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- Weekly Rundown - June 11, 2023
Premium subscribers, make sure you got my alerts from this week!
Search your inbox for “BUY/SELL/HODL Alert” and you should see emails that look like this one:
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What a week!
Twitter locked me out of my account and won’t help me get into it. Yesterday, I made a new profile, @markhelfman. I’m starting over from scratch!
If you have ever DM’d me, I no longer have access to our conversation so hit me up again, please! I’ll tweet more once more new people enter the market or if I get my old account back.
Also, US regulators accused Binance and Coinbase of some pretty bad stuff. If you haven’t heard, Google will tell you all about it.
Coinbase has $5 billion in cash, a strong legal team, and no charges that threaten the corporation itself (though it will have to change its business model if the SEC wins, which you could count as a threat).
Binance is a different matter.
The US government whacked it with criminal charges and threatened to freeze corporate assets. While that’s pretty bad, these types of lawsuits take years to sort out. Even if US authorities freeze the Binance.US corporate assets, it's not that easy for US authorities to take down Binance itself. The exchange has no home jurisdiction and its corporate assets are probably spread across a bunch of different accounts, assets, and jurisdictions.
I talked about Binance’s token, BNB, briefly in my most recent update, along with other market developments you need to know about.
One thing I didn't mention in that update?
Robinhood plans to delist ADA, MATIC, and SOL, and dump all users’ holdings of those coins for cash on June 27, 2023.
On the one hand, you can sell now to get ahead of Robinhood’s future dump. On the other hand, some people think insiders already beat you to it and expect that most of the selling has already happened or will happen soon. I guess we’ll just have to see. I’m sticking to my portfolio strategy.
But that’s not all!
Crypto.com shut down its US institutional exchange. It’s opening a new one in Singapore, its home base. And Binance.US stopped taking US dollar deposits (methinks to get out before US banks stop processing those deposits totally).
You might think this means the US wants to destroy crypto.
I suspect they just want to clear the path for Wall Street. Fidelity, Blackrock, BNY Mellon, and their bunch seem unfazed. SEC just approved Promethean Capital and OTC Markets to custody and trade crypto for their customers. Also, SEC only regulates exchanges, cryptocurrency and NFT creators, and entities that hold other people’s crypto. We can still do whatever we want with the crypto we hold.
(Get your crypto off of exchanges!)
Scroll down for the results of last week’s poll, crypto job listings, and other content you may enjoy.
Poll results
In last week’s poll, I asked “which risk poses the biggest threat to crypto?”
Of the three choices, “global recession” beat “Tether collapses.” “Binance fails” came in third.
What do I think?
Tether all the way. Almost every centralized entity depends on USDT’s solvency, as do most DeFi protocols.
(USDC and other stablecoins aren’t big enough to pick up the slack if USDT collapses).
As you know from my update to premium subscribers from this week, last Monday’s sudden dip was the result of the biggest long squeeze since FTX collapsed, not a natural, organic response to bad news. A lot of traders were forced to close their long positions (i.e., sell) when the price went down. “Liquidated,” as they say.
When this weekend’s drop hit, I figured some big exchange pulled an exit and dumped their users’ crypto, simply because of the way altcoins fell. Then I saw this tweet, which seems to be as accurate as anything else you would read on social media.
[BREAKING]
The fund that liquidated $2B of altcoins late Friday night in the broad crypto selloff is rumored to be Scimitar Capital
— thiccy (@thiccythot_)
6:30 AM • Jun 10, 2023
Whatever the cause, expect more of this yo-yo price action. The past few months were remarkably calm. This past week is a reminder of what we can expect as we move forward.
Has anybody ever heard of Scimitar Capital? Or any of the other guys who supposedly sold their positions? Leave a comment below!
I've started a referral campaign so you guys can get some extra prizes by simply inviting people to Crypto is Easy.
By referring 3 friends, you'll get my "Taking Profits" Guide. While I don’t take profits, never let me stop you from doing so! Just take a moment to consider the consequences nobody else tells you about. I’ve lost a lot of money by taking profits. I’d hate for you to suffer the same fate.
Bottom line: the SEC Chairman threw a temper tantrum because Coinbase and Binance were naughty and refused to play by his rules. He accused Binance of wash trading, deception, market manipulation, willful noncompliance, misuse of funds, and money laundering. Coinbase is marketing deceptive products and selling unregistered securities.
My take: the headline is a little misleading but he’s right about everything. Crypto business models are not compatible with US securities laws. Lots of exchanges do the things Binance does. The US has its own money and businesses that do the same things that crypto aims to do.
The US truly doesn’t need crypto, much in the same way Saudi Arabia doesn’t need green energy and the UK doesn’t need dentists (bah-dum-ching!).
Yet, Saudi Arabia plans to get 50 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030 and the UK has dentists (I think?).
Crypto is for people who do not have access to robust financial infrastructure, huge capital markets, and the world’s reserve currency.
(What about the 10% of Americans that don’t have bank accounts and the 50% who own no financial assets of any kind? Let them eat cake!)
If you live in the US, learn how to use a DEX and a VPN. Computer code and money are still protected by the courts. Crypto platforms are not. While a “sophisticated, coordinated crackdown” can stop crypto entities, it can’t stop crypto. If anything, this only accelerates the flight of capital out of the US and encourages more time, investment, and effort to move to other countries (for the benefit of everybody else).
Why we care: more proof the US matters less for crypto now than before.
If you don’t want to read the article above, watch the video. Jim Cramer’s in it!
Jobs Corner
Fuel | Senior Compiler Engineer | Link to position
Magic Eden | Product Designer | Link to position
Robinhood | CISO - Crypto | Link to position
Moonpay | Senior Manager | Link to position
Ava Labs | Financial Analyst | Link to position
Dapper Labs | Senior Product Manager | Link to position
Gelato Network | Business Development Intern | Link to position
Goldsky | Account Executive | Link to position
These jobs come from the ToolsForCrypto newsletter.
If you’d like to post a vacancy here (for free), email [email protected]. And, if you’re looking to hire, connect with Recruit Rockstars for 50% off of their normal fee when you use my Recruit Rockstars referral link (I get a small reward when you do).
Relax and enjoy the ride!
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