US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Clarify Crypto Regulations
“ The proposed bill would create a working group to evaluate U.S.cryptocurrency regulations with input from the SEC and CFTC.The legislation aims to establish an organized, comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the U.S.
The ultimate goal of the legislation, called the “Eliminate Barriers to Innovation Act of 2021,” would be to clarify when the SEC has jurisdiction over a particular token or cryptocurrency (i.e., when it is a security) and when the CFTC has jurisdiction (i.e., when it’s a commodity).
It brings together both the SEC and CFTC in a formal way, to work through some of the key issues that have impacted legal clarity in the space for years.
Within a year, this group would be required to file a report analyzing current regulations, the impact they have on primary and secondary markets and how the regime impacts the U.S.’ competitive position.The report would also look at how custody, private key management and cybersecurity are currently treated under law, and what future best practices for fraud prevention, investor protection and other issues could look like.” EIP 1559 on The Horizon
“ EIP 1559 has been approved for the London hard fork in July.
For those unfamiliar, EIP 1559 is known as “ETH’s burn mechanism” or “Ether’s scarcity engine”.However, this is only one aspect of the EIP—there are other crucial, non-monetary policy benefits that the implementation brings.Establishes the “Market Rate” for Transaction Inclusion – This creates the possibility to eliminate an entire step in the process of making a transaction: setting the gas price.Mitigating Miner Extractable Value (MEV) – Miner Extractable Value (MEV) refers to the amount of profit that miners can extract from reordering and censoring transactions on-chain.
This is destabilizing for a blockchain.EIP 1559 fixes this instability by burning all ETH fee rewards paid to miners.Deflationary Pressure on ETH – Ethereum’s monetary policy is ‘Minimum Viable Issuance’.Enough ETH will be issued to ensure sufficient Ethereum security, and no more.
EIP1559 is a mechanism that enables Ethereum to reclaim spent ETH, and to reduce the net issuance of Ether as a function of the demand to transact on Ethereum.Under EIP 1559, ETH becomes more scarce, as all transactions on Ethereum burn some amount of ETH.EIP 1559 makes Ethereum more secure.Links ETH to Ethereum – With EIP 1559, the GDP of Ethereum is formally captured by ETH, and the value of the Ethereum economy is returned back to the hands of the people who are most aligned with its well-being: ETH holders.” China’s Biggest Crypto Players Now Vying For Institutional Investors
“ Less than a quarter into 2021, we are already seeing big, Asia-based companies building the infrastructure for institutional investors to jump into the crypto market .
Huobi Asset Management just announced that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission(SFC) has granted it a license to manage “portfolios that invest in virtual assets.” To comply, Huobi must submit to being a regulated asset manager.
With that regulatory approval, Huobi Asset Management plans to launch a BTC tracker fund, an ETH tracker fund and a multi-strategy digital asset fund.
It will serve as a necessary on-ramp for traditional investors in Asia looking for exposure to a regulated, actively managed crypto fund.” Next Step for Institutional DeFi? Institutional NFTs
“The institutional appetite for decentralized finance (DeFi) is being extended to incorporate the frothy world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).Announced Tuesday, custody and wallet technology firm Trustology is providing support for Ethereum-based NFTs, with a view to allowing institutional investors to use these tokens as collateral, for example, within the DeFi space.
Trustology, which was recently granted temporary Financial Conduct Authority registration, offers a range of automated transaction security controls such as co-signing, allow-lists and DeFi firewall rules.” A Hacker Was Selling a Cybersecurity Exploit as an NFT.Then OpenSea Stepped In
“ A dark twist on NFTs: a denial-of-service zero-day attack sold with full rights of ownership transferred to the successful bidder.The listing, on the OpenSea NFT marketplace, advertised the token as a ‘ post-authentication memory corruption vulnerability in ioquake3 engine.The issue can be exploited to cause a denial-of-service condition .’
A proof-of-concept exploit is redeemed with this NFT, which contains an overview of the vulnerability and can be used to reliably trigger the issue on networked game servers.
If someone wishes to buy it and disclose it to the project and claim credit for the finding, they can, or they may wish to keep it a secret and trade it with others in the future.
Once sold, the item is theirs to do with as they see fit.
Zero-day exploits are valuable in the context of bug bounty programs (with one fetching US$2 million) but they’re also valuable in underground marketplaces.OpenSea took down the auction and listing after it was posted yesterday.Hickey called that move “digital censorship of a content creator.”
Apartner at law firm Anderson Kill, said that if somebody were to use an NFT of an exploit to gain access to someone else’s computer system in the United States, it would probably be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.However, the act of selling that NFT is more a question of ethics.
‘ Publishing an exploit without remuneration is probably protected by the First Amendment .’” Ethereum-Based Social Network Minds Taps Into DeFi Rewards
“Minds, an increasingly decentralized social network powered by Ethereum, provides an alternative to traditional social media platforms.What’s more, Minds incentivizes users with cryptocurrency rewards.
Its users will soon be able earn MINDS token rewards by pooling cryptocurrency [via Uniswap] for liquidity.On top of that, the Uniswap integration implements a new feature called “ad mining,” in which users who contribute liquidity can earn a spot on a digital billboard within the Minds app.The billboard will advertise those users’ respective channels.
Minds will always put the best interests of its users first and champion free speech, privacy, and the value of open-source software.To that end, we worked with great Ethereum minds to build a fair crypto-contribution economy structured around a social network that rewards, rather than punishes, users for sharing ideas and engaging in civil discourse and generating popular content.” .