The 7:
ConsenSys sued SEC over Ethereum, asks court to state ETH is not a security.
→ Also The SEC issued a Wells notice to ConsenSys, objecting to MetaMask's operation as an unlicensed broker dealer and its offering users a means to stake ETH on their behalf. The SEC is also investigating sales of ETH by ConsenSys.
United States vs Crypto:
→ Founders Of Samourai Wallet Arrested And Charged With Money Laundering And Unlicensed Money Transmitting Offenses.
→ FBI issued an alert warning Americans that it has “recently conducted law enforcement operations against cryptocurrency services which were not licensed in accordance with federal law” and that users “may encounter financial disruptions during law enforcement actions.”
→ Phoenix Wallet [a Bitcoin wallet] will be removed from US app stores on May 3rd, 2024: 𝕏
→ zkSNACKs, the company behind the privacy-boosting Bitcoin wallet Wasabi Wallet, announced today that users from the United States will be barred from using its products indefinitely. The decision was likely prompted by the arrest of Samourai Wallet’s founders earlier this week.
→ DOJ challenges motion to dismiss Tornado Cash co-founder’s charges.
BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF hit a dry spell with $0 flows for 3 days straight.
SEC expected to deny spot ETH ETFs next month, sources to reuters.
→ In march James Seyffart [a Bloomberg Analyst] said he believes ETH spot ETFs will ultimately be denied for this round [May 23rd] as SEC hasn't engaged with issuers on Ethereum specifics.
→ And ofcourse infinityhedge also said that gary not going to approve ETH ETFs until a court orders him to. And now ConsenSys sued SEC over Ethereum so, ikyk.
Worldcoin hinted at a possible collaboration with OpenAI and PayPal.
→ CEO of 'Tools for Humanity', the company behind Worldcoin, alluded to a potential partnership with OpenAI, he declined to provide examples of what that would look like. “There’s some natural things in how we might and will work together,” he said. “But it’s nothing that we’re ready to announce yet.”.
→ He also said Tools for Humanity has had “conversations” with payments company PayPal Holdings Inc., but that there had been no “concrete” developments. A PayPal spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company does not comment on rumors or speculation.
→ In April Worldcoin plans to introduce a layer-2 blockchain called World Chain.
→ Worldcoin also facing shortage of orbs.
→ He said that the orb model currently conducting scans was a prototype that was never meant to make it to market.
“Sam was like, ‘Let’s launch faster,’” he said. ‘“Let’s just get it out.”’
Stripe back in the crypto, after 6 yrs, starting with $USDC payments.
→ Company announced that it would let customers accept cryptocurrency payments, starting with USDC stablecoins, initially only on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon. This will be the first time that Stripe has taken crypto payments since 2018, when it dropped support for Bitcoin due to it being too unstable
.
OP_CAT Proposal to Bring Smart Contracts to Bitcoin Finally Got a 'BIP Number'.
Market Move:
BTC $63k
GOLD $2,340
Microssoft $406.30
Apple $169.28
Nvidia $877.98
Coinbase $236
DXY $106
S&P 500, SPX $5,099
Nasdaq, NDX $17,718
OIL $83.6
JPY $157.9
U.S. 10 Year Treasury yield at 4.669%
What's Coming:
Macro:
U.S. Consumer Confidence (Apr) and Employment cost index on Apr 30.
*U.S. Treasury quarterly refunding on May 1.
*JOLTs Job Openings (Mar) at 14:00.
*ISM Manufacturing PMI (Apr) at 14:00.
FOMC interest-rate decision and Fed Chair Powell press conference on May 1 at 18:00.
BOJ Minutes on May 2.
OECD Economic Outlook on May 2.
*U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls at 12:30 on May 3.
*Unemployment Rate (Apr) at 12:30.
*ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI (Apr) at 14:00.
Earnings:
Paypal before open And Amazon, AMD after close on 30.
Apple & Coinbase after close on May 02
Crypto:
Friend.tech v2 coming on 29..
