Hodler's Digest

Arthur Hayes revealed he “took a cheeky short” on Bitcoin, former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles will launch a new crypto exchange: Hodler’s Digest

Crypto market sentiment has fallen back into extreme fear as Bitcoin briefly fell below $56,000, while BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes predicts it could sink another 12% to fall under $50,000 over the weekend.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index which measures market sentiment and trends to give a total possible score of 100 (indicating extremely positive sentiment) hit a score of 22 on Sept. 6, showing extreme fear, a seven-point drop from the day prior that pinned sentiment at fear.

Its the lowest score and price since the index hit 20 on Aug. 8 and the first time it has re-entered the extreme fear zone since Aug. 12, when the index hit 25.

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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been placed under judicial supervision after a court appearance, OpenSea receives Well Notice: Hodler’s Digest

Major global cryptocurrency exchange Binance seized cryptocurrency from Palestinians as per request from Israel, according to sources from a prominent industry executive.

Ray Youssef, co-founder of the peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto platform Paxful and P2P crypto platform NoOnes, took to X on Aug. 26 to report that Binance confiscated funds from Palestinians at the request of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Binance has seized all funds from all Palestinians as per the request of the IDF. They refuse to return the funds. All appeals denied, Youssef wrote, citing several sources, including a letter from Israel authorities passed on by Binance.

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Binance and former CEO CZ face lawsuit by investors over unrecoverable assets; RFK Jr. suspends, but doesn’t end, campaign: Hodler’s Digest.

United States authorities have charged Michelle Bond, the partner of former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame, with violations of campaign finance law.

In an indictment unsealed on Aug. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams alleged Bond and an unnamed co-conspirator illegally funded her run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022. Prosecutors charged Bond with conspiracy to cause unlawful campaign contributions, causing and accepting excessive campaign contributions, causing and receiving an unlawful corporate contribution, and causing and receiving a conduit contribution.

The unnamed co-conspirator Bonds romantic partner and a high-level executive at a now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, likely referring to Salame allegedly arranged a $400,000 payment from the firm to Bond. Prosecutors alleged she made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and a congressional committee to conceal her and her co-conspirators conduct.

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US gov’t won’t sell $590M Bitcoin on Coinbase. Does Harris plan to continue Biden’s crypto crackdown? Hodler’s Digest

X owner Elon Musk claimed the social media platform was hit with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack as his slated interview with U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump was set to kick off. 

There appears to be a massive DDoS attack on X. Working on shutting it down, Musk posted to X on Aug. 12. A DDoS attack aims to flood a network or service with traffic to disrupt and deny legitimate users from being able to use it.

The alleged attack came as technical issues plagued the X Spaces interview Musk and Trump were scheduled to hold at 8:00 pm Eastern Time, with multiple X users complaining they could not join. The site showed the stream was not available, but around 120,000 still managed to join. In a separate post, Musk said X tested the system earlier in the day with eight million concurrent listeners.

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XRP surged 26% after Ripple scores a ‘victory,’ Donald Trump Jr. reveals plans to launch crypto platform: Hodler’s Digest

The price of XRP surged 26% as a New York federal judge moved closer to ending a three-year securities lawsuit against Ripple Labs, which executives are calling a victory for the industry.

On Aug. 7, a judge ordered Ripple Labs to pay a $125 million civil penalty and said the firm was permanently restrained and enjoined from violating United States securities laws as part of a case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cointelegraph reported that the ruling seemingly puts Ripples case with the SEC in its final stages since the regulator initially filed the lawsuit in December 2020.

XRP rallied 26% to $0.63 after the news, recouping most of its losses from the broader crypto downturn since Aug. 5, according to CoinMarketCap data. At the time of publication, XRP was trading at $0.59.

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Sen. Lummis introduces Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Bill, Bitfinex hacker shows up at Bitcoin 2024, and Trump Bitcoin sneakers: Hodler’s Digest.

On July 31, Senator Cynthia Lummis officially introduced the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve bill, which would direct the United States government to start a reserve fund for the scarce decentralized asset. More specifically, the bill would establish a decentralized network of secure Bitcoin vaults under the control of the United States Treasury. 

