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The Global Financial Markets Association called for regulators to be more open to the tech underpinning cryptocurrency

The SEC and Ripple have sparred for months over a set of documents related to Bill Hinman’s 2018 speech on securities law and ether.

Coinbase’s recent regulatory woes make its stock a ‘hold,’ according to analysts at Berenberg Capital Markets. 

The firm, which initiated coverage in the crypto-linked equity, kicked off its coverage of the stock with a price target of $55 per share. Coinbase closed at around $57.90 a share. Shares are up about 70% year-to-date.

Berenberg’s neutral view on the stock stems from the regulatory environment for crypto in recent months and, specifically, rising tensions between Coinbase and the SEC which present “too much regulatory risk.”

For its part, Coinbase sued the SEC less than a year after it requested the agency for regulatory clarity. The SEC, in turn, argued that the commission is under no obligation to issue new regulations and Coinbase has no standing to sue the agency.

The battle—and Chairman Gary Gensler’s view that most cryptocurrencies are securities—could spell trouble for COIN bulls. 

“Investors should believe the SEC when it says it views all crypto tokens other than bitcoin as unregistered securities,” Berenburg’s Mark Palmer noted. “As such, all platforms that facilitate trading of those tokens in the U.S. are vulnerable to being hit with enforcement actions that would potentially impact large swaths of their business activities.”

Revenue risk

The firm estimates that about 37% of Coinbase trading fee revenue comes from non bitcoin assets, which could have exposure to regulatory risk.

Palmer, an equity analyst veteran, joined Berenberg recently from BTIG, where he covered fintech and crypto.

The analyst noted that Coinbase is positioned to “outlast the ‘crypto winter,'” pointing to “better-than-expected Q123 print that it posted on May 4 and its $5.3bn of available cash resources as of March 31.”

“However, we also believe investors should be focusing on whether the company would have the ability to successfully pivot its business model and geographic focus if it were forced to curtail or cease a large portion of its activities in the U.S. as a result of an SEC enforcement action that appears likely to occur soon.”

© 2023 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.

The project formerly known as “Taro” has been rebranded “Taproot Assets” after Lightning Labs was hit with a trademark infringement lawsuit. The new offering comes with a “core set of features to bitcoinize the dollar,” according to the firm.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned the U.S. could breach its debt limit by June 1, potentially setting off a recession in the event of default.

Anchorage Digital, a crypto platform that has a federally chartered bank in the U.S., is adding support for Snapshot voting in a move that will let its institutional clients participate in governance decisions using tokens held in custody. 

Snapshot is a tool used by protocols and decentralized autonomous organizations in the Ethereum ecosystem that allows for off-chain voting that doesn’t require gas fees. Anchorage said the token-gated participation venues, or Spaces, make it possible for holders to vote on proposals for free.

“For institutional clients, being able to participate in Snapshot voting through Anchorage Digital affords the ability to help shape the future of token projects by participating in guiding them to the best governance decisions,” the company said in a blog post. 

“Protocol clients can be confident that token holders custodying with Anchorage Digital will have participation capabilities from day one,” the bank continued. 

Anchorage Digital ERC-20 token support

The crypto bank said it currently supports over 60 ERC-20 tokens and plans to enable support “for all applicable future ERC-20 tokens.” It noted that there were over 1,600 “Spaces” where at least one proposal had been made and highlighted use by BitDAO, Lido and Aave.

“All voting occurs from within Anchorage Digital Bank’s qualified custody with no movement of funds,” the company said. “Moreover, our bank charter explicitly allows us to facilitate governance participation.”

Anchorage Digital raised $350 million in a 2021 Series D funding round that was led by KKR at a valuation of $3 billion. Other investors in the company include Andreessen Horowitz, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, Goldman Sachs and Visa. 

© 2023 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.

Automated market maker Balancer is working with a trio of DeFi protocols to rescue crypto frozen since Euler’s massive hack.

Banning or taxing crypto mining out of existence isn’t going to solve this country’s issues around power consumption and grid stability – but supporting Bitcoin just might.

Attacker behind a fake HitBTC website might have stolen $15M worth of crypto from multiple scams and phishing attacks

“You’re saying this is not what customers want. Actually, this is what future customers want,” said Ledeger CEO Pascal Gauthier.