Hodler’s Digest, November 12-18 – Cointelegraph Magazine

This week's main news

Sam Altman has been fired from OpenAI, CTO Mira Murthy has been appointed as interim CEO

ChatGPT developer OpenAI ousted founder Sam Altman as CEO on November 17. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murthy is now serving as interim CEO. According to the blog post, the board of directors engaged in a “review process,” which concluded that Altman's “persistent lack of candor in his dealings with the board has hindered his ability to fulfill his responsibilities.” Soon after, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman announced his departure from the company.

BlackRock files an S-1 form for the Space Ether ETF with the SEC

The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, filed a formal filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 15 for the Spot Ether Exchange Fund (ETF). The ETF, named iShares Ethereum Trust, aims to “reflect Overall Ethereum Price Performance “in an S-1 filing with the SEC. The iShares brand is associated with BlackRock's ETF products. BlackRock's move comes one week after registering the iShares Ethereum Trust with the Delaware Division of Corporations and six months after filing the position as a Bitcoin ETF. BlackRock's filing follows Asset manager Fidelity has sought the green light for its own Ether ETF.

Australia to impose capital gains tax on bundled cryptocurrency tokens

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued guidance on the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) treatment of decentralized finance and individual crypto token holdings, confirming that Australians are liable for capital gains tax when quoting and opening tokens. He said in a statement that he sees the transfer of crypto assets to an address that the sender does not control, or to an address where he already holds balance, as a taxable CGT event. The CGT event is triggered depending on whether the individual has recorded a capital gain or loss. A similar approach is considered for recruiting liquidity pool users, providers, and DeFi interest and rewards. Additionally, bundling and unbundling of tokens will also be subject to triggering a CGT event.

FTX Foundation employee fights $275K bonus promised by SBF.

An employee of FTX's welfare wing, hired by Sam Bankman-Fried, is seeking payment of $275,000, the remainder of his 2022 salary bonus payment. Ross Rheingans-U's attorneys filed a lawsuit alleging that only $375,000 of the $650,000 bonus was paid by FTX. They say the remaining funds are owed when the crypto exchange files for bankruptcy in November 2022. The fate of the Rheingans-Yos bonus will be determined by the Delaware bankruptcy judge overseeing FTX's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

WisdomTree crypto has updated its S-1 form position Bitcoin ETF as it awaits SEC rulings.

WisdomTree filed an amended Form S-1 Spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus with the US SEC on November 16. The update comes a few months after WisdomTree filed its June 2023 spot bitcoin ETF application, which proposed changes to the rules for listing and trading its shares. WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust. The updated prospectus notes that the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust ETF trades under the ticker symbol BTCW, with Coinbase Custody Trust acting as custodian on behalf of all of the trust's Bitcoin.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) at $36,419, Ether (ETH) at $1,946 and XRP at $0.61. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap is $1.38 trillion.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gains of the week were Celestia (TIA) at 103.39%, yearn.finance (YFI) at 88.04% and THORChain (RUNE) at 54.38%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week were Gas (GAS) at -64.85%, FTX Token (FTT) at -35.17% and Neo (NEO) at -20.27%.

Be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis for more information on crypto prices.

The most memorable quotes

“Education and consumption-based projects are how we get regulators when there's real utility for use.”

Navin Gupta, Managing Director of South Asia, Middle East and North Africa at Ripple

“We believe that derivatives will provide additional liquidity and hedging opportunities in crypto and represent the next critical step in the continued growth of this market.

Cboe Digital President John Palmer

“I'm very knowledgeable about the whole range of things going on in crypto. […] It will be a multi-chain world.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse

“Telephone and internet are not responsible for terrorist financing and crypto should not be either.”

French Hill, United States Representative

“I believe that code is a form of speech and is protected by the First Amendment.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and US presidential candidate

“The digital euro means that each of us will be fully in control. […] Anyone who opposes surveillance and freedom does not need a digital euro!

Joanna Kotar, Member of the German Bundestag

Forecast of the week

Bitcoin traders' BTC price targets now include a $30.9K bottom

Bitcoin topped $36,000 on November 16, with analysts hoping for a deeper price drop. After failing to break out above 18-month highs during the week, Bitcoin was not encouraging for market participants, some of whom were hoping to see a fresh correction to retest the lows.

“I would love to see this recent rally complete the retracement to $35k. Would be happier if we see a retest of $33k,” wrote tracking inputs Material Indicators on X (formerly Twitter) in part of the day’s commentary.

A snapshot of BTC/USDT order book liquidation showed support building at $35,000. Keith Allan, founder of Material Indicators, added that Bitcoin's rising 21-day moving average has been acting as support in recent days.

“BTC will continue to fight for the region above $36.5k,” he commented.

Prominent anonymous trader Daan CryptoTrades has similarly suggested $35,700 and $38,000 as key lows and support levels to watch, respectively. Fake Trader Gah, a promoter for on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, warned that a sharp correction could push the market closer to $30,000.

FUD of the week

A cybersecurity group says up to $2.1B of crypto stored in old wallets is at risk.

A cyber security firm has revealed a vulnerability called “Randstorm” that it says affected millions of cryptocurrency wallets between 2011 and 2015. According to the company, while working on issuing a Bitcoin wallet, it encountered a problem with the wallet. Created by BitcoinJS and original projects. The issue could affect millions of wallets and around $2.1 billion in crypto assets, according to the cybersecurity firm.

To terminate customer accounts that use Swan Bitcoin crypto-mixing services

Bitcoin services platform Swan Bitcoin has warned its customers that it will be forced to terminate accounts found to be involved in crypto-mixing due to regulatory obligations of partner banks. Customers learned about the new policy in a letter of changes to the bill proposed by the United States' Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which establishes new responsibilities for companies conducting transactions from hybrid services.

ENS developers are urged to relinquish ownership of non-stop domains or face lawsuits.

According to an open letter shared by X (formerly Twitter), Ethereum Name Service (ENS) founder and lead developer Nick Johnson is urging blockchain domains company Unstoppable Domains to abandon a recently granted patent or face a lawsuit. According to Johnson, Unstoppable's recently awarded patent is “entirely based on the inventions developed by ENS and includes its own new innovations.” Matthew Gould, founder of Unstoppable Domains, responded in the debate by stating that there are “multiple naming systems”.

The best magazine sections of the week

I spent a week working in VR. It was awful, but…

Felix Ng, a reporter for Scientology magazine, spent a week working in virtual reality. It was mostly terrible… but it has some potential.

Break into Liberland: Hide guards with inner tubes, decoys and diplomats

“Bitcoin is truly one of the most fundamental parts of Liberia – 99% of our reserves are in BTC.”

No civil protection for crypto in China, $300K to list coins in Hong Kong? Asia Express

Hong Kong exchanges expand amid investor interest, Philippines to issue $180 million in tokenized bonds, China bans civil protection for crypto, and more!

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Editorial staff

Cointelegraph magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.