“The U.S. SEC believes Ripple Labs violated federal securities laws in selling the XRP cryptocurrency to retail consumers. According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Ripple raised $1.3 billion over a seven-year period to retail investors through its sale of XRP on an ongoing basis.
At all relevant times during the Offering, XRP was an investment contract and therefore a security subject to the registration requirements of the federal securities laws.
The impact could be wide-ranging: several exchanges list XRP in the U.S., with only one deciding to delist the cryptocurrency ahead of the Tuesday lawsuit. If the SEC prevails, platforms that continued to list the crypto may have to register as securities exchanges.
According to the SEC, the defendants allegedly said that the main reason someone might buy XRP is to speculate on its price, with the complaint quoting Ripple employees from as far back as 2013.
Similarly, in its official application to the NYDFS for XRP II in 2016, Ripple acknowledged that buyers were ‘purchasing XRP for speculative purposes.’
Ripple’s CTO, is cited in the complaint as saying that Ripple’s “publicly announced strategy” was to ‘do everything we can to maximize the price of XRP over at least the time it takes us to sell the XRP we have.’
Defendants continue to hold substantial amounts of XRP and – with no registration statement in effect – can continue to monetize their XRP while using the information asymmetry they created in the market for their own gain, creating substantial risk to investors.”
See Also: An SEC Victory in Ripple Case Would Render XRP ‘Untradeable,’ Market Pros Say
“Addressing all of the questions FinCEN has posed and the additional issues FinCEN has not yet considered would take much longer than 15 days in the best of times. To do so in a handful of working days across the national holidays and during the latest surge in [COVID-19] is quite obviously impossible.
There is no emergency here; there is only an outgoing administration attempting to bypass the required consultation with the public to finalize a rushed rule before their time in office is done.”
See Also: Crypto Exchange Coinbase Is Hiring for a New Canada Operation
“Cryptocurrency traders showed their excitement for FTX’s pre-IPO Coinbase (CBSE) futures Tuesday morning by pushing the price above $295, a roughly 140% increase from the listing price of $125.
Newly launched Coinbase futures reported over $2.2 million in traded volume at last check, barely 12 hours after the market opened, making it the largest tokenized stock market on FTX by a significant margin.”
“In 2020, there was an explosion of digital art and tokenized custody startups: everything from sneakers to Cézanne to Saint Laurent are now being wrapped up, sold and traded as unique and individual NFTs.
The power of NFT ownership isn’t limited to gaming or art. Any illiquid or unique asset globally could benefit from this technological standard. Financial assets? Check. Commodities like diamonds? Check. The 3% timeshare of a boat you bought, have regretted ever since and can’t find a buyer for? You bet. The total addressable market is, quite literally, in the trillions.
NFTs are a rapidly emerging asset class with an Achilles heel: scalability. Different blockchains are doggedly fighting to solve this issue and establish themselves as the home of unique digital assets.”
See Also: Native NFTs Look to Boost Engagement (and Monetization) for THETA.tv Streamers
“Comprised of over 700 Italian banking institutions, the ABI said Tuesday the work would examine the technical feasibility of a digital euro and further look at “new value-added services.”
The aim of the initiative is to proactively contribute to public debate and support banks operating in Italy as they prepare for the future.”
“The dynamic geofencing feature used in the research activated zero-emission activity in the vehicles whenever they entered a low‑emissions zone, without intervention from the driver. Ford also used blockchain technology to monitor the times a vehicle entered or left a geofenced zone, finding the paired technologies work well to improve urban air quality.
In parts of Europe, some cities have introduced low-emission zones where high-polluting vehicles are restricted from access. Hybrid vehicles are able to switch between electric and combustion motors, varying emissions outputs.”
The Disrupt 