Crypto exchange Coinbase has lost market share in the booming ether (ETH) staking business as mounting pressure from U.S. regulators weighs on its staking service.
The exchange’s share in ETH staking slipped to 9.7%, the lowest level since May 2021, according to a Dune analytics chart by digital asset investment product-issuer 21Shares. This is a significant drop from the 13.6% recorded on April 12, when Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade allowed withdrawals for the first time.
The downturn has happened as the demand for ETH staking – locking up tokens to participate in securing the blockchain while earning a passive income on holdings – was soaring. The Shanghai upgrade unleashed a wave of deposits to staking, with inflows outpacing withdrawals by some 3.5 million ETH, worth $7.3 billion at current prices.
Coinbase, however, suffered a net outflow of $517 million (272,315 ETH) during the same period, the second-largest amount after rival crypto exchange Kraken.
“A potential reason could be that investors do not want to be exposed to regulatory risk by using Coinbase’s staking services,” Tom Wan, analyst at 21Shares, told CoinDesk in a note.
Kraken was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this year and shuttered its staking service for U.S. customers as part of a settlement with the agency.
On June 6, the SEC also filed a lawsuit against Coinbase for violating federal securities laws, including offering unregistered securities to users with its staking service. However, the exchange said it remained committed to keeping its staking service.
Since the lawsuit, Coinbase has withdrawn some 149,300 ETH from Ethereum’s
CFTC Kicks Off Review of Kalshi’s Congressional Control Prediction Markets
Kalshi wants to let users bet on which political party will control Congress after an election.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission began a formal review and public comment period to evaluate prediction market Kalshi’s proposed contracts to bet on who will control Congress late Friday, canceling a public meeting to discuss the issue in the process.
The CFTC announced Friday night that it had began its 90-day review of KalshiEX LLC’s self-certified contracts for betting on which major political party will control Congress after the next election. The CFTC will need to make a decision at the end of the 90 days, or try to extend it.
The CFTC also announced a 30-day public comment period, seeking input on 24 different questions about the contracts, including whether they are “similar to gaming” as defined by CFTC rules, whether the proposed betting is unlawful, how they compare to previous efforts and more.
The CFTC announced a public meeting last week, set to take place on June 26, which was intended to let the regulator decide whether to commence its review. Another press release Friday announced it was canceled.
Kalshi hinted last year that the CFTC would approve its political event contracts in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S., though staff later recommended rejecting the contracts, Bloomberg reported. Kalshi later withdrew its proposal before refiling in an effort to address regulator concerns.
CFTC Commissioners Summer Mersinger and Caroline Pham both dissented from the decision to launch a new review period on Friday. Mersinger argued that Kalshi had been operating in good faith to address the regulator’s concerns, and launching another comment period would delay any resolution.
Moreover, Kalsh’s self-certified contracts do not fall into any definition of “gaming” for the CFTC’s purposes, Mersinger said.
“The Commission should treat Kalshi’s certification in the same manner it treats all DCM certifications of new products, and then do what Congress provided: Undertake a public rulemaking process to establish a legal framework for exercising its discretion to determine whether event contracts, including those relating to political control, may be prohibited from trading because they are contrary to the public interest,” she said.
Pham’s dissent pointed to an appeals court ruling on another prediction market, PredictIt, which the CFTC ordered shut down last year. PredictIt sued to continue operating, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered PredictIt be allowed to continue operating until at least roughly two months after a court ruled on the underlying lawsuit.
If the CFTC were to try and suspend Kalshi’s political event contracts, that might violate the appeals court order, Pham said.
Binance to Quit Netherlands After Failing to Acquire License
The crypto exchange’s attempt to secure a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the Dutch regulator was unsuccessful.
Dünyanın en büyük kripto para borsası Binance, Hollandalıları dolaşmayı sanal varlık hizmet sağlayıcısı (VASP) lisansı vermeye ikna edemediği için Hollanda’dan ayrılıyor.
Borsadan yapılan göre, Hollandalılar platformdan paralarını ancak 17 Temmuz’dan itibaren çekebilecekler.