XRP vs SEC, SEC Response Deadline on 29.
Coinbase Derivatives to launch DOGE futures on 29.
Hong Kong's 'in-kind' spot bitcoin and ether ETFs to start trading April 30.
CZ is scheduled to be sentenced on April 30. ⚠️
OP_CAT, aka BIP-420, is scheduled to go live on Bitcoin testnet “signet” on April 30.
$KMNO TGE on April 30th.
Binance will list $REZ at 2024-04-30 12:00 (UTC)
OKX has decided to cease support for users in India, asks users to close all positions & Withdraw all funds by April 30, 2024, 12 AM UTC. ⚠️
Theta Network’s EdgeCloud release on May 1.
ETHGlobal Sydney hackathon on May 3 to 5.
EigenLayer Token coming this week? some hints dropped by ETH heads.
Scammer vs Scammer ? The fight btw Martin Shkreli and io.net, just go to their twitter feeds its all their, decide yourself who is right who is wrong.
Unlocks: of Cir. supply
$MEME (31.98%) - $155.97m on May 3. ⚠️
$DYDX (10.72%) - $73.33m on May 1.
$ENA (3.76%) - $45.3m on May 1.
$SUI (2.98%) - $47.11m on April 30.
$PRIME (4.43%) - $29.75m on April 30.
$GAL (5.76%) - $22.1m
$NYM (6.36%) - $8m on May 3.
To-Do:
ETH gas fees near 7 Gwei, so go do some onchain txns, bridge, or anything you saved for later do now its cheap rn.
Watch 🍿: Fallout | Poor Things | Eminem x Crypto[dot]com ad | Coinbase ad
Check out this dune dashboard for Social & Financial Scores of meme tokens.
New projects to check out: Heroglyphs, ANAGRAM and Agora.
Free Windscribe Pro for Journalists & NGOs.
What Happened:
Crypto:
Two SEC Lawyers [forced to] Resign After SEC Censured for 'gross abuse of power' in 'DEBT Box' Crypto Case.
Google Cloud launched Web3 portal.
Grayscale Files to Launch Smaller Fund Tied to Its Ethereum Trust.
A subsidiary Worldcoin Foundation expects to sell between 0.5M and 1.5M WLD per week.
Binance is rolling out a spot copy trading tool.
Binance announce the 53rd project on Binance Launchpool: Renzo ($REZ).
Philippines orders removal of Binance from Google and Apple app stores.
Runes generate over $135 million in fees in first week on Bitcoin network.
Getting a job in crypto just got easier thanks to US FTC.
Franklin Templeton enables peer-to-peer transfers for its on-chain US Government Money Fund.
EU Parliament Adopts Anti-Money Laundering Rules Package, Also Policing Crypto.
SEC sues Bitcoin miner Geosyn, accusing founders of $5.6M fraud.
Bored Ape Creator Yuga Labs Dismisses Employees in Restructuring.
Binance founder "CZ” apologized for his “poor decisions” and accepted “full responsibility” for his actions in a letter to the judge overseeing his case.
U.S. prosecutors seek 36-month sentence for ex-Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.
SEC delays decision on listing and trading spot bitcoin ETF options, asks for public comments.
Friend tech Snapshot complete.
Banks could flood into stablecoins if new bill passes: S&P Global.
Bitcoin development community decided to nominate 5 new BIP editors. The move marks the first time in Bitcoin history where there was more than one person on the job.
IRS Unveils Form Your Broker May Send Next Year to Report Your Crypto Moves.
Macro: Earnings week
Tesla reported bad earnings, market reacted good.
→ Tesla shares jumped 13% after Musk said company aims to start production of affordable new EV by early 2025. On earnings, Revenue declined from $23.33 billion a year earlier and from $25.17 billion in the fourth quarter. Net income dropped 55% to $1.13 billion, or 34 cents a share, from $2.51 billion, or 73 cents a share, a year ago.
