#citationneedednewsletter — Public Fediverse posts

The NFL is urging the Supreme Court to hear New Jersey’s case over whether states can regulate prediction markets, complaining that Kalshi refused to ban easily manipulated bets and expressing concerns over consumer protection and game integrity.

#crypo #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics #CitationNeededNewsletter

A jury convicted the Uranium Finance exploiter who stole $53M+ and spent it on Magic and Pokémon cards, Roman coins, and a scrap of the Wright brothers’ plane that went to the moon. His “code is law” defense wasn’t helped by him admitting to the exploit and calling crypto “all fake internet money anyway.”

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Hex founder Richard Heart, who the SEC once accused of spending investor money on sports cars, luxury watches, and the world’s largest black diamond, has been arrested in Istanbul after nearly two years on an Interpol Red Notice over Finnish tax fraud charges. He no longer faces SEC enforcement after the agency effectively dropped his case last year.

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Trump announced yet another $​TRUMP memecoin gala, plus a Super Bowl suite for top holders. The fine print notes the events don’t mean his companies aren’t dumping the token, which is down 95%, at the same time.

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Crypto super PAC Fairshake announced 32 House endorsements: all incumbents, all but four in safe seats. It’s their attempt to pad their win rate and claim it proves the existence of a crypto voter bloc, but they are abandoning reliable allies in tough races.

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Community bankers are suing the OCC over its spree of national trust bank charters, at least 13 of 21 of which went to crypto firms (including Trump’s World Liberty). They argue it’s a side door for crypto firms to get the perks of a bank charter without the rules.

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A Senate subcommittee is probing Tether’s ties to Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick supposedly divested from by handing it to his sons. Per Senator Blumenthal, Cantor’s 5% stake in Tether has skyrocketed from $600M to ~$10B since Trump returned to office.

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While Bo Hines shaped the Genius Act as Trump’s crypto council director, his family’s consulting firm took $6.3M+ from Tether. He pushed a change to the law that would primarily benefit Tether, then left to run Tether’s US arm.

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Newsletter: A Trump crypto adviser’s firm took millions from Tether while he shaped stablecoin rules in their favor, a Senate probe targets Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s not-so-former firm, and crypto’s biggest super PAC plays it safe.

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-111/

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Crypto’s efforts to buy politicians are spreading outside the US. In the UK, over $100 million in crypto money has flowed into Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK party, courtesy of Tether-linked billionaire Christopher Harborne and BitMEX’s Ben Delo (pardoned by Trump last year).

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Crypto's biggest spending push yet is in Ohio’s Senate race, where former Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown is challenging incumbent Republican Jon Husted. Brown has toned down his crypto criticism on the campaign trail, but that hasn't stopped $30 million+ in crypto money against him.

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Another ruling against Kalshi widens a circuit split over whether states can regulate prediction markets. It’s likely to end at the Supreme Court.

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As the Trump administration boosts prediction markets and clears the way for them to operate without pesky oversight, Donald Trump Jr. is leading a $1 billion funding round into Polymarket through his 1789 Capital VC firm.

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Binance pleaded guilty to Iran (and other) sanctions violations in 2023. Trump pardoned its founder. Binance took a $2B investment paid in the Trump family’s stablecoin. Now DOJ is investigating Binance for... Iran sanctions violations, under a US attorney who used to be Trump's lawyer.

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Fellow FTX executive Caroline Ellison is out of jail, and the Manifund effective altruist grantmaking organization has just let slip they hired her. She “brings specific, useful expertise around finance”, they say, which yeah — much in the same way that Bernie Madoff had very specific expertise.

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Sam Bankman-Fried has taken his appeal to the Supreme Court, but he’s relying on a very similar argument that the Court unanimously rejected last year. I doubt they’ll take up his case.

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The exemption for “tokenized securities venues” (TSVs) is a huge overreach, but it may go unchallenged. A challenge would normally come from competitors (i.e., registered exchanges), but tokenized stocks are of dubious appeal. Exchanges may not see TSVs as likely to gain any real traction.

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As the Clarity Act collapsed, commissioners at the CFTC and SEC raced to reassure the crypto industry that they will still deliver a friendly regulatory environment. The SEC has just dropped an “Innovation Exemption” that essentially removes issuers of tokenized stocks from securities oversight.

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Republicans are pointing fingers at the Democrats, some Democrats are pointing fingers at Republicans. And some blame Coinbase, which used its effective veto power to stall the bill in January — a delay that left time for Trump’s financial disclosure to make the bill into a political lightning rod.

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After years of political pressure and hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and lobbying, the Clarity Act collapsed at the eleventh hour. This is good news — the Clarity Act isn’t about “clarity” in crypto regulations any more than the PATRIOT Act is about patriotism.

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Newsletter: Regulators race to reassure the crypto industry as the its flagship Clarity Act legislation collapses, SBF tries his luck with the Supreme Court, and crypto PACs unleash $30 million against Sherrod Brown.

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-110/

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Here’s a link to the full draft: https://www.lummis.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/EHF26724.pdf

A cloture vote is scheduled for tomorrow.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics #ClarityAct #CitationNeededNewsletter

The crypto industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for the Clarity Act, which they pitch as “clear rules of the road”.

In reality, it’s industry capture, deregulation, and legitimization of the most brazen self-dealing in presidential history. Senators must vote no.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics #ClarityAct #CitationNeededNewsletter

The bill bans “sponsorship” deals, which at first glance appears like it could apply to Trump’s businesses. But later text clarifies this is only for tokens issued after the bill takes effect — carving out protections for Trump’s World Liberty Financial and $​TRUMP memecoin.

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Corey Frayer, former SEC crypto adviser on how carefully definitions were drafted to miss Trump’s actual businesses: “whoever wrote it knows Trump’s crypto businesses inside and out. And then they made sure Trump’s crypto businesses would remain outside and not in.” (That’s via https://eyeontech.substack.com/p/clarity-act-update-ethics-schmethics)

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Most enforcement instead falls to the Attorney General himself — currently Todd Blanche, Trump’s own former personal lawyer. Blanche already dismantled DOJ’s crypto enforcement team and told prosecutors to stand down on crypto crimes.

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Republican negotiators claim the new draft gives state attorneys general a “meaningful role” in enforcement. It doesn’t: AGs can’t sue Trump or other officials directly — they can only sue tthe Attorney General for an injunction. And a Trump-appointed ethics office can shut that down too.

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Newsletter: The supposedly “unprecedented” ethics restrictions in the industry-written Clarity Act exempt Trump’s crypto businesses and leave enforcement to his loyalists. Senators must vote no on cloture tomorrow.

https://www.citationneeded.news/clarity-act-ethics-charade/

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics #ClarityAct #CitationNeededNewsletter

Trump, flanked by crypto industry executives, held a press conference in which he urged Congress to pass the Clarity Act. The executives who stood behind him represented firms that have collectively given nearly $60 million to his campaign.

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