Binance, CoinDesk’e tepkilerini bir e-postada, “Binance’in Hollanda’da toplantının çalınmasını duyurmaktan üzüntü ailesinden” dedi. “Bu, maalesef bugün itibariyle Hollanda’da ikamet eden hiçbir yeni kullanıcının kabul edilmeyeceği anlamına geliyor. 17 Temmuz 2023’ten itibaren, Hollanda’da ikamet eden mevcut kullanıcıların varlıklarını yalnızca Binance platformundan çekebilecek. Daha fazla satın alma, takas veya para yatırma mümkün olmayacaktır. Bu kullanıcıların, varlıkların hesaplarından yararlanmalarını uygun işlemi yapmaya teşvik ediyoruz.”
Binance, kumandayla bir sanal varlık hizmet sağlayıcısı olarak kapsamlı bir kayıt başvuru sürecinde olduğunu söyledi. “Binance, Hollanda’da ikamet edenlere Hollanda düzenlemelerine uygun olarak hizmet vermek için birçok alternatif yolu araştırmasa da maalesef bu, şu anda Hollanda’da bir VASP kaydıyla sonuçlanmadı.”
Borsa, Hollandalı bağlantılarla çalışmaya devam edeceğini söyledi.
Hollanda’da ikamet edenlerin yaşadığı yer, bunun hesapları ve şu anda Binance platformunda sahip oldukları varlıklar için ne anlamadıkları ve at gerekenleri işlemlerin yanı sıra kapsamlı bilgiler içeren bir e-posta gönderiliyor.
Ayrıca bakınız: Binance, Kıbrıs’ın Birim Kripto Hizmeti Kaydını Geri Çekmeye Çalışıyor
Crypto Traders Flock to OTC Markets as Exchange Liquidity Dries Up Amid Regulatory Clampdown
Over-the-counter demand is on the rise as spreads remain tight across OTC desks.
Kripto tüccarları, merkez borsalarda piyasa derinliğinde önemli bir azalmaya neden olan birbirine bağlı bir baskının ardından zor likidite kaynağı olarak tezgah üstü (OTC) piyasalara yöneliyor.
Paris ticaret başkanı Zahreddine Touag’a göre, OTC soruşturması Kasım ayında FTX’in maliyetinden bu yana gittikçe bir şekilde artıyor. merkezli piyasa yapıcı firma Woorton.
Bu isteğe bağlı olarak, borsalar boyunca pazar derinliğindeki keskin bir düşüş oldu. Piyasa derinliği, bir varlığın iki yönlü de hareket etmesi için ne kadar sermaye gerekeceğini değerlendirerek likiditeyi ölçen bir ölçüdür ve genişliği olarak %2’lik bir dağılımla ölçüm.
Last month, Jane Street and Jump, two prominent market makers, announced that they were at very least reducing their trading activity. This compounded the liquidity woes that had been felt since FTX’s collapse, with market depth on exchanges sliding by more than 50% between November and May, according to Kaiko.
And this week it emerged that market depth on Binance.US, the exchange at the center of the SEC’s lawsuit, had plunged by more than 76%.
This effectively means that traders looking to execute larger transactions will have to deal with inevitable slippage as order books remain thin. As a result, the OTC market, which allows traders to conduct large transactions without needing to go to an exchange, looks to be becoming more prevalent.
Woorton’dan Touag, CoinDesk’e “Çok daha fazla [OTC] talep alıyoruz” dedi. “Her iki tarafta da ödeme sağlayıcıları, komisyoncular ve algoritmik tüccarlardan aldığımız günlük yinelenen akış nedeniyle spreadler sıkı.”
Bu eğilim, ürkütücü bir şekilde, o zamanın en büyük kripto borsası olan Mt Gox’un 2014’te saldırıya uğraması ve ardından faaliyetlerini durdurmasından sonraki zamanı anımsatıyor. En büyük borsa düşüşüne rağmen, eşler arası pazarlarla dijital varlıklara olan talep devam etti. 2014 ayı piyasasının şampiyonu olarak ortaya çıkan LocalBitcoins gibi borsalar.
