State of Crypto

In Search of the Elusive Crypto Voter

On Monday, a New Hampshire state representative asked a mostly-filled room at an industry campaign event to raise their hands if they were visiting from another state. More than half the people in the room raised their hands. These visitors had come to hear from industry representatives, state lawmakers and – perhaps most importantly – three presidential candidates talk about the upcoming election.

Binance’s Busy Day, Kraken’s Second SEC Fight

Binance is paying one of the largest fines in corporate history to the U.S. Department of Justice, while its founder and CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, stepped down from his role running the platform as part of a settlement with multiple federal agencies. Meanwhile, Kraken is facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that echoes the SEC’s previous wave of suits.

Delaware, We Need to Talk

Some sectors of the crypto industry were excited (and/or confused) by an apparent BlackRock XRP Trust filing in the state of Delaware, suggesting the massive asset manager may try to launch an XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) after applying to launch bitcoin and ether ETFs. But, this filing was “false.”

Catching Up on a Lot of Stuff

I poked my head out of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial just long enough for my entire panel of House lawmakers at CoinDesk’s policy event in Washington, D.C. to cancel, leading to a very impromptu session instead. Unfortunately that’s not enough time to really dig into any of the things that’s happened over the past month so here’s a brief list of things I missed instead.

Crypto Wants a De Minimis Tax Exemption in the U.S.

The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) published an open letter in July asking the crypto industry to weigh in on crypto tax issues, including loans, staking, mining, constructive sales and wash trading. These comments were due earlier this month.

Sam Bankman-Fried Is Now in Jail

It’s a bit of a truism in journalism that any headline that ends in a question that can be answered with “yes” or “no” will usually be answered with “no.” A few weeks ago, however, I asked “Is Sam Bankman-Fried Going to Jail?” and in a rejection of that truism, the answer was “yes.”