Facebook reported good earnings, market reacted bad.
→ The shares plunge as much as 15% on disappointing forecast. Meta reported revenue of $36.5 billion in the first quarter, an increase of more than 27% over the same period a year ago and net income of $12.37 billion. Meta believes capital expenditures will be $35 billion to $40 billion. Earlier this year, it estimated expenses related to things like servers, AI hardware and data centers would be $30 billion to $37 billion. so, more expenses. On +ve note for Meta, As Joe Biden signed a bill into law that would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the popular video service or face a ban in the US, This potential elimination of a major competitor could give a boost to Meta’s advertising business.
Google is now a $2 trillion company.
→ Google shares jumped 11% on good earning report, company made $23.7 billion in profit [+ 14%] on $80.5 billion in revenue [+15%]. Google also announced its first-ever dividend of 20 cents per share. Furthermore, Board of Directors has authorized the company to buy back up to an additional $70 billion in shares. Google's spending is set to rise to at least $48bn this year from $32.3bn in 2023, an increase of ~50%.
Microsoft's AI investments yield big: 17% revenue jump, 20% profit rise in Q.
→ Company made $21.9 billion in profit on $61.9 billion in revenue, spent $14 billion on capital expenses and leases in the first three months of the year, up from $11.5 billion in the previous quarter.
Intel is now the worst-performing tech stock in the S&P 500 this year, while rival chipmaker Nvidia is the second-best performer in the index.
→ Earnings → Revenue: $12.7b (up 8.6% from 1Q 2023), Net loss: $381.0m (86% down from 1Q 2023), $0.09 loss per share ($0.66 loss in 1Q 2023).
March PCE inflation index up 2.7%, stronger than expected.
The PCE price index rose 0.30% in March vs. a forecast for a 0.30% rise and a 0.33% increase in February.
Core PCE rose 0.30% in March vs. forecasts of a 0.30% increase and a 0.26% rise in February.
The PCE Price Index rose 2.7% year over year in March vs. a consensus forecast for a 2.6% increase and a 2.5% rise in February.
Core PCE rose 2.8% year over year in March vs. a consensus forecast of 2.7% and a 2.8% rise in February.
US GDP growth slowed sharply last quarter to 1.6% rate.
BOJ keeps low rates, hints of future rate hikes fail to stem yen fall.
What's Cooking? for world:
Biden signed a bill that force ByteDance to sell the TikTok to a U.S. company within a year or face a national ban but ByteDance prefers shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources to reuters.
US regulators seize troubled lender Republic First, sell it to Fulton Bank.
Biden’s 44.6% capital gains tax proposal likely a ‘nothing burger’ for the average crypto investor.
FTC Bans Noncompete Agreements That Restrict Job Switching.
Voyager 1 is sending data back to Earth for the first time in 5 months.
People making $70-80k selling Restaurant Reservations.
Microsoft open sourced MS-DOS 4.0 under MIT license.
Fundraises:
Elon Musk's xAI is reportedly close to raising $6 billion at a valuation of $18 billion from investors.
Pantera Capital seeks to raise $1 billion for a new crypto fund.
The Pantera Fund V would be the company's second "all-in-one" fund to invest in startup equity, early-stage tokens, liquid tokens, and other assets.
AI startup Prime Intellect raised $5.5M to build high-powered, decentralized research platform.
Perplexity raised $62.7M at $1.04B valuation, led by Daniel Gross, along with Stan Druckenmiller, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos, Tobi Lutke, Garry Tan, Andrej Karpathy, Dylan Field, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, IVP, NEA, Jakob Uszkoreit, Naval Ravikant, Brad Gerstner, and Lip-Bu Tan.
OpenAI Startup Fund quietly raises $15M.
Turnkey, a company that builds wallet infrastructure for blockchain developers, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Faction and Galaxy Ventures.
Anthony Scaramucci's son leads ZK protocol Hinkal's funding round at $70 million valuation.
