematic and algorithmic trading at Passport Capital launched his latest venture, Asymmetric, in the spring of last year and started deploying capital this past summer in the wake of the Three Arrows Capital meltdown. 

On this episode of The Scoop, McCann explained that his firm’s approach to venture capital investing in crypto means it will take money off the table and hedge its exposure. 

“The liquid nature of crypto, especially at the early stage, is actually a feature, not a bug of crypto, but you actually need to know how to manage a liquid portfolio,” McCann said. “So if you have 150 vol asset in your portfolio, you may want to manage that, right?”

Indeed, McCann said traditional venture investors don’t have experience with the necessary trading tools — such as derivatives and other financial contracts — to hedge risk in liquid assets, which cryptocurrencies inherently are relative to early-stage startup equity. This difference is a major impediment to VCs operating in crypto, according to McCann.

“There is a fragile reputation that a lot of folks in the industry may have concerned with, ‘hey, I’m going to invest in this startup and we’re in it for the long haul, and we’re not going to ever take profits or sell the token,'” McCann said. “The problem with that is that’s great for traditional venture capital, where typically you don’t have a liquidity event for 10 to 12 years … with crypto, we know that it becomes liquid in months. So the way that you manage a traditional venture capital portfolio isn’t relevant anymore — you’re actually managing a liquid portfolio.”

During this episode, Chaparro and McCann also discuss:

• How to use tokens effectively;
• What on-chain structured products are gaining traction;
• The macro picture and why Asymmetric is in a heavy cash position.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn

About Tron
TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |

About Ledn
Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto firm Seba Bank has started its first NFT service, an institutional-grade, certified and independently audited hot and cold storage custody product for blue-chip NFTs.

The rollout comes in response to demands from clients to store their NFTs with the bank alongside other crypto assets, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cryptopunk and Clone X NFTs, which already have been approved. The bank said new collections will be added according to the needs of clients.

Seba Bank hopes to appeal to both investors who see NFTs as an asset class as well as crypto natives with its latest product. There’s a popular saying in crypto — “not your keys, not your bitcoin” — and those who abide by this mantra might balk at locking up their Apes or Punks with a third-party custodian. 

But Urs Bernegger, co-head of markets and investment solutions at Seba Bank, points to a growing cadre of NFT holders who feel more comfortable entrusting NFTs and private keys to an institution.

“They don’t want the key because they don’t even know how to store the key and handle the key. They’re more afraid of doing something wrong with the key than giving it to a bank,” he said.

It’s no small problem. Chainalysis estimates that between 2.3 million and 3.7 million bitcoin alone are locked in inaccessible wallets. From Russian politicians to students to engineers, there’s no shortage of stories of those who have lost millions due to losing private keys. Sudden deaths where wallet owners haven’t shared their private keys also have left families unable to access life-changing sums of money.

For crypto natives, Bernegger claims institutional custody can have benefits too. There’s been an uptick in companies offering services where NFTs are used as collateral for traditional banking services such as lending.

These are features Seba Bank is considering in the future. Based in the crypto-friendly Swiss town of Zug, the four-year old bank already supports a variety of investment, credit, lending and staking solutions for cryptocurrencies and could extend them to NFTs.

“We could do a club of collectors and help them to find other collectors rather than going to the market, for example. There are things we have in mind, but at the beginning we basically set the foundation, the secure storage of NFTs,” he said.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Argentina’s tax authority (AFIP for its name in Spanish) uncovered another crypto mining farm that did not properly declare its activities, sending the message that it is continuing to investigate these operations just days after revealing a large crackdown.

The crypto mining farm had enough equipment to generate an estimated $100,000 per year, AFIP said in a statement. Through a previous investigation,  AFIP found that the taxpayer involved had used imported crypto mining equipment themselves instead of commercializing the equipment.

The AFIP and customs officials “detected a cryptocurrency farm of a taxpayer who is not registered with the agency with any activity linked to development of crypto assets,” the tax authority said in a press release.

Whether any arrests were made in this case remains unclear. Authorities did not disclose the location of the crypto mine. 

AFIP’s statement is the latest in a string of announcements sending the message that the agency is focused on investigating crypto mining farms that do not follow the rules for declaring their business activities.

The AFIP announced on Oct. 21 that it broke up an undeclared crypto mining ring in the municipality of Quilmes, Argentina. The so-called “mega operation” led to the arrest of 40 people. The AFIP said last month it had discovered three undeclared mining sites in Lisandro Olmos, San Juan and Cordoba, Argentina.

The AFIP has been especially focused on investigating digital asset operations since its new director, Carlos Castagneto, started his role in July. 

These public crackdowns have prompted the nonprofit organization ONG Bitcoin Argentina to clarify that crypto mining in itself is not a crime when mining operations follow local laws.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Jack Dorsey’s Block, Inc. is continuing to hire from crypto firms, as the payment processor seeks to establish its Bitcoin mining and wallet hardware arms.

Block’s latest hire is Perry Hothi, the former chief technology officer at Argo Blockchain. He joins to advise on the development of the company’s Bitcoin mining division, Bloomberg first reported, citing  sources familiar with the matter.

Formerly known as Square, Block listed jobs on LinkedIn for heads of Bitcoin mining policy, communications and partnerships over the past weeks. The company also has plans to establish a test hub to fine tune ASIC mining hardware and software, according to an ad it posted for a test hub lead.

Argo saw its shares tick down in October as the company revealed a plan to fundraise and strengthen its balance sheet.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.