While Ripple grapples with the SEC lawsuit against the company and its executives, more cryptocurrencies may be facing the same fate soon. Gary Gensler, the nominee for SEC chairmanship under Biden’s administration says there may be more unregistered securities like XRP out there, hence the need for stricter regulation of the space.

Gensler who is a banker and former partner at Goldman Sachs also added that the entire cryptocurrency industry needs to come under federal regulation to prevent illicit use and protect users. In a 2018 interview, he mentioned that large crypto exchanges such as Coinbase need to come under regulation either by the SEC or the CFTC if mainstream adoption is to ever be achieved.

“I would say, you want some form of regulation, you want traffic lights and speed limits, because then the public is confident to drive on the roads,” he said during a Bloomberg interview.

Since the lawsuit against Ripple, the company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse alleged that it was an attack and not just on Ripple but the entire cryptocurrency industry. Indeed, the XRP community considers the lawsuit to be an attack as evidenced by the petition it launched to force the government to regard XRP as a currency rather than a security.

Gensler is known for strict and tough law enforcement during his time as CFTC chairman and is likely to bring that into the cryptocurrency industry as the SEC chairman. Already, governments around the world have been calling for regulation of the cryptocurrency industry as they say it is a means for criminals to carry out illegal businesses.

Co-founder of research site Coin Metrics Nic Carter agrees with the idea of regulating the space. 

“Gary is extremely dialed-in on the crypto markets and understands them extremely well. If his stated views are any indication of his priorities as commissioner, I would expect the SEC to continue with or even accelerate its agenda of discouraging unregulated securities issuance in the form of tokens,” he said.

If Gensler implements his plans during his time as SEC chairman, it could be a matter of time before many other cryptocurrency projects face Ripple’s current fate. The question is will this do more harm or good to the crypto industry?

Source: https://zycrypto.com/just-like-ripples-xrp-bidens-sec-chair-nominee-gary-gensler-to-go-after-more-unregistered-securities/

Tether’s market cap hit $25 billion today, with Bitcoin trading below $40,000 on the price charts. In fact, the stablecoin has been one of the most traded assets in all of crypto, with its trading volume surpassing even that of Bitcoin.

Source: CoinMetrics

Tether’s growth was stupendous in 2020, with the stablecoin enjoying a 72% market share. Moreover, year-on-year USDT grew 455%, from $3.2 billion in December 2019 to $17 billion in December 2020.

The reason behind Tether’s growth

While speculators have speculated about Tether’s credibility all along, the stablecoin has managed to cut through the noise and grow. In fact, looking at Tether’s growth makes sense, considering the demand for Bitcoin.

Lately, institutions have found their favorite alternative investment asset and are heavily investing in it. This on-boarding takes one of two things, USDT or USD. While it is clear that the USDT market far surpasses the USD market, it is also clear that institutions will not have used the fiat markets.

This partly explains the growth of Tether in 2019, and even in 2020. As far as 2021 is concerned, since Bitcoin blasted through the roof in the first and second weeks of 2021, more and more USDT has been minted.

In 2021 alone, Tether minted a record $2 billion in a single week, with $1.5 billion minted the week before that. With its market cap hitting a whopping $25 billion at press time, one can observe that Tether has hiked by 19% in just 15 days.

Alameda Research’s Sam Trabucco recently shared a pretty interesting take on the same. He noted that a lot of people buying Tether don’t do it via creation, but do it by selling or buying it via trading. Since the market is volatile, the Tether peg varies as well.

Alameda can arbitrage these opportunities via the direct creation/redemption of Tether. This helps stabilize the peg while also benefiting the arbitrageurs.

Sam Trabucco added,

“Other stablecoins like USDC don’t have anywhere near as volatile premia — that’s because the creation/redemption process is more involved for USDT, and fewer firms can actually do it. This is why, as I noted above, many who want it are going to markets and not creating, and when USDT gets above $1? A sophisticated firm like Alameda with great setups on all the exchanges and bots to execute more than one leg at a time is gonna want to sell! And we do — a LOT.”

While the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against Tether is still ongoing, there’s no telling which direction it is going to go. However, regardless of what the decision is, Tether might get away with it since the stablecoin is available not on one blockchain but on multiple chains. As of this writing, Tether is on ETH, Omni, TRX, EOS, OMG, Liquid, etc. That’s what you call dominance.

Source: https://ambcrypto.com/what-explains-tethers-25b-market-cap-push

James Howells, a 35-year old British Engineer, is reportedly on a hunt for his BTC hardware wallet that he had accidentally discarded in 2013 while doing some house clean-up.

According to a South Wales Argus report, Howells had appealed to the councils of the city where he resides, Newport, to excavate a landfill site where he had accidentally disposed of a hardware wallet containing 7500 BTC.

The report revealed that the city council has severally declined his initial pleads to scoop out the missing Fortune on the landfill site. Thus, Howells has offered to give 25% of the total worth of the missing BTC, in a bid to win the city’s support.

Howell explains his plight and the possibility of restoring the disposed of wallet saying;

“The way the landfill operated in 2013 was when a general waste bin was full, it was given a serial number, it was dragged off to the open pit and it was buried. It was also given a grid reference number.”

“So what that means is, if I could access the landfill records, I could identify the week that I threw the hard drive away; I could identify the serial number of the bin that it was in, and then I could identify where the grid reference is located.” He added, claiming he was confident of recovering the wallet even though it has been missing since 2013.

The reward proposed to the city is worth $72 million and is presented as a form of Covid Relief Funds, hence gearing the residents’ interest in aiding the search.

Howell pleaded for the city’s support as he revealed that he got financial supports from a hedge fund that is willing to put up the funds for the project.

Howell is still yet to get approval to proceed with his proposal as a representative of the city council emphasized on their previous responses saying;

“The council has also told Mr. Howells on several occasions that excavation is not possible under our licensing permit, and the excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area.” 

Source: https://zycrypto.com/man-offers-72-million-to-search-for-hard-drive-with-7500-btc/