Blockchain Bites: The SEC's Chilling Effect on Crypto Development

Meet the Bitcoin CEO and catch up on Bahama's CBDC experiment

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September 16, 2020 Sponsored by By Daniel Kuhn If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.  Top shelf A slew of regulatory happenings are in the works. First, the Bahamian central bank plans to issue the first CBDC this October while the Indian legislative body is considering a ban on crypto trading.  Further, the latest SEC injunction into an allegedly unregistered token sale could set a grave precedent, argues Commissioner Hester "Crypto Mom" Peirce. CBDC first The Central Bank of the Bahamas has confirmed it is moving ahead with the nationwide launch of its digital currency, called the "Sand Dollar," sometime in October. Approximately $48,000 worth of the new central bank digital currency (CBDC) – pegged to the U.S. dollar-tracking Bahamian dollar (BSD) – will enter circulation initially with commitments to mint and remove BSDs as necessary. A mobile-based wallet app will also be rolled out. If it sticks to its October release, the Sand Dollar will likely become the first CBDC to launch anywhere in the world – it has been suggested China won't launch its own digital yuan initiative until the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, CoinDesk’s Paddy Baker reports.  ‘Chilling effect’ Online gaming and gambling platform Unikrn will pay a $6.1 million settlement – “substantially all of the company’s assets” – for conducting an allegedly unlicensed initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The securities regulator said Unikrn’s $31 million fundraise was in violation of registration requirements, though Commissioner Hester M. Peirce has offered a dissenting opinion that the token startup wasn’t accused of committing any fraud. Further, this injunction will have a chilling effect on innovation on the part of other firms. Unikrn will continue to offer its services supported by major currencies, including fiat currencies, bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH) and USDC, among others. Leaked legislation A leaked legislative draft shows the European Commission is thinking seriously about aligning its oversight over the cryptocurrency and digital asset industry with standing regulations for traditional financial instruments. Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) will provide legal certainty around crypto assets, though may also stifle innovation, CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reports. Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) is due this September, but will not likely be transitioned into EU law until 2022 at the earliest. Siân Jones, senior partner at XReg Consulting, said the bill takes particular focus on stablecoins, which could affect development in  projects as diverse as the multi-asset-backed Libra project and the nascent decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.  Another ban? India may ban cryptocurrency trading, according to a recent Bloomberg report. According to sources close to the matter, the federal cabinet is weighing a new bill that seeks to impose limits on trading activity, similar in function to a Reserve Bank of India ban that was repealed by the nation's supreme court in March. The news comes amid a flurry of crypto activity and as the government explores potential use of blockchain technology to manage land records, pharmaceutical drugs supply chain or records of educational certificates. Similar standards Bank regulators in 48 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico plan to make compliance for cryptocurrency companies simpler by consolidating supervisory exams. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), a coordinating body for state regulators, said the new regime for money service businesses (MSB) will introduce the standards to streamline compliance and enable firms like Coinbase to work across multiple states, instead of going through the time and expense of getting regulated in each and every one, CoinDesk’s Paddy Baker reports.  SPONSORED BY ETORO Here’s $25 to invest in crypto It sounds easy because they make it easy. Sign up for eToro and not only will you get access to buy and sell the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies, but you’ll also get $25 when you make your first $100 trade. But you need to sign up now — this offer is only for the first 1,000 participants!  Get started Don’t wait to... Trade the most popular digital assets Build a diversified portfolio with the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies. Copy the moves of traders on eToro with CopyTrader™ Use the moves of other traders to your advantage. Practice with a virtual portfolio Get a feel for the platform before you get started with real money. *Offer is only for US residence Quick bites Diginex Moves Closer to Backdoor Nasdaq Listing With Merger Approval (Sebastian Sinclair/CoinDesk) ‘Sharing Economy’ Startup ShareRing Tapped for China’s Blockchain Service Network (Jaspreet Kalra/CoinDesk) Binance, Huobi, OKEx Have FOMO for DeFi (Muyao Shen/CoinDesk) Can Bitcoin Ever Become Worthless? (Daniel Phillips/Decrypt) Bakkt Bitcoin Futures Daily Trading Volume Hits Record High (Omkar Godbole/CoinDesk) At stake Bitcoin CEO MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor spoke with CoinDesk reporter Danny Nelson about his decision to invest nearly half a billion dollars of his firm’s treasury into bitcoin.  Tuesday, MicroStrategy announced it has purchased $175 million more BTC over and above the $250 million worth acquired in August. The reason? Dollars are no longer a safe place for its excess cash.  This marks a pronounced turnaround for the chief executive that once called bitcoin fool’s gold.  “I went down the rabbit hole” during COVID-19, Saylor said, admitting he “was wrong” to have doubted bitcoin back in the $600 range. “I wish I knew then what I know now,” he said. Led by the industry's most prominent public faces – Anthony Pompliano, Nathaniel Whittemore and Andreas Antonopoulos – Saylor realized that the age of quantitative easing and hot-headed inflation has made its mark on the dollar’s long-term future.  “This is not a speculation, nor is it a hedge,” said Saylor. “This was a deliberate corporate strategy to adopt a bitcoin standard.” While this move does add legitimacy to the industry and the goals of creating a stateless, intervention-proof economic system, there’s reason to pause. MicroStrategy is just one among thousands of publicly traded firms. The whims of its executives hardly represent anything beyond its board room. Then again, as money blogger and CoinDesk columnist J.P. Koning ironically noted: “Big announcement today about 16,796 bitcoins being sold for $175 million! CoinDesk interviews the sellers to find out why they are betting big on fiat.” CoinDesk Live: Internet 2030 CoinDesk’s “Internet 2030” series examines the future of the medium and what role blockchain and crypto will play in it with content and conversations on the future of the decentralized web.  