Market Watch | Bitcoin | $11,354 | 7 day Δ +18.8% | | Ethereum | $346 | 7 day Δ +21% | | XRP | $0.254 | 7 day Δ +23.8% | Prices as of 5:05 p.m. ET
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Authorities arrest three alleged co-conspirators in the July 15 Twitter cryptocurrency scam. Mason Sheppard in the United Kingdom, Nima Fazeli in Florida, and a juvenile in Florida. More: - Twitter confirmed yesterday that the cryptocurrency scammers used phone spear phishing to gain "god mode" system access.
- The FBI, IRS, Secret Service, Florida law enforcement, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California assisted in the investigation.
- In a statement, the FBI said the investigation is still ongoing.
FBI 
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 SEC awards contract to CipherTrace in order to analyze Binance. Founded in 2015, CipherTrace is one of the largest recipients of U.S. government cryptocurrency forensics contracts. Background: - CipherTrace operates the only blockchain forensics tool with support for Binance Coin (BNB) and tokens on Binance's network.
- The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security funds CipherTrace.
- Binance's original whitepaper promised to use corporate operating profits to buy back BNB, thereby reducing supply and rewarding prior tokenholders.
- As a result, many have accused Binance of conducting an unregistered securities offering – the company removed references to this buyback in April 2019.
- Binance does not disclose how many of the $2.9b worth of BNB are owned by U.S. residents – for context, U.S. investors purchased 25% or $424.5m of Telegram's $1.7b Gram Token (TON).
- The SEC's contract does not specify how much, if any, attention will be paid to BNB itself versus other participants in Binance's ecosystem.
U.S. General Services Administration
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 Vladimir Putin signs new Russian crypto law. The language reflects the Bank of Russia's skeptical view of cryptocurrencies. More: - The law allows companies to issue digital securities by registering with the Bank of Russia. (A previous version of the bill would have made it illegal to issue or trade crypto on Russia-based infrastructure.)
- The law also classifies decentralized cryptocurrencies as property, which should be reported for tax purposes, and cannot be used to pay for goods nor services.
- Russia's Parliament expects to pass a more detailed law later this year.
Coindesk
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 Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Ripple paid "Ripple market development fees" totaling $31.7m to MoneyGram during H1 2020. The amount is nearly triple the compensation paid in H2 2019 of $11.3m. More: - From June to November 2019, Ripple invested $50m into Moneygram in order to convince Moneygram to use XRP for remittance processing.
- Ripple now owns 15% of Moneygram "on a fully-diluted basis including non-voting warrants held by Ripple."
- In December, Ripple raised $200m at a $10b valuation.
SEC
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Coinbase Rewards now offers 2% APY on DAI deposits. Maker's (MKR) protocols and tokenholders support this popular USD stablecoin. More: - Maker's protocols involved in maintaining a $1 price for DAI are imperfect, and DAI is susceptible to a virtual run on the bank, among other weaknesses.
- Just last week, the price of DAI fluctuated 14% within two days.
- Coinbase already offers interest on its own stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), as well as Tezos (XTZ).
- Offer applies to account holders in the U.S., UK, Spain, France, Australia, and the Netherlands.
Coinbase
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Digital Currency Group (DCG) invests another $25m into Circle. The investment is intended "to accelerate the global adoption of USDC in mainstream finance." Circle also announced expanded yield and lending services with Genesis, a digital asset "prime brokerage" that is also a portfolio company of Barry Silbert's DCG. Stablecoin stats: - The largest stablecoin is Tether (USDT) with a market cap of $10b and ostensibly $30b in average daily volume.
- USDC has a market cap of $1.1b with average daily volume of $350m.
- Circle claims there are 12 billion stablecoins worldwide, including $1.1b worth of USDC as of July 10.
Circle
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Quick Hits: - Huobi launches an institutional offering for individual account holders with over 30 bitcoin-equivalent assets. Huobi's average daily volume exceeds $1.3b.
- A new Australian gold stablecoin, Universal Gold, launches with curiously generous guarantees.
- U.S. District Judge orders executives from cryptocurrency company Longfin Corp. (NASDAQ:LFIN) to pay $223m.
- CEO's and CFO's talk the winners and losers of the office of the future.
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 |  | Written and curated by wide-eyed bitcoin watcher since $1, Aaron Wise. Streaming headline junkie, Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, 2017 founder of Cryptocurrency Newsfeed. Temporarily based in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Edited by Eduardo Garcia in New York. Eduardo is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School M.A. Science program and writes regularly for the New York Times Climate Fwd: newsletter. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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