Ancak kripto para, kendisini geleneksel finans çeşitlerini tanıtmaya devam ettikçe, sektöre dahil olan itibarı önemli ölçüde artmaya başladı. 2020’ye kadar, karşı yapılar artık LocalBitcoins üzerinde bir arbitraj tüccarı olmayacak ve MicroStrategy gibi halka açık bagaj, doğrudan Nasdaq listelerinde yer alan Coinbase borsası ile işlem yapacak.
Bu hafta dünyanın en büyük varlık yöneticisi BlackRock, fonlar ve ticaret firmalarının kripto risk elde etmesi için güvenli bir yatırım aracı yaratmaya çalıştığı bir nokta bitcoin ETF’si için başvuruda bulundu. Ancak bu, gittikçe daha mücadeleci hale gelen SEC tarafından onaylanana kadar, tacirlerin OTC anlaşmalarına geri döndürülmesi amaçlanıyor.
Blockchain Anti-Counterfeiting Trials ‘Promising,’ EU Agency Says
The European Union’s intellectual property office EUIPO wants traders and customs authorities to use open-source tools to authenticate branded goods.
Avrupa Birliği Fikri Mülkiyet Ofisi (EUIPO), markaları, sınır denetimi ve lojistik operatörlerini içeren bir denemenin ardından Pazartesi günü gittiklerini, Blockchain çapında sahteciliği önleme araçlarının umut vaat ettiğini söyledi.
EUIPO, aylarca devam eden ve “umut verici sonuçları” gösteren bir denemenin ardından “dört marka, iki lojistik müşteri ve bir müşteri idaresi ile gerçek hayatta kalma kime testlerine girerek” bir konsept kanıtını tamamladı. Avrupa Blok Zinciri Hizmetleri Altyapısı (EBSI) olarak ayrı bir projeye dayalı olarak Avrupa Lojistik Hizmetleri Kimlik Doğrulaması (ELSA) olarak bilinir.
Merkezi İspanya’nın Alicante’de bulunan bir AB ajansı olan EUIPO, ticari tedarik zincirindeki her bir bağlantısının tutabilmesini takip edebilmesini ve orijinal olarak kontrol edebilmesini sağlamak için bu yıl açık kaynaklı bir platform geliştirmeyi hedefliyor.
Sahte ile imha için dağıtılmış defter kullanımı yeni bir fikir değil, ancak pratikte başarılı olamadı. EUIPO projesinin savunucuları, açık kaynak teknolojisini kullanarak, IBM’in geçmişteki Kasım ayında sona erdiğini yazmayı TradeLens gibi gereksiz yerde merkezileştirilmiş sistemlerin kaderinden kaçınabileceğini söylüyor.
EUIPO, sahte küresel ticaretin %2,5’ini oluşturduğunu ve yaklaşık 412 milyar avro (451 milyar dolar) değerinde olduğunu söylüyor.
U.S. Banking Watchdog Makes Case for Tokenization, Just Not on Public Blockchains
OCC chief Michael Hsu – a crypto critic – argued asset tokenization is the future, but he said centralized efforts are the way ahead.
ABD Para Birimi Denetçi Ofisi’nin (OCC) başkanı vekili olan, kendine kripto şüphecisi olan Michael Hsu, hafifleme tokenleştirmenin finansın geleceği için ciddi bir ilerleme olduğunu, ancak merkezi olmayan blok zincirlerinin bu hareketle başa çıkmak için çok gidebileceğini söyledi. .
Hsu, Cuma günü Amerikan Bankacılar Birliği olayında, ademi merkeziyetçilik, güvenlik ve güvenlik sistemi aynı anda elde edilen “kamuya açık bir blockchain ile mümkün olmadığını” söyledi.
“Sonuç olarak, kripto endüstrisi büyük ölçüde kendi kendine referanslı ve gerçek dünyayla bağlantısız olmaya devam ediyor” dedi. Sektör, “ana akım ilgi odağında geçen birkaç yıl, milyarlarca süre içinde risk sermayesi yatırımına ve büyük ölçüde kullandıkları kod taahhüdüne rağmen geçmiş ve risklerle dolu.”
