LianGuai Morning News | SEC delays Hashdex spot Bitcoin ETF decision, will discuss crypto regulation at APEC

LianGuai Morning News | SEC Delays Hashdex Bitcoin ETF Decision, to Discuss Crypto Regulation at APEC Meeting

Headlines

▌SEC Delays Decision on Hashdex’s Bitcoin ETF

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart, on the X platform, stated that the SEC has delayed making a decision on Hashdex’s application to convert its BTC futures ETF into an ETF that also holds spot BTC. Hashdex submitted the application in September.

▌Treasury Secretary Yellen: Plans to Discuss Cryptocurrency Regulation at APEC Meeting

Treasury Secretary Yellen announced plans to discuss the regulation of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Yellen stated, “I look forward to hearing about the role of crypto assets and blockchain technology in the financial system, as well as the regulatory direction of their respective supervisory agencies.”

• Bulls Run Wild Bitcoin’s Soaring Price Nears New Yearly Highs – Will BTC Smash the $40,000 Barrier?
• Commerzbank Secures Crypto Custody License: A Milestone in Digital Asset Services
• LianGuai Daily | Binance Labs invests in ARKM token; Blockchain.com completes $110 million financing.

LianGuai Note: The APEC summit will be held in San Francisco, USA from November 15 to 17.

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Market

As of the time of writing, according to coinmarketcap data:

BTC recent trading price is $37,822.2, with a daily change of +3.87%;

ETH recent trading price is $2,056.55, with a daily change of +1.78%;

BNB recent trading price is $253.7, with a daily change of +0.52%;

XRP recent trading price is $0.6463, with a daily change of +1.00%;

DOGE recent trading price is $0.0760, with a daily change of +2.12%;

ADA recent trading price is $0.378, with a daily change of +1.78%;

SOL recent trading price is $65.13, with a daily change of +4.42%.

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Policy

▌US Judge Rejects FTX Lawyers’ Motion to Delay Bankruptcy Proceedings

FTX lawyer Lawrence Gebhardt previously requested the Delaware court to delay the bankruptcy proceedings by “one or two months” and claimed that it is still unclear how FTX went bankrupt. Judge John Dorsey rejected this motion, stating that there is no need for further delay. The judge said, “If the evidence is as complex as claimed, then it needs to begin now, not be delayed.”

LianGuai previously reported that on November 2, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of defrauding FTX customers, creditors, and investors by transferring their funds to its affiliated trading company, Alameda Research.

▌Crypto-Friendly Congress Members Urge Biden and Yellen to Investigate Hamas’ Crypto Fundraising

A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, Majority Party Whip Tom Emmer, Digital Assets Task Force Chair French Hill, and Congressman Ritchie Torres sent a letter to President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, calling for a factual investigation to understand the extent of terrorist financing through cryptocurrencies.

The letter states that there are concerns about Hamas receiving encrypted funds, but the severity of this issue is currently unclear. Congress needs to understand the scale, scope, and duration of Hamas’ digital asset operations and whether the US has successfully seized any illegal digital assets. Other questions aim to examine the role played by the US in sanctioning wallets and detaining funds that may be related to Hamas or other organizations.

▌SEC Delays Decision on Proposed Grayscale Ethereum Futures ETF Rule Change

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart, on the X platform, stated that the SEC has delayed the review of the 19b-4 filing for the Grayscale Ethereum Futures ETF with a new deadline set for January 1, 2024. As expected by analysts, Grayscale has separately submitted an application to convert ETHE into an ETF.

Analysts suggest that Grayscale may be hoping to force the SEC to make a 19b-4 decision on the Ethereum Futures ETF, similar to the example of the Teucrium ETFs/hashdex 19b-4 ruling used in the GBTC lawsuit, to highlight the hypocrisy of the SEC’s decisions between futures and spot. Currently, no Ethereum Futures ETF has been approved under this process, and if the SEC rejects the spot Ethereum ETF in 2024, there will be no SEC decision process for the industry to refer to. The 19b-4 futures ETF approval letter will prepare for another court battle, similar to the GBTC case.

Furthermore, the existing Ethereum Futures ETF on the US market is based on the 40 Act and does not require the 19b-4 process.

▌CFTC Chairman: Similar incidents to FTX may occur again, waiting for Congress to grant more crypto regulatory power

Rostin Behnam, Chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated today that after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX (causing customers to lose billions of dollars) nearly a year ago, “nothing has changed, and we may face another FTX-type event happening.” He stated that the CFTC has limited power over markets where assets such as Bitcoin are traded directly. In the spot market, his agency only has the authority to intervene when regulatory agencies find market manipulation and fraudulent activities, and the CFTC is still waiting for new Congressional authorization to gain regulatory power over the cryptocurrency market.

