Binance
Binance’s ($BNB.X) venture capital wing, Binance Labs, added more to its investment in the blockchain startup Aptos. Aptos’s blockchain is reportedly more efficient than Binance’s BNB Smart Chain.
Aptos recently had a $200 million funding round in March that included Binance Labs, FTX Ventures, Paxos Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and others.
Coinbase
Two years ago, Coinbase ($COIN) put a muzzle on its employees discussing politics in the workplace. Fast forward to today, and that muzzle still exists for its employees (as far as we know). So it may seem a bit odd that Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, tweeted this new feature on the Coinbase app:
1/ Starting today, Coinbase will begin integrating our crypto policy efforts right into our app. These will help our 103M verified users get educated on the crypto positions held by political leaders where they live. pic.twitter.com/3GqWZIioZQ
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 14, 2022
Coinbase wants its users to know which politicians support or are opposed to the crypto space. They’re using CryptoActionNetwork’s scorecard system to rank politicians as for or against the crypto space.
This new feature is limited to just US users but will expand globally in the future.
This is a major boon for crypto enthusiasts and investors as it exposes Coinbase’s 103 million users (mostly US) to whether their Congressmen/women and Senators are pro-crypto or not.
In a way, this isn’t surprising and could even be considered some new muscle that Coinbase is flexing against crypto’s opponents in Washington.
On September 8, Brian Armstrong posted on the Coinbase blog an announcement that Coinbase is funding a lawsuit against the US Treasury’s sanctions of Tornado Cash.
The Treasury Department recently put Tornado Cash on a sanction list, highlighting its use for money laundering by criminals like North Korea.
Instead of sanctioning a group or an individual, the Treasury Department went full-on scorched earth and shut it down – even arresting the guy who wrote the code. Does anyone else smell a bunch of First Amendment lawyers frothing at the mouth for this case?
Maybe the US Treasury will ban the US Dollar next? Between 0.35% and 1% of crypto is used for illegal purposes versus 2.7% of fiat. And crypto is measured in trillions while fiat is measured in quintillions.
Lord knows the Greenback is never used for illegal activity. #sarcasm
FTX
There are some rumors that the auction of Voyager’s ($VGX.X) assets could end up with FTX ($FTT.X) being the winner. According to CoinDesk, an anonymous source reported that FTX is the highest bidder. No amount was shared. Wave Financial is another entity identified as a close competitor in the auction.
An earlier offer in July by FTX of $15 million was rejected as a “lowball” bid.
Kraken
Some users/customers at Kraken took to social media asking why their staked ETH still can’t be unstaked despite the completion of Ethereum’s ($ETH.X) Merge. As a result, Kraken’s team directed users to their site, informing them that the ETH won’t be able to be unstaked until the Shanghai update in the next 6 to 12 months.
This concern is by no means limited to just Kraken, but it does highlight a situation that many smaller ETH stakers appear to have overlooked. The Litepaper addressed this issue in Wednesday’s newsletter, along with several other pieces of information highlighting what the Merge does and doesn’t do.