The bill also directs lawmakers and bureaucrats to enact strict cybersecurity parameters and other physical security measures to ensure that Bitcoin funds are not stolen. Additionally, the bill laid out a goal of accumulating 1 million Bitcoin over time, or roughly 5% of Bitcoins total supply, using existing U.S. Treasury funds to acquire the Bitcoin in amounts that mirror the U.S. Treasurys gold allocation.

Lummis bill also reaffirmed the right to self-custody in the United States. It seeks to protect this right, which has come under fire from certain U.S. lawmakers.

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Pudgy Penguins gets a character in Pixelverse’s mini-game, the influence of ETFs on ETH price, and Craig Wright admits he’s not Satoshi.

The face of the popular non-fungible token (NFT) collection Pudgy Penguins will be integrated as a character on Pixelverses mini-game on Telegram. On July 16, Pixelverse announced that it would introduce the Pudgy Penguins character Pudgy into the game, joining other crypto favorites such as Doge from the Dogecoin memecoin and Mew, a character that represents a Solana memecoin. The integration allows players to play the character in the Pixelverse game. A standalone Pudgy Penguins mobile game is slated for release sometime in 2025. While the NFT market is down, some experts argued that the space is experiencing a correction cycle.

Craig Wright issued a legal disclaimer on the home page of his website on July 16, emphatically stating that he is not the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The disclaimer cited the recent ruling from the United Kingdoms High Court of Justice and directed website traffic to the summary of the findings presented by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance. The disclaimer admits that Wright was not the author of the Bitcoin white paper and concedes that the computer scientist does not hold a copyright to the technology outlined in the white paper.

United States spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will have a rough start but could have a bigger impact on the assets price than Bitcoin ETFs did for BTC, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan. According to Hougan, one reason Ether ETFs will have a bigger impact on the assets price is that Ethers inflation rate effectively amounts to zero, given the widespread usage of Ethereum-based applications compared to the small amount of ETH created daily.

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VanEck and 21Shares submit updated Ether ETF filings, Goldman Sachs to launch tokenization products, and Messi promotes memecoin.

Asset managers VanEck and 21Shares amended their S-1 forms for their prospective Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on July 8. While a specific launch date was not given in either of the amended filings, experts suggested a July launch window for the Ethereum ETFs.

Soccer sensation Lionel Messi made waves this week by promoting WaterCoin on his Instagram stories. The Solana-based memecoin claims to be a charity project focusing on water conservation and water-related issues, with purported plans to become a full-fledged ecological coin in the future. Note that investing in memecoins can carry substantial risk; always do your own research before making any investment.

The average Bitcoin transfer fee dropped to 2020 lows on July 7, when the metric hit $38.69. This quantitative measurement is determined by dividing miner profits by the total transactions successfully posted to the blockchain. According to recent data from CryptoQuant, the Bitcoin hashrate drawdown also reached December 2022 levels in July, suggesting that mining operations are capitulating.

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Roaring Kitty fraud lawsuit voluntarily dropped, Ethereum Foundation email server hacked, and Circle becomes first MiCA-compliant stablecoin issuer.

A lawsuit against GameStop trader Roaring Kitty, aka Keith Gill, was voluntarily dropped after three days. The lawsuit, brought by Martin Radev, accused the meme trader of securities fraud for his alleged role in manipulating the price of GameStops stock. However, Radevs lawsuit was dropped without prejudice, meaning he can file the lawsuit against Gill again in the future.

Bitcoins recent drop below the $60K mark is prompting many investors to buy the dip, as talk of taking advantage of the price swing has risen sharply on social media over the last several days. According to research firm Santiment, the frequency with which the term has been mentioned on the internet has doubled during Bitcoins downward price movement.

On July 2, the Ethereum Foundation revealed that its email server was hacked in late June. The malicious actor sent out 35,794 emails to subscribers claiming that the Ethereum Foundation and the Lido decentralized autonomous organization were promoting a 6.8% yield on ETH, stETH and wETH. Following the malicious links all the way to the end would have drained funds from users. Thankfully, the Ethereum Foundation was able to plug the security vulnerability that led to the email breach and informed other organizations of the malicious activity. According to the foundation, no funds were lost as a result of the exploit. However, the emails of 81 individuals may have been exposed during the security breach.

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