  The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day Dec. 31, 2021 If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here. Sponsored by  Welcome to The Node.
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Today's must-reads Top Shelf  BON VOYAGE? Publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange Voyager Digital is facing a class-action lawsuit over alleged hidden fees being charged on its trades, according to a lawsuit filed in a federal Miami court on Dec. 24. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of a Florida resident, alleges that the "commission-free" platform employs various methods to charge secret commissions on trades, including by keeping the spread between the "bid" and "ask" prices intentionally wide, allegedly causing more than $1 billion in damages. Voyager says the lawsuit lacks merit.
SECURITY BLANKET: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler has hired a senior adviser specializing in cryptocurrency. Corey Frayer, who has more than a decade of experience working within congressional machine including fronting Sen. Sen. Sherrod Brown's crypto proposals, will assist the agency establish a regulatory framework for crypto. Meanwhile, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce told CoinDesk TV in an interview published Thursday that the U.S. doesn't need a dedicated crypto regulator – as some in the industry, like Coinbase, have called for. Pierce added the federal securities watchdog may take a closer look at NFTs in 2022. The full interview is well worth your time.
AN APE'S REFLECTION: Two Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) parody projects launched Wednesday have ignited plagiarism accusations, several trading bans and a robust supply of ape-themed memes. The two collections – both named PHAYC, a play on "fake" and "BAYC" – appear to be identical copies of the original BAYC collection (one of the most successful NFT projects to date), but with each ape's profile mirrored to the opposite side ... or "left-facing." Part pastiche, part social commentary on greed and intellectual property laws, the two projects sold out within hours of launch.
BLOCKCHAIN EXPOSURE: Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, has introduced what it said is the country's first exchange-traded fund (ETF) to provide exposure to companies involved in the blockchain industry. The so-called Sberbank Blockchain Economy ETF, which trades under "SBBE," tracks the "Sber Blockchain Economy Index," giving investors exposure to crypto trading firms, including Coinbase, Galaxy Digital and a host of other crypto mining, consulting and financial companies.
BINANCE IS BACK? On Wednesday, Binance emailed users saying it could continue operating in Ontario after successfully working with Canadian regulators. On Thursday, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) said, in fact, the exchange is "not authorized to offer trading in derivatives or securities to persons or companies" in Canada's most populous province. Binance, which previously alerted its Ontarian users it would shut down operations by Dec. 31 in the province, now says remedying this recent "miscommunication" is a top priority as it continues to seek a fully licensed status.
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What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals 
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Circle: Growth of Dollar Digital Currency Creates New Investment Opportunities for Businesses
In November 2021, the total value of dollar digital currencies surpassed $127 billion, according to a U.S. Treasury Department report. It has kept going up. A month later, it's more like $158 billion by CoinMarketCap's count, up staggeringly from $28 billion in January. Of that total, $42 billion can be ascribed to USD coin (USDC), a project from Circle that for months has been among the 10 largest market capitalizations of any cryptocurrency regardless of category.
Now that we're in the season of dollar digital currencies, Circle is working to make this innovation more accessible for B2B use around the world.
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Trends to Watch: DAO Regulation
While Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have been around since 2016, they certainly emerged in popularity over the past year. DAOs are organizations designed to be atuomated and decentralized that act as a form of venture capital fund without a traditional management structure or board of directors. Put more simply, DAOs are digital communities centered around a shared mission and enforceable social norms that use their own capital to further their mission. DAOs can be created for a variety of purposes, including product development (SushiSwap, ENS), NFT collecting (PleasrDAO, SharkDAO), investing (BitDAO, The LAO), and social membership (Friends with Benefits, Rally).
Kraus House is raising funds to purchase an NBA team. PleasrDAO is out purchasing one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan albums and creating charity DAOs. BlockbusterDAO is trying to revitalize the home movie rental business and buy Blockbuster from Dish Network. PonziDAO is set out to… well, I’m honestly not sure because the Juicebox description is in French. The list of active DAOs goes on and gets about as simple or abstracted as the internet itself.
Source: DeepDAO
With currently over $15B in DAO treasuries, DAOs have also created a massive opportunity for startups to help DAOs manage their treasuries and organizations. Treasury management tool Juicebox, which was home to the ConstitutionDAO, officially launched in July and has already seen over $90M in funds raised on the platform.
Source: @wijuwiju, Juicebox Protocol (Dune)
Snapshot, a Layer-2 type solution for DAO governance and primary voting tool for over 2,000 DAO communities, including DeFi protocols Aave, Uniswap and SushiSwap, raised $4M in a seed funding round led by 1kz and participated in by Coinbase Ventures, StarkWare, and others.
Source: Snapshot
DAOs can take on many forms, serve different purposes, and bring value to virtually anything. The opportunity surrounding DAOs is massive, with several DAOs holding millions of dollars on their balance sheet and even more funding being allocated toward companies looking to help DAOs grow. But without any clear regulatory guidance, the increasingly diverse DAO industry and its participants could be shut down in the U.S. by broadly sweeping regulation or continued lack of regulatory clarity. With DAOs continuing to develop and gain traction and Wyoming being the only state to pass DAO-related regulation, DAO regulation is one of the biggest trends to follow in 2022.
Note: If you’re looking for more information on DAOs generally, I highly recommend checking out the Dutchess’ DAO reading list.