OCC de dahil olmak üzere ABD bankacılık düzenleyicileri, düzenledikleri kurumları kriptoya katılımın titiz bir inceleme gerektirdiği konusunda uyarmış olsa da, Wall Street bankaları da dahil olmak üzere bir dizi finans firması kendi blockchain projelerini yönetmeyi denedi. Hsu, “merkezi olarak işletilen, güvenilir blok zincirlerin güvenliği sağlama ve verimli bir şekilde ölçeklendirme potansiyeline sahip olduğunu” söyledi. Belirteçleştirmenin “merkeziyetten uzaklaşma ve güvensizlik gerektirmediğini” de sözlerine ekledi.
“Tokenleştirme ile talimat, işlem ve uzlaşma teorik olarak tek bir adıma indirilebilir ve bu sürtüşmeler ortadan kaldırılabilir – doğal olarak ki bileşenlerin merkez bankası parası ve gerçek dünya yerleşim sistemleriyle birlikte çalıştırılabilir olmasıyla.” “Tokenizasyon için temel yasalların hazırlanması gerekiyor.”
Professional Investors Still Have an Appetite for Digital Assets: Survey
A survey by Nomura’s digital asset subsidiary shows that investors overwhelmingly say digital assets represent an important diversification opportunity.
Professional investor interest in crypto hasn’t been deterred by the bear market in cryptocurrencies and an uncertain regulatory environment, a survey by Laser Digital, Nomura’s digital assets subsidiary, shows.
As many as 96% of the surveyed investors working for pension funds, wealth managers, family offices, hedge funds and investment funds see digital assets as representing an investment diversification opportunity alongside traditional asset classes such as fixed income, cash, equities and commodities, the survey found. They said they were prepared to stash as much as 5% of their investments in digital assets.
Professional investors collectively manage $4.95 trillion in assets. Laser Digital polled 303 of them for the survey. Participants were interviewed online during April, and came from most major financial markets across the world.
“Our comprehensive study reveals that the majority of institutional investors surveyed saw a clear role for digital assets in the investment management landscape, and the benefits they can bring, such as greater diversification of portfolios,” CEO Jez Mohideen said in a release.
Some 82% of the investors had a positive outlook on bitcoin and ether, and 88% said they or their clients were considering investing in digital assets. This enthusiasm for digital assets, however, doesn’t mean they are doubling down on memecoins such as PEPE or DOGE, rather they prefer regulated products as such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the survey found.
Around 90% of those surveyed said that it is important to have the backing of a large traditional financial institution for any digital asset fund or investment vehicle before they or their clients would consider putting money into it – a potentially bullish sign for bitcoin ETF proposals such as BlackRock’s.
Binance Under Investigation in France, Accused of ‘Aggravated’ Money Laundering
Binance illegally provided digital asset services to local customers, and implemented poor money laundering checks, the Paris public prosecutor told CoinDesk.
Binance is under investigation by local authorities for the “illegal” provision of digital asset services and “acts of aggravated money laundering,” the Paris public prosecutor’s office has confirmed to CoinDesk.
Allegations against Binance from French prosecutors “relates on the one hand to acts of illegal exercise” of operating as a digital asset service provider and “acts of aggravated money laundering, by competition with operations of investments, concealment, conversion, the latter being carried out by perpetrators of offenses having generated profits,” the Paris’ public prosecution office told CoinDesk. Binance is registered as a PSAN or digital asset service provider, with the French financial regulator.
Binance, which is facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging failure to register as a trading platform and the sale of unregistered securities, is suspected of having canvassed French customers through its local arm outside the legal framework until 2022, news publication Le Monde reported earlier on Friday.
The Paris public prosecutor confirmed to CoinDesk that an investigation concerning Binance carried out by the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Paris (JIRS) led to a referral to the SEJF, an anti-financial crime arm of the government, in February 2022.
“The documentary and computer elements collected during the search will now have to be the subject of an in-depth study,” the Paris public prosecutor said.
The news comes as Binance announces it is quitting the Netherlands after failing to obtain a license showing the company meets the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines.
CoinDesk has reached out to Binance for comment.
Jack Schickler contributed reporting.
BlackRock May Have Found Way to Get SEC Approval for Spot Bitcoin ETF
The hedge fund included a surveillance-sharing agreement in its proposal, which could eliminate the risk of market manipulation related to bitcoin.