Carv, a data layer platform that lets web3 gaming and AI companies, as well as gamers, control and monetize their data, has raised a $10 million Series A round led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures.
Movement Labs raised $38 million to build layer 2 blockchain on Ethereum.
Natix, a DePIN project focused on mapping data, has raised $4.6 million ahead of its token launch and airdrop on Solana.
Aligned Layer raised $20 million to develop verification layer for scaling dapps.
Reads:
By a16z: How to launch a token | 5 rules for token launches | Getting ready to launch a token | How to navigate token launch risks.
BinanceLabs 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗵𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟮𝟭 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 with 𝟭𝟵𝟬 investment portfolios, 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝟭𝟭.𝟬𝟱% 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 for Launchpool.
Everything actionable you need to know about what this indictment means for you as a Samourai Wallet (SW) or Whirlpool user.
bro, wat are bitcoin runes.
What do crypto lawyers really think about points?
Comparative Analysis of Layer-1 Blockchain Economies.
What games will Yellen play by Arthur Hayes.
What to do if you're considering private crypto investments.
Vaneck report on GEODNET.
Average float (mcap/fdv) of these new tokens at a mere 13.6%: X
The Pulse:
“FBI calls crypto money so, they can arrest you for money laundering
IRS calls it property so, they can tax you on capital gains
SEC calls it a security so, they can sue every exchange
CFTC calls it a commodity so, you can’t use it as a currency”: Crypto Tea
Crypto investing 101: 1) Bet on yourself 2) Bet on products you like
"I miss the old DeFi
I hate the new DeFi
I miss the real DeFi": X
“If they tax unrealized gains, they need to pay back impermanent loss for Uniswap LPs”: hayden.eth
Coinlist CEO on AI protocols in crypto: “The bids are all memes”
JPMorgan CEO: “Blockchain is real, we use it, but we’ve been talking about crypto for 10 years and not a whole lot has come of it”
Since the late 1990s, there has been a substantial decrease in the number of publicly traded companies in the US, plunging from over 8,000 in 1996 to approximately 4,600 by 2022.
JP Morgan:
On-Chain:
DeFi TVL: $101.362b.
Lido dominance at 28.63%.
Rekt:
BlackRock confirmed it didn’t choose hedera to tokenize shares of its $22B money market, nor has it struck any “commercial relationship” with the firm.
New York Stock Exchange takes closer look at 24/7 trading—spurred in part by crypto.
EU will ban mixers and force crypto firms to surveil users in blow to DeFi anonymity.
Android TVs Can Expose User Email Inboxes.
ZKASINO - REKT
Chainalysis' federal contracts by agency. As of April 2023, Chainalysis had contracts with the US federal government worth $65 million.
Two serious security vulnerabilities found in the Optimism fraud proof system deployed on testnet, now they are addressed.
Twitter phishing ads are using a fake Google captcha page, leveraging IPFS deployment and smart contracts for dynamic redirection.
Sophon a cashgrab? [no buying max cap on node sale for a wallet, lots of decentralization to take at once right ?]
Celsius reports creditor data breach.
USDC pool on Pike Beta exploited.
Renzo’s ezETH falls as low as $700, leading to $56m in liquidations.
MagpieRouterV2 contract exploit.
Hackers leak code of El Salvador's state-operated Bitcoin Wallet, Chivo.
Last week, Microsoft released WizardLM 2, which it claimed is one of the most powerful open source LLM to date. Then it deleted the model from the internet a few hours later because, it “accidentally missed” required “toxicity testing” before it was released. However, before it was taken down, several people downloaded the model & reuploaded it to Github & Hugging Face — Now It’s Everywhere.
We will leave India if told to break encryption": WhatsApp tells Indian High Court.
Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, buys the satirical online newspaper ‘The Onion’.
Researchers found hundreds of thousands of plastic particles in one-liter bottles of water sold in the US, 90% of them small enough to enter the human bloodstream.
How Nestlé gets children hooked on sugar in lower-income countries.
Thanks for the great content