For Day 2 of the series, which includes CoinDesk Live conversations on Sept. 15-16 on top of editorial content, we invite John Wolpert of ConsenSys, Brendan Eich of Brave and CoinDesk's Emily Parker and Daniel Kuhn to discuss internet's tipping point.  Can blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies play a catalytic role in shepherding the web into a more fair and equitable tool for all? Or will censorship, surveillance and dystopia reign supreme? We assess the bull and bear cases for what the internet – and its impact on the human condition – will look like in 10 years’ time.   Watch Day 2: Decentralized Web: Promise or Pipe Dream? on Sept. 16 at 4 p.m. ET on YouTube, LinkedIn or Twitter. Read more here. Market intel Fed whisperer Bitcoin is struggling to clear the important psychological hurdle of $11,000. Analysts will watch closely for any changes in the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate decision due today, where central bank heads will likely remain committed to letting the economy run hot for the next few years. CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports there is a schism in how crypto markets could react, citing a tolerance of higher inflation as a bullish development for scarce assets like bitcoin and gold. On the other hand, BK Asset Management's Kathy Lien said the U.S. dollar may find buyers if the Fed is more positive on economic growth. In that case, bitcoin will likely face selling pressure. Data buy Data provider CB Insights has acquired Netherlands-based Blockdata to bolster its cryptocurrency and digital asset intelligence. “It’s become something that our clients are increasingly talking about as big and practical,” CB CEO Anand Sanwal said. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. First Mover First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. They follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. CoinDesk 20 Update: OXT In, BAT Out The CoinDesk 20 has made its first change since launching in July: Orchid (OXT), issued by Orchid Labs Inc., developer of virtual private network (VPN) software designed to be decentralized and open source, has replaced the basic attention token (BAT) issued by Brave Software Inc., developer of the Brave browser.  First rolled out two months ago, the CoinDesk 20 is a list of the digital assets that matter most to the market. We filter by consistent, verifiable volume, listing the 20 assets that have the most volume on trusted exchanges for two consecutive quarters. Explore the CoinDesk 20 and our methodology here. Tech pod Playing with DSL Discrete log contract (DSL), a form of “invisible” smart contract that became feasible on Bitcoin just this year, has gone live. Disguised as standard multi-signature transactions, DSL has been advanced by Bitcoin developer Lloyd Fournier and his work building “scriptless-scripts.” The principal use case will be betting, CoinDesk’s Colin Harper reports. Online censorship The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is allowing people around the world to monitor internet censorship and interference in their countries in a decentralized manner for free. It has created the world's largest open dataset on internet censorship, with millions of measurements collected from more than 200 countries since 2012, CoinDesk Privacy Reporter Ben Powers said.  Op-ed How crypto can win Executive Director of the Blockchain Association Kristin Smith details how the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry can get its foot in the door of Congress. “The public policies that we need for crypto to thrive cannot be achieved if our industry is unwilling to unite and work with the government. If men were angels, government regulation would be unnecessary,” she writes.  Internet 2030 Kevin Werbach is Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he focuses on emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain. The essay excerpted below placed first in the "Decentralized Futures" writing contest, organized by NESTA, a U.K. innovation foundation, and has been republished as part of CoinDesk’s ongoing Internet 2030 series. The next 10 years will witness the systematic manipulation of human life at a scale unrivaled in history. For all the recent controversies over privacy and surveillance, the real threat is ahead of us. Unless new approaches to online identity and data management take hold, both governments and private actors will move inexorably from knowing you to shaping you. Blockchain-enabled decentralization will develop as the only viable response to the iron logic of data centralization. Blockchain believers often talk as though today’s early-adopter use cases, such as cryptocurrency trading and decentralized finance, will lead straight to mass-market adoption. As the inevitable ‘killer apps’ appear, so the story goes, blockchain-based systems will conquer the mainstream. One might imagine that we’ll all soon be trading digital collectibles and relying on token-curated registries for accurate information. Governments will lose control over money, and blockchain-based smart contracts will replace court-enforced legal agreements. Uber, Facebook and the banks will wither away in the face of tokenized alternatives.  This narrative is wishful thinking. In most markets, intermediaries will endure for the same reasons they always have: they provide value. The Ubers and Facebooks – and yes, even the banks – tame complexity and produce coherent, convenient, de-risked experiences that no decentralized community can ever match. Early adopters use blockchain-based systems for ideological reasons or to get rich on cryptocurrency speculation. The billions behind them in the mainstream will not. The lock-in power of network effects creates high barriers for alternative economic systems. And the need for trust disqualifies decentralized solutions that are havens for criminals, incapable of effective compliance or vulnerable to catastrophic attacks – which, regrettably, means virtually all of them today.  Truly decentralized blockchain systems will reach critical mass not out of hope but out of necessity. Powerful actors and mainstream users will adopt blockchain as a counterbalance to digital behavior-shaping by governments and private platforms. Dramatic innovations such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which manage activity automatically through smart contracts, will become significant at the end point of this process, once the foundations are in place.  Read the full essay here. Podcast corner Living dead “Zombie firms” are running amok, draining economic potential and possibly propelling the financial industry towards another downturn, Nathaniel Whittermore argues in the latest episode of  The Breakdown.  Who won #CryptoTwitter? ATTENTION: Scammers have been sending fraudulent emails with links to sites disguised to look like coindesk.com. If you are in doubt about a link, type https://www.coindesk.com directly into your browser; do not copy and paste. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Blockchain Bites A newsletter from CoinDesk See previous editions Copyright © 2020 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  Our mailing address is:  250 Park Avenue South New York, NY, 10003, US  Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences here.