Rostin Behnam believes that Congress needs to create a roadmap, echoing his comments at last year’s Senate Banking Committee hearing. At that time, he stated that the CFTC lacks the power to comprehensively regulate the digital commodity market, and in order to prevent this situation from happening again, Congress must provide appropriate authority.

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Blockchain Applications

▌ENS Launches EVM Gateway, Adds Support for OP Goerli

Web3 domain service ENS has announced the launch of the EVM Gateway, an open-source repository that includes a general CCIP-Read Gateway framework and Solidity library, allowing L1 smart contracts to efficiently and securely retrieve and verify states from other EVM chains (L2). Developers can operate their own gateways or use existing ones, and changing the target (the desired L2 to read from) is as simple as swapping the validator contract address. The gateway is currently available on OP Goerli and will soon go live on the OP mainnet.

▌DeFi protocol ReHold launches swapping feature

DeFi protocol ReHold has announced the launch of its latest feature “Swap,” currently supporting seven blockchains including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, and Base.

The Swap feature will complement its existing products on the platform. These include the Dual Investment feature, which provides users with the opportunity to earn up to 220% annual percentage rate (APR) through various cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, MATIC, AVAX, ARB, PEPE, and stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, DAI, etc.

▌Museum of Modern Art in New York acquires two tokenized artworks, marking its first ownership of blockchain and AI assets

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has recently acquired two tokenized artworks, namely Refik Anadol’s “Unsupervised-Machine Hallucinations” (2022) and Ian Cheng’s “3FACE” piece from last year. This marks the first addition of artificial intelligence (AI) and NFTs to MoMA’s collection.

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Cryptocurrencies

▌FTX approved to pay legal fees to non-U.S. creditors’ group

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has received court approval to pay over $2 million in legal fees to a non-U.S. creditors’ group that aided in negotiating settlements between competing customer groups of FTX. The amount will cover the fees from May 1 to October 31. FTX has also agreed to pay them up to $650,000 per month for the remainder of the bankruptcy, subject to further court review.

The law firms representing the non-U.S. client special group are Eversheds Sutherland and Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell. According to FTX court documents, the exact amount of fees paid to these firms will depend on the work actually completed and will undergo further review by a court-appointed fee examiner and potentially face challenges.

▌Bit Brother receives delisting notice from Nasdaq

Blockchain and crypto enterprise Bit Brother Limited (NASDAQ: BETS) has announced that it has received a delisting notice from the Nasdaq stock market due to its stock’s closing price being at or below $0.10 for 11 consecutive trading days between October 26 and November 9, 2023.

The announcement states that the notice will not immediately impact Bit Brother’s listing and trading, and the company intends to request a hearing before a panel of experts by November 17, 2023. If the panel does not grant the company additional time, its common stock will be delisted, impacting the liquidity and marketability of the company’s common stock.

▌Cathie Wood: GBTC will lose its advantage when spot Bitcoin ETF is approved

“WoodSis” Cathie Wood stated in an interview with CNBC that Grayscale’s GBTC will lose its advantage in this field when a spot Bitcoin ETF is approved.

▌ByteTree: The bear market is over, Bitcoin is becoming mainstream

Charlie Morris, the founder of investment advisory firm ByteTree, stated in today’s market report that Bitcoin is becoming mainstream and the bear market is over. “The good times” are here. ByteTree emphasizes the strong performance of BTC compared to traditional assets such as US stock indices and gold, which are also continuously rising.

Morris points out that Bitcoin’s strength is not only strong when measured in dollars but also relative to other major assets. This is important for institutions to adopt because they will not purchase alternative assets unless there is some extra return. Morris also notes that after enduring two harsh years of the crypto winter, altcoins are gaining strength as market breadth improves.

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Important Economic Developments

▌Chinese and American leaders agree to promote and strengthen dialogue and cooperation

On November 15th local time, President Xi Jinping held a meeting with President Biden at the Filoli Estate in San Francisco, USA. The leaders of both countries agreed to promote and strengthen dialogue and cooperation in various fields between China and the United States, including establishing a government-to-government dialogue on artificial intelligence, establishing a Sino-US anti-drug cooperation working group, restoring high-level military communication, holding a working meeting between the defense departments of China and the United States, conducting a meeting of the China-US Military Maritime Consultative Agreement Mechanism on the basis of equality and respect, agreeing to significantly increase flights in the near future, expanding exchanges in education, students studying abroad, youth, culture, sports, and business, etc. (CCTV News)

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LianGuai Encyclopedia

▌Metadata in blockchain transactions

The additional data or information that can be attached to encrypted transactions on the blockchain is referred to as metadata in blockchain transactions. Metadata allows users to add extra information or context to their transactions. There are primarily two types of metadata in blockchain transactions: on-chain metadata and off-chain metadata.

Disclaimer: LianGuai, as a blockchain information platform, publishes articles for informational reference only and does not serve as actual investment advice. Please establish the correct investment concepts and be sure to increase risk awareness.

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