Hodler’s Digest, March 17-23 – Cointelegraph Magazine

This week's main news

The SEC is trying to classify Ether as a security.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly subpoenaed several companies in an effort to declassify Ether.

According to a recent report, the SEC's investigation into Ethereum Foundation could give the commission regulatory authority to designate the digital asset as a security.

The foundation indicated via GitHub that it may be under investigation “from a government authority.”

Meanwhile, several US-based companies have reportedly received requests from the SEC to provide documents and financial records related to the Ethereum Foundation.

Celsius wants to recoup $2B from customer withdrawals

Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius is reportedly planning to get $2 billion from major clients who exit the platform before it goes bankrupt in July 2022.

According to a recent report, Celsius' loss control committee has begun contacting customers who spent more than $100,000 before the crash, with the goal of using the refunds to pay customers who didn't exit the platform in time.

If the committee decides to settle by threatening to sue if funds are not returned, Clawback will offer a “fair rate” to affected customers.

In addition, settled customers will have their digital value adjusted based on their July 2022 price near the crypto bear market.

SEC sanctioned for ‘gross abuse of power' in debt fund case.

A US district court has imposed sanctions against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for “bad faith” in its lawsuit against Debt Fund.

The SEC initially dismissed it without prejudice, but Judge Robert J. Shelby overruled, criticizing the regulator for deliberately lying to the court about evidence it obtained in order to freeze the assets of the debt fund last August in a temporary restraining order. .

In the indictment, the SEC alleges that DebtBox carried out a $50 million cryptocurrency fraud scheme while operating as a software mining license provider, alleging that Debtbox had already sent $720,000 overseas to the United Arab Emirates and would then secretly transfer additional assets. If notice of the order is given.

Shelby claims the SEC misrepresented the information and that the $720,000 transfer was sent to the United States instead.

Binance is offering a $5M reward for insider trading tips

Crypto exchange Binance has announced that it will offer rewards ranging from $100,000 to $5,000,000.

On March 16, Binance announced that it will list Solana-based memecoin, Book of Meme (BOME). The token is paired with Bitcoin, Tether, First Digital USD and Turkish Lira.

Before the Binance listing, one crypto-well bought 314 million BOME tokens for $2.3 million on the Radium decentralized exchange at an average price of $0.0074. After the listing, the price of the tokens rose to $0.026.

After the listing, the business was flagged and sparked community discussions, with some accusing it of insider trading.

On Reddit, one community member asked if it was a lucky trade or an insider tip, while another floated the idea that the trader might be an insider from Binance.

The SBF said a 50-year jail term would make him a ‘corrupted super-villain'.

Lawyers representing former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried said the proposed 50-year sentence for the founder takes a “medieval” view of punishment and does not reflect the seriousness of the crime.

On March 19, Bankman-Fried's attorneys, Mark Mucasey and Torrey Young, wrote to Judge Lewis Kaplan in response to the government's March 15 sentencing proposal.

“With extreme disdain, the memoir distorts reality to support its cherished ‘loss' narrative and casts Sam as a villainous super-villain,” he said.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) at $65,744, Ether (ETH) at $3,516 and XRP at $0.64. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap is $2.51 trillion.

Among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers for the week were Ondo (ONDO) at 37.73%, Jupiter (JUP) at 35.27% and Fantom (FTM) at 33.59%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week were Bonk (BONK) at -31.09%, dogwifhat (WIF) at -27.28% and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) at -26.12%. Be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis for more information on crypto prices.

The most memorable quotes

“Customers would not be where they are today if they hadn't been exposed to Mr. Banman-Fried and his brand of so-called altruism.”

John Ray III, CEO of FTX and restructuring

“Would I be sad that a company went bankrupt? No, companies go bankrupt all the time.”

Kyle Davis, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital

“People can do whatever they want with their money, but sending money to a ‘memecoin presale' with a 99.9% chance of being flipped is dumb as hell.”

Anthony Sassano, Independent Ethereum Educator

“I guess it's that time of the cycle where everyone gets excited about Cardano's potential and roadmap, so they throw a wave of FUD at us.”

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson

“Dogecoin's enduring popularity and active community support suggests it has transcended its origins as a meme to become a mainstream part of the crypto world.”

Coinbase, cryptocurrency exchange

“It will be interesting to see what excuses the SEC will use if it delays or rejects the ETH ETF, since it has already announced that it is outside of its jurisdiction over ETH.”

Brian Kuntenz, former commissioner of the CFTC

Forecast of the week

A key Ethereum price metric targets $5.4K ETH in 2024

The price of Ether in 2018 It could reach $5,400 in 2024, according to traders' technical price indicator to assess whether the cryptocurrency is overbought or oversold.

In the year As of March 22, Ether's price was currently trading around the $3,500 mark, roughly 27% away from its peak of $4,891 reached on November 16, 2021, according to CoinMarketCap data.

According to anonymous cryptoquant verified author Bindang, Ether may exceed $5,400 in a high-risk scenario based on Mayer's multiple oscillator, which compares Ether's current price to its 200-day moving average.

The price may reach the indicator's upper band, but that could be much higher than $5,400, Bitfinex analysts told Cointelegraph.

We expect it to reach an oversold condition this year due to the cyclical nature of the asset to oscillate between oversold indicator bands. However, this is a dynamic moving average-based divergence, and the upper band could be above the $5,400 level when the price reaches those levels.

FUD of the week

Hacker Makes 10M in Tornado Cash from 2023 Phishing Event

On March 21, blockchain security firm CertiK reported an account linked to a $24 million hack that transferred 3,700 ETH to Tornado Cash. The funds were taken from a crypto-well in a phishing incident on September 6.

At the time, the investor lost a $24 million stake in ETH on liquid stock provider Rocket Pool. The hack took place in two transactions: one took 9,579 stETH, and the other drained 4,851 rETH from crypto whale.

Anti-fraud project Scam Sniffer says the victim signed an “incremental allowance” transaction, which allowed the hacker to approve the token. In modern contracts, the feature allows third parties to issue ERC-20 tokens if permission is granted.

An old dolomite exchange contract suffered a loss of $1.8m from permitted exploitation.

An old contract previously used by the Dolomite crypto exchange was exploited for about $1.8 million.

The exploit affected users who had previously authorized the contract approvals, and the development team suggested revoking approvals for Ethereum Dolomite addresses starting with 0xe2466.

The developer team says that users who have interacted with the current version on Arbittrum will not be affected.

They also disabled the faulty contract to protect users who were not victims of the attack. However, the group argued that users should revoke their approval of this contract.

The best magazine sections of the week

Bitcoin ETFs make Coinbase a ‘honeypot' for hackers and governments: Trezor CEO

After 10 years of Trezor's hard wallets, Coinbase's dominance over retail and Bitcoin ETFs poses a self-preservation threat.

Why Boomers Love Facebook AI Pictures, Mind-Reading AI Breakthrough: AI Eye

AI mind reading technology has taken a big step forward thanks to MindEye 2 from Stable AI and Princeton. Also, boomers love AI bullshit, and we're all going to live longer.

Web3 Player: Gods Unchained app drops crypto, Kings of Fighters Arena review

The executive producer of Gods Unchained says that Apple and Google's inability to comply with app store policies and accept crypto is a total nightmare. Meanwhile, The Kings of Fighters Arena is a very decent mobile fighting game.

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Ciaran Lyon

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He is also a freelance comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.