Blackrock’s (BLK) iShares Bitcoin Trust application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week might stand a better chance than previous attempts by other fund managers thanks to the promise of a “surveillance-sharing agreement” between exchanges.
Buried on page 36 of Blackrock’s 19b-4 filing with the SEC, the company states that to mitigate against market manipulation, it will bring in Nasdaq (NDAQ) to enter into a surveillance-sharing agreement with an operator of a spot trading platform for Bitcoin (BTC).
Surveillance-sharing agreements allow for the sharing of information about market trading activity, clearing activity, and customer identification, allowing for little possibility of market manipulation.
BlackRock’s proposed surveillance-sharing agreement, dubbed the “Spot BTC SSA,” is what makes this application different, and not simply the company’s size as the largest asset manager in the world, said Graeme Moore, Head of Tokenization, Polymesh Association.
“The SEC is very concerned with market manipulation related to Bitcoin prices, and has cited this in almost, if not all, previous rejections,” Moore said in an emailed statement. “This is because the SEC’s view is that Coinbase and others are not regulated as exchanges and therefore cannot be trusted to ‘prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices’.”
However, industry veteran Dave Weisberger, CEO & Co-Founder of CoinRoutes, countered that any such surveillance-sharing agreement is superfluous.
“Why should it be necessary?” Weisberger said in an interview with CoinDesk.” Because Kraken, Coinbase, ItBit, Lmax and Bitstamp — all of their data feeds are public,” he added. “The SEC could clearly get all this data or hire someone to feed it to them. You can know every trade in every order, and that will give the SEC the ability to say, ‘Hey, this looks like a manipulative trade. So who did it?'”
The SEC has previously highlighted the importance of a surveillance-sharing agreements. In a notice in January regarding Cboe Digital’s request to list and trade shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, agency officials said that “an exchange that lists bitcoin-based ETPs can meet its obligations under Exchange Act Section by demonstrating that the exchange has a comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement with a regulated market of significant size related to the underlying or reference bitcoin assets.”
Blackrock’s iShares filed paperwork with the SEC on Thursday afternoon for the formation of a spot bitcoin ETF. The move comes after several other ETF proposals, including those of Grayscale, VanEck, and WisdomTree have previously been rejected.
SEC Enforcement Director: ‘We’re Not Concerned With the Labels’ in Crypto Cases
Gurbir Grewal spoke about the SEC’s recent actions during a panel Friday.
“Regulation by enforcement” is “a catchy but tired refrain that’s used effectively by crypto market participants and lobbyists,” said the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Enforcement Division Friday.
The SEC has been enforcing existing rules and regulations, said Gurbir Grewal to an audience of academics and lawyers during a panel co-hosted by the Lowenstein Sandler law firm and Rutgers Law School, in some of his first public remarks since the SEC brought charges against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance.
The moderators asked about the SEC’s recent actions and the concept of regulation by enforcement. The regulator, who used to be the Attorney General in New Jersey, said the agency was continuing to oversee the crypto industry but that it was focused on activities within the sector, rather than the tokens themselves.
“We’re not concerned with the labels. We’re concerned with the offerings, the labels are not important to us,” Grewal said. “The technology is important. What’s underneath the hood, because when we look underneath the hood, when we kick the tires, we’ve seen plenty … DeFi [decentralized finance] offers that are neither decentralized nor finance but rather just straight [fraud].”
He also spoke to the rise in recent enforcement actions within the crypto sector.
“I think what you’ve seen is that the crypto markets in the downturn, the increase in risk has forced us to focus our efforts here. Maybe that’s been perceived as an uptick, but I think it’s us just doing our jobs as we have been for the last few years,” he said.
“We will extend our jurisdiction as far as the law allows,” Grewal said. “We have tremendous cooperation with a lot of regulators. We meet with them frequently, we have MOUs [memoranda of understanding] with a lot of regulators that facilitate our ability to collect evidence abroad. And I think the more we do that, the more cooperation that exists among regulators, the less space that there is between us and the [U.K.’s] FCA and [Australia’s] ASIC and others that we work [with]… I think the less opportunity [there is] for regulatory arbitrage